A movie platform with a decentralized network approach.
Hi guys, for a few weeks some friends have been developing a movie platform with a decentralized network approach. We want to share it with the community. All are welcome to contrib.
Background
For a long time watching movies has overwhelmed me, I am simply limited by my time to go to the cinema. I am a movie fan but a developer with very little time to travel hours to buy a ticket and see the “latest” release of my “favorite movie” (In the country that i live, the cinemas are located in the capital and I live in a province with a few hours away).
Somehow the internet today helps us to cope with some of these problems, the other problem is that the internet offers very few resources to see good quality movies and those who offer it do so with movies that are definitely not the “last” launch of my “favorite movie” (sarcasm).
For this reason, a team of friends with the same ideology and need decided to take this crossroads to search, collect and expose a safe resource with quality films (no lag please), and that is where Watchit was born.
Unlike any current streaming service, Watchit decentralizes the way you normally watch your movies, helping to solve this “time/distance” factor at the same time.
Today, having the ability to share information with each other (P2P) directly, is simply amazing to me. My friend can have the “Spiderman” movie and transmit it to my other friend 300 KM away and that he can instead transmit the last “Avengers” movie for me to see it comfortably in my chair happily, it is also fantastic. This collective entertainment methodology is amazing.
Well, in order to decentralize our films so that everyone can have access to them, we resorted to incredible tools such as IPFS and OrbitDB, which allowed us to have created a DAPP (Decentralized App). In simple words, Watchit is an application that does not require external resources, but rather everyone helps everyone to make it work and this classifies it as a “Decentralized Autonomous Organization”. We are all happy together :) yay!!
Watchit gives users control over the content network by welcoming enthusiasts or small studios who wish to have a platform without much “red tape” in between to promote or distribute their films.
Important note:
Some resources contain intellectual property or copyright so we consider that the content that is distributed through the application is the responsibility of its providers. The difference between these is that one provides legal public domain movies and the other versions may provides access to a database containing a wide variety of movies some containing copyright. We only provide access to public domain movies.
The real goal is to entertain but also to show the potential of decentralized networks, so whatever the goal, you will love Watchit!
The films used as examples in this article were included to feed the context, we do not promote copyright infringement.
How we built it
- Cross-platform ElectronJs apps builder
- Decentralized OrbitDB
- Golang IPFS implementation
- Bootstrap React App tool Create React App.
Where can i find the project?
Watchit Gateway | Watchit App | Awesome Orbit | Awesome IPFS
More info:
- Visit our site watchitapp.site.
- Check out the roadmap to future features.
- Get in touch with us in gitter | #watchit:matrix.org.
- See our FAQ for frequently asked questions.
- For help or bugs please create an issue.
Special thanks to @aphelionz, @brokoli and @vasa-develop for their contributions to this article.
This sounds amazing and I wish y’all success in making this good and popular! However, I do have this fear that the platform itself will be used for copyright infringement and y’all will be receiving DMCAs constantly (?) or be asked aggressively to stop development or to take your code down from GitHub. Am I being paranoid? I hope so…
But anyway, congrats!
Hello friend, thank you for your comment. We have considered all these possibilities, including copyright infringement, we still do not have a mechanism to control it, for our part we only provide access to public domain movies. I invite to you to read our FAQ https://github.com/ZorrillosDev/watchit-desktop/blob/v0.1.0/FAQ.md
The FAQ doesn’t have anything related to GitHub. I would just move to an alternative. But well, I guess, I understand projects look more professional and are more popular when they are on GitHub. I already gave my opinion tho.
Yeah!! Got your point. We hope not to have complications of any kind or any collateral effects from providers with illegal content :( .
deleted by creator
Not just DMCAs. People have been arrested and even imprisoned for writing software that is clearly designed to facilitate copyright infringement.
Arguing around technicalities is not an effective defense, especially when the goal of downloading movies is made very clear by remarks like:
“last” launch of my “favorite movie” (sarcasm).
Some examples:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pirate_Bay_trial
https://www.theverge.com/2015/8/20/9181243/popcorn-time-how-to-sites-arrested
https://torrentfreak.com/police-arrest-men-for-spreading-popcorn-time-information-150819/
Yeah, I guess there is a world of possibilities, as we said “A baseball bat can be used to kill somebody, or it can be used to play baseball. we just make bats”. I suppose that the platforms have their purpose and like any social network or medium for the transmission of content, it will be vulnerable to the content that its users publish. I am not a lawyer but I consider that the case of popcortime was directly related to content that infringes the authorship, we for our part provide access to public domain movies only and one of the main purposes of the network is to give control to users to produce content, for example independent cinema, we do not promote copyright infringement. “last” launch of my “favorite movie” (sarcasm). <- it is quite subjective, my favorite movie could be the hunchback which is public domain movie.
This is an amazing project, not everyone is capable of hosting their own jellyfin instances, and most certainly it is be harder to.
Word of warning for those looking to host their own. Last I checked Ipfs is not an anonymous network. Not sure how, or even if, this is addressed in the project. A little info on this would be nice.
This looks interesting hopefully it goes well
This is pretty cool!
I downloaded it but it asks me for a public key, how do I use it?
Hi buddy, thank you form your comment. We provide a public domain movies key please try using QmR9f898E2Y6H4rUqUQkB5g615wht1q4fxCPfZzxA4jXaR
Thanks a lot! Could I host an instance and use it to stream films with friends with this? Also, im trying to connect and it’s taking quite a long time, is it normal?
Anyway this looks like an awesome project, your repository is kind of the open library of films!
Due to the nature of IPFS and being a growing project, you could have a little lag in connectivity. You can create your own content network and stream it with your friends without problem using watchit-gateway
no lag please
Yeah, no movies lag please
How do I help to make it faster? Is it by watching movies that I start to seed?
Have you already managed to sync the movies? Do you already have the list of movies available on the dapp?
Yup, it managed to connect and im watching the most dangerous game. Also, do you have a matrix room? Sorry for all the questions. uwu
A Matrix room would be interesting.
@geolffrey:matrix.org
I tried too and cannot connect ^^;. After a little, it returns to the main part asking the public key again.
Okay, it took some attempts but I am connected.
I installed the .deb package of the last release in Devuan + MATE and it seems that the default icon is not showed.
In addition, the .desktop file categories don’t seem to point to Internet, Network or Multimedia and similar categories, only Video which doesn’t work mostly, for the menu classification.
Hi, thanks for your comment. Did u tried the appImage? We are having some issues with Debian district :(
No, I didn’t. I can wait until the issues are solved as I prefer real installed software more than the portable one.
However, if you want me to test the AppImage to check if other issues that I didn’t mention at all disappear just tell it and I will try.
Hi, thanks for your reply. If u can try appimage would be great in the meantime
Sorry if I’m misunderstanding how this works but would it be possible to use this in a browser that supports IPFS
Hi buddy, tanks for your comment. Yes, actually we are working in this on roadmap. Please check our triage https://github.com/orgs/ZorrillosDev/projects/2
thats pretty cool
Nice. Also worth checking https://popcorntime.tube/#/
Zorrillos
:^3
