The doctrines underpinning IP law are flimsy and arbitrary. It's normal for technology to change the balance of power (and the laws that enshrine that balance).
In the current environment, Hollywood's business model is unreasonable, and people know it. Until people think it's reasonable, a lot of them are going to pirate. Technology has changed. Hollywood needs to change.
What should be illegal, is threatening to sue someone for working on code with others.
More like a synonym for "rocking the boat." There are legal things that fit the category, as well as illegal things that are not politically agitating (like speeding on a freeway or getting into a fistfight).
1) The software that is included in popcorntime isn't circumventing any rights control measure - the bittorrents that it accesses don't include any rights control measures that would need to be circumvented. The people who originally supplied and seeded those may (or may not) have used some software that circumvents rights control measures, but that's not included in Popcorntime.
2) Circumventing rights control measures is legal in my country and most countries globally. Copyright laws as agreed in Berne conventions and implemented in local legislation simply don't mention such measures and their circumvention in any way, they handle just the copyright part.
USA has a single very specific law - DMCA - that restricts such circumvention; it has been trying to "export" that concept to other countries through trade treaties; but it hasn't succeeded for the most part; making and distributing such tools is legal almost everywhere - and the legality of using them depends on the legality of actual act you're doing; if you're allowed to make that copy (i.e., personal backups) the the use is legal; if you're not (i.e., for redistribution), then the copying is illegal but the 'rights control measure' doesn't change anything at all and its circumvention is irrelevant.
DMCA implements two treaties from WIPO. These were also implemented by the EU as the Copyright Directive. Thus, circumventing a copyright control measure is not legal in some EU countries.
The point is not if what Popcorn Time is doing is illegal, but that there are plenty of well funded lawyers who will take money to make the argument that it is and will happily spend a long time in court arguing that point.
Gagging developers for writing code seems way beyond "legality" to me. They should be able to at least say "I'm being sued for developing Popcorn Time". If your government is gagging you from saying even that...then something has gone terribly wrong somewhere, and yes that does seem like a totalitarian tool when used like that.
There's all manner of totalitarianism-lite in the US. This is not likely one of them. Its a safer bet that this was handled directly by mail/phone/email without involving an actual court. Legal threat under possibly enforceable law does not equal government action. We don't need to blame the government for this to be a bad thing.
