Comment on Please Stop
Draegur@lemm.ee 8 months agoi for one would have liked a media licensing system that operates agnostic of any centralized authority
for instance, irrefutable and independently verifiable proof that you own a valid software, music, or visual art license and are therefore immune to prosecution for piracy.
A registry of licenses like this could shield creators from copyright claims on social media applications such as youtube. Could also automate revenue sharing and royalties for artists whose works are used in derivative media so the people who actually perform the work get paid. Would be nice to cut the publisher middleman out. And there is absolutely no reason there has to be anything like a “proof of work” system burning down entire fucking rainforests’ worth of energy to verify every single gods damned transaction because this sort of system isn’t for trading shit, it’s strictly for proving a valid chain of custody between producers and consumers and you don’t need megawatt-hours to just fucking LOOK SOMETHING UP.
imagine if, for instance, fucking warner brothers couldn’t “takes backsies” content that they SOLD to end users through a distribution network; the license is yours, and anyone can look up the fact that the license was sold to the user id you happen to control.
imagine if, for instance, you buy a video game through a digital distributor like steam but then the store goes out of business and no longer exists to serve you a copy or recognize the sale, but on this massively distributed and decentralized database you can prove that you did indeed compensate the developers of that software and thereby legally acquire entitlement to access it in accordance with the end user license agreement.
imagine if ownership of stuff you bought fair and square can never be taken away from you
THAT’S what we could have had
instead of this fucking bullshit.
NFT’s don’t show you have proof of ownership of anything other than the NFT. Think of all the people who got their metamask account hacked and lost all their apes with zero recourse.
Why would anyone want anything required for daily life attached to something so insecure and irreversible as that?
It’s like if losing your wallet automatically burns down your house.
imagine if, for instance, you buy a video game through a digital distributor like steam but then the store goes out of business and no longer exists to serve you a copy or recognize the sale, but on this massively distributed and decentralized database you can prove that you did indeed compensate the developers of that software and thereby legally acquire entitlement to access it in accordance with the end user license agreement.
What you’re arguing for is forcing the distributor to distribute in perpetuity, which has nothing to do with how you show ownership of your license.
Right now, I can show steam I’ve purchased, say Delistopolis, and they will agree I am indeed perfectly allowed to have and play it. But they are not required to provide me with a copy.
A blockchain system will not solve this.
no. you’re putting words in my mouth. if the distributor wants to stop distributing they can.
they can take down their servers, they can even cease to be, but it would no longer affect the availability of product they sold.
Then I don’t think I understand you. Are you suggesting we put millions of full games on a bloxkchain?
Only the keys need to be stored cryptographically, really, because the game files themselves are nigh inevitably available on torrenting networks. it’s inevitable that people are going to rip backups of all game files for the delicious delights of datamining and as long as enough of them will seed them (which shouldn’t be a problem as long as there’s any INTEREST in a game existing…) that availability never arises as an issue. And if it’s not popular enough to put there, it’ll probably end up on The Internet Archive.
Would be nice if there were an infrastructural ‘backup of last resort’ such as the library of congress, which is something the LoC already does for other audiovisual media. It’d just be nice if that service were extended to software.
Well, if