Comment by whatisweb3
4 years ago
Another commenter mentioned “NFT” and got downvoted to oblivion but I do think there is merit in considering new economic models that disrupt current platforms.
Not a new model where access to the media is restricted only to the purchaser - and corporations fight to maintain DRM and inevitably become gatekeepers of popular culture. Instead, a model where creator revenue is not tied to media access. See [1] and [2].
[1] https://www.billboard.com/pro/camp-chaos-songcamp-nfts-50-pe...
[2] https://mirror.xyz/herndondryhurst.eth/S-W2ZXRbrcy8bVGrKwMXS...
NFTs are just a few bytes in a distributed database, they absolutely do not solve these issues. The PlayStation store would still do content delivery and could simply refuse to do so, NFT or no NFT.
You could do content delivery in a decentralized manner (like, say, through IPFS) but then how do you enforce than only the NFT owners can watch the movie? The database is public, anybody can just look up the NFT and find what URL it points towards. You could "right click" the movie, so to speak.
NFTs are a really, really, really dumb concept, even by cryptocurrency/blockchain standards. Any use of NFTs for right management would require a proprietary, trusted, black-box player to enforce the DRM. If you use a proprietary, trusted, black-box player what's the point of using an NFT in the first place?
It's a CD key with extra steps.
I don't think you understood my post. I am not proposing a way to replicate PlayStation store with NFTs - and restrict access to the media files based on who purchases the NFT. I am proposing a new model that does not rely on limiting access in order to fund the production of artistic media.
I suggest you read the two posts in full that I linked, as it might make this a little clearer.
That is not technically possible without a centralized authority, as smart contracts cannot hold secrets (ie DRM decryption keys for media).
If there is a centralized authority, the same risk still exists that they can tell you to FOAD like Sony has here.
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Oh yeah I just latched onto a portion of your comment that was suitable for my soapboxing, I didn't mean to sound adversarial.
But more generally I don't think there's a good technical solution to this problem. You'll never "own" Iron Man, Star Wars or The Godfather in a true sense, only a license which gives you some rights. Even when you bought physical media you weren't allowed to do many things, such as public viewings for instance. Not because of a technical issue, but a legal one.
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It sounds like you're suggesting using and nft as an access token or proof of purchase.
As the previous person said, even if a platform is a distribution point the content still needs to be hosted somewhere and that costs money for storage and transfer. Who pays for that? Studios won't, so then you might think everything would need to be centralised, but then the legal elements would prevent that being created easily, licencing, trust and security would be an issue etc.
Creative content like a film, regardless of who created it, generally gets distributed and adapted for a market at a territorial level with fees being paid to the owner by the local distributor. Nft is a idealistic idea but too removed from reality to be workable.
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You're asking for the complete end to the economic artistic system. Who would impose the end of that system, since corporations will naturally steer toward the most profitable distribution system, which is inconceivable to be what you're proposing unless there is muscled intervention to force everyone to switch to it.
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DRM is a centralized proprietary thing by definition. It's nonsense to have open distributed NFT database for DRM. Why don't break the DRM if it's open?
Donations, swags and limited editions existed before NFTs, they did not suddenly get studios to create content under the public domain.
NFTs are not a new economic model. I'm not sure what they are, but they definitely don't solve this.
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> Another commenter mentioned “NFT” and got downvoted to oblivion
It’s rather extreme; mention anything cryptocurrency related in a not negative way, and it gets downvoted. Making a neutral observation tends to be neutral.
Because as it was presented it solved the wrong problem: "how to prove you purchased the movie". But the problem is: the vendor doesn't dispute your purchase, but they define that purchase as being of an arbitarily revocable access right. So your NFT proves for all time that you own the equivalent of a broken link - how exactly does this help?
There is a unique downside to NFTs, I just realised.
In order for it to mean anything, the NFT blockchain cannot be managed by just one server. And further, not by the entity which sold you the thing.
So we need maybe all streaming services to each have multiple blockchain servers, all supporting the same chain. Then we know one org cannot play games (rollback the chain, try to take back purchases).
We'd need all studios/media producers to agree that this meant "sold" too.
And lastly, we'd need to separate "sold" fees from "streaming" fees, so one could buy, but streaming services could get paid for front end support/platform/ongoing streaming costs.
And naturally, in this world, you could download any copy of this media.. and store locally, and forgo streaming costs.
