I have ran into a similar issue, in fact, parts of the code of popcorn time which have been pulled from other repo’s come from the University of Delft in The Netherlands and was created by people behind a project called “Tribler” http://www.tribler.org/ .
Triber is in fact Popcorntime without the bells ans whistles and with anonymity (it uses it’s own Tor like system), it has been there long before Popcorntime came a long. In fact Tribler had a working Android app which was 99% what Popcorntime is now: GitHub - javto/Tribler-streaming: TU Delft Bachelor project TI3800 … Mind you, big fat disclaimer, this was all created for educational purposes AND sponsored with a large EU research grand (Tribler)
Some people might (:)) have used parts of that code to create a Popcorntime before PCT actualy came around and might have consulted lawyers on the matter. The outcome could have been that indeed, it does not matter what you create, how you wrap it or if you have good intentions but if you “create a system that predominantly serves illegal content and encourages users to use that service for said purposes, you are in violation of the law and can be held accountable”.
The only way of solving this “problem” is creating a zero-knowledge system where you anonymously publish a decentralized app in which you cannot control the content that is uploaded (e.g. remove it) and the community itself moderates it by voting. People can upload their keys to unlock certain content which is then “posted/distributed” in that app and the only ones who can remove that content is the publisher itself. The community could also vote for content to be removed and if there are enough votes they key would be revoked thus the content removed (I don’t know if and how this is possible but it’s just a way I could see this happening).
I guess, splitting the UI, Voting system and Database (with links and keys to the content) would be a good idea as you should destroy your key to accessing and modifying the database structure itself but still have others be able to “upload” their content. In this way, anyone could build a UI to the content, the voting system would take care of moderation and data can never be deleted by a single entity nor can anyone be held responsible for the app itself although that last point is a thin red line. But it is a good defense to be able to say “I created a system where anyone can upload anything which I cannot modify, the community decides which content should stay or go and I can’t take down the database, it was also never intended to distribute copyrighted material, that is what the community has made of it”.
An interesting analogy is Usenet, most copyrighted materials like movies, music, ebooks etc… are posted on Usenet just like they would be posted on torrent tracking sites. However, Usenet is kind of a decentralized network in itself with the difference that each node is controlled by a company. If you take one company (or Usenet server) out of the equation, the content will still live on. It’s also very hard to monitor because law enforcement would have to monitor each node in the network to catch an uploader. Indexing nowadays (like a torrent tracker) is done by posting index files with information and the link to the content (.nzb files) on the network itself and use a desktop app to retrieve those index files. So even the links are spread over the “decentralized” network. So think of Usenet without the corporations who control the nodes that can still take down the content or refuse people the service…
Technically, I don’t know how all of this is possible but this is A way to build on I think.
