Apply HN: Free.TV – fixing hollywood
Problem : High costs for cable. Limited distribution on Netflix. Bad payout for content creation on YouTube. Bad DMCA takedown notices. No discoverability for independent artists.
Solution : A better Web torrent with NO CLIENT install - completely decentralized. Video not stored in the cloud, but by other consumers. Not ad based, but crypto currency (which would allow FAIR and open method for content creators to directly allow advertising sponsorship). Videos that you like are discoverable by your friends even if it is not viral. DMCA requests must be validated, but the Free.TV system would be used by the media companies.
5 comments
[ 4.5 ms ] story [ 37.8 ms ] threadVarious startups have tried to do that for traditional content (getglue being the best known example), and, while quite fun, they're not good for surfacing independent or 'unpopular' content. They tend to just confirm what's already popular. If this feature is going to help with discoverability it'll need to do more than "likes".
Either you'll have popular, copyrighted content for free (fixing "high costs for cable" and "limited distribution on Netflix's"), which will be contributory copyright infringement and will promptly get you sued.
It's not enough to respect DMCA requests. After you're sued, if your service will be considered created mostly for copyright infringement, you'll loose (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Popcorn_Time, or Mega).
Also, you can't implement DMCA in a "completely decentralized" system. You need a database of blacklisted content, one that clients respect and cannot be changed by just anybody. I.e. you'll have to be the one managing it.
If you don't have popular, copyrighted content for free, then there will be no users and because of that, there will be no creators of original content and no advertisers. Google maybe is not paying much, but they are the only ones that have enough users and advertisers to pay anything at all.
Also, I don't see advertisers signing in if there's even a distant smell of it being used for copyrighted content.
I think I have solved most of these problems. Free.TV does not host content - it is hosted by everyone, but uses the blockchain for access on demand.
Also, we have a similar method for filtering copyrighted material and do not have to manage it - the media companies do.
Even though the service is "Free".TV, anything that is copyrighted is not FREE. It is "Free" as in Freedom.
Torrents somewhat solve the problem of cost/bandwidth... but the rest is pretty much the same.