Hey folks - I want to bounce an idea off you. I’m hoping that you all - as seemingly the best minds in the blockchain movement - can point out weaknesses with it, etc and help make it as strong as possible.
I used to work in the post-production industry in Hollywood. I’m also a big fan of torrent-technology. I was often questioned about how I justified this to myself morally as someone who's paycheck relied on healthy industry profits, but I’m sure you all already know the answer: sharing actually makes the industry stronger. Its not that I don’t want to pay for content - it’s that I dislike the limited options in which the content is made available, and that such a tiny portion of my payment goes to the content creators themselves.
The idea: MovieCoin (or something like that)
MovieCoin is a blockchain to allow worldwide secure distribution of visual media (features, TV shows, shorts, etc) and a payment system to connect content-creators with their audience.
How it works:
-MovieCoin uses a streaming bittorrent protocol (to my knowledge this doesn’t exist yet, but I’ve heard through the grapevine that Bram Cohen is working on it... )
-Miners maintain the security of the distribution network but don’t carry the actual content on the blockchain, just the rights to stream or download a particular title - the files themselves start from a single source and then the bittorrent protocol takes care of the actual sharing (not sure if this is the right way to implement, if someone has a better idea please let me know)
-Crowdfunding - support the films you want to see get made. Pay for a movie you want to see based on the director, cast, content, etc and get rights to stream it when its finished.
-Incentivize more filmmaking (indie films in particular). An ethereum DAO can distribute the earnings from a movie that is made by people doing work for points, ensuring people actually get paid and reducing the legal costs associated with a new corporation being formed (for those that aren’t already aware, currently a new corporation is formed every time a film gets made, but rarely are artists that get ripped off able to enforce the contracts since they can rarely even tell how much revenue an indie generated)
-Theatrical distribution - even movie theaters can get direct feeds rather than shipping around hard drives. This not only creates big fossil fuel savings (and associated costs) but solves the worry of piracy that has made distributors avoid full internet-based distribution to theaters thus far
-Part of the implementation would involve the creation of a “MovieCoin Foundation” that would work to encourage awareness & understanding of how to use MovieCoin and why its a better option. Will interface with studios, content-creators and the general public. (Funded by a premine of some percentage of MovieCoins). Also, will possibly fund a discount to audiences for paying in MovieCoin to incentivize use.
-Capture robust pseudonymous demographic data and meta data.
Why its better for audiences:
-Watch movies and other content the DAY ITS RELEASED in a high quality format from the comfort of home. (Who wouldn’t rather pay to watch in HD with surround sound than a free crap quality cam from Uzbekistan?)
-Less expensive and more eco friendly. Distribution costs would be significantly reduced, allowing audiences to pay less. -Also reduces the negative environmental impact of the distribution process. No DVDs, no shipping, no exploitive labor, etc.
-Watch movies for free: Miners keep the system strong and secure and earn MovieCoins for their efforts. Also opportunities for earning MovieCoin by writing reviews, etc. - as soon as movie ends wallet app gets a push notification -“How’d you like the movie?”
-Makes movies and other content available to a wider audience of people who are hungry for it - for example, in Somalia there is no functioning central government and very very few public theaters, but tons of cell phones and other internet connected digital devices
Why its better for content producers:
-20-40% of internet traffic moves through the bittorrent protocol right now, so there is obviously a demand for earlier home availability of new content.
-Fast, efficient and secure worldwide distribution and direct payments from the content consumers. Less costs, less waste. More secure, more efficient, more financially profitable.
-Access to the marketing data that can be extracted from the moviecoin blockchain - this includes the pseudononymous demographic data attached to the accounts of consumers that watch their content, plus meta data like when the movie is paused most often, how often it gets turned off and never finished, etc. (So much more helpful and accurate than current methods of tracking this data)
-Significantly reduced distribution costs
-Indie content-creators have more direct access to their audience allowing them to earn more money, get funding for projects that people want to see, etc.
-Studio content-creators can stop their loosing battle against piracy, and instead embrace change and make their content available in a form that audiences want to consume it.
I wouldn’t see this kind of system being adopted very quickly - most likely it would take many years for it to be widespread, starting with a few independent films and eventually working up to major studio releases. But I’ve been given the opportunity to present this idea to a bigwig at one of the major studios, and if a big studio got behind the idea right away it could definitely accelerate adoption considerably. However, I’d like to avoid embarrassing myself by either 1) finding out later on about some major hole in my logic - I am not a programmer so if I am assuming something is do-able that simply *isn’t* I’d like to know now and 2) finding out that someone else already came up with this idea and is already running with it.
btw, I'm aware that there are a number of projects are already working on making it easier to distribute digital content - my thinking is just that for them to be widely adopted the content creators and distributors need to have incentive to use them - in this case they would be offered a massive amount of marketing data in exchange for accepting moviecoin, which i think is just the kind of incentive they'd go for
So... ask questions and punch holes please
Comments
http://torrentfreak.com/how-the-pirate-bay-plans-to-beat-censorship-for-good-140105/
also FYI new repo is at: https://git.popcorntime.io/stash/projects/PT/repos/popcorn-app/browse