But for all of that to work, you'd need something else. Laws stating that, basically, if the NFT servers were ever discontinued, a static copy would be provided, and all would gave ownership validated forever ... or the content creator would give up all copyright on the media.
In other words, you sell without physical media, you must use a blockchain, and once you do that you must always provide servers to verify, or you lose all copyright.
That last bit is important. It puts the burden on the content creator. Sell digitally, and you must make sure it's a real sale, or else.
Anyhow, my point in all of this is the immense downside.
A public copy of everything you watch, listen, read, tied to your public ID.
There is no other reality. Schemes of non-ID based authentication are blather, because to truly claim ownership, your identity must be known. And even if some method to separate ID from chain ownership are hatched, it a hack a day world, your ID->chain ID will get out.
There is no anonymity in this.
Which means everything you watch, read, view, would be public knowledge. The chain, by its very nature, must be viewable by everyone, all the time.
Right now, this info is very dispersed, spread over providers and sellers. And if you have any doubt of the value of this information, to profilers, the government, note that post 9/11, there was an immense fever raised by librarians, for the US government wanted a record of all books to be kept, and who checked them out.
So any NFT/chain plan, means all your ownership data, ready to be used by the government for profiling you, by banks to profile you to determine risk, by political opponents to discredit you, and more.
In a sense, this is very dangerous...
huh?? none of this makes sense.
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Content producers get to decide the economic model. They effectively have a monopoly on content people want to watch. And they've decided that Widevine/PlayReady/FairPlay DRM is what's required. And all of those require by design an online server to enable access to the media.
All of those services will one day deprecate/retire their servers, and all paid content downloaded to your devices today will become unplayable. Your granddaughter won't be able to watch any films she finds on your old iPad she finds in the attic 100 years from now.
Unless you can convince studio execs that they will earn more money with your new economic model, it's going nowhere.
> Content producers get to decide the economic model.
Only insofar as we keep paying them, and ceding control of our media to them. The Camp Chaos example has no content producers dictating an economic model - because consumers and fans are paying the artists directly.
The model for media already transitioned from the consumer owning the content (CDs, DVDs,...) to the consumer having a permission to consume the content. The industry deliberately drove this transition so they can earn from each consumption and break the reselling-market.
The fact that they also wanted to DIRECTLY replace the CD/DVD by showing a "Buy Movie" button, but actually using the same licensing model, the same infrastructure and the same utterly careless approach on content-management:
For this we don't need a new economic model. The industry WANTED this model, and executed it without the connected responsibilities.
A court should have already found this practice to be illegal years ago, either the careless handling of sold property, or the explicitly misleading sales of VOD with the claim that the customer will actually OWN a copy of the content.
I don't see a technical problem that if the content I purchased at some point is no longer economic for the seller to host on his platform, that he is required to allow me to download it or send me a USB-stick with the content...
> the content I purchased [...] is required to allow me to download it
This would work if laws mandate that media like movies, eBooks, music must be downloadable DRM-free by purchasers, which will probably never happen as the entire industry is built against peer-to-peer file sharing and media piracy.
The industry likes this model but the consumers do not. They like the convenience of having all their media in a single nice UX like Netflix, PlayStation store, or Spotify. They do not like that profits are usually directed away from creators, and that "ownership" in these stores is more like temporary licensing of DRM content. This is where a new economic model could be introduced to fund some media production and distribution - for those creators and consumers willing to embrace it.
I don't think the law needs to mandate DRM-free purchases at all.
If a company wants to operate a model where they sell you something but they will store/"maintain" it for you to use at any time, they are free to do so under the conditions that they define.
But if they decide at one point that it's no longer economic for them to store/"maintain" your goods, they should be required to return them to you.
Right now, they simply inform you that the goods you purchased are no longer available to you as it no longer fits their interest to maintain them. And that's something that should be legally challenged in my opinion.
> https://www.billboard.com/pro/camp-chaos-songcamp-nfts-50-pe...
There's no model here. A band sold merch. If they had sold a branded beanie baby during beanie baby mania (and had been a band that appeals to suburban mothers), the same thing would have happened.
So how long will this mania last? They were sold during a bear market and at one of the lowest points of NFT market volume, but still did pretty well. If NFTs continue to be seen as tulips or beanie babies* for the next several years, and wildly outperform regular band merch sold through a distributor, maybe it’s worth considering as a new model for artists and creators. If NFTs crash to zero next month and artists stop earning from them, then I will agree with you.
* by you, I should add. Others see it as a digital object worth owning that is not tied to a single speculative bubble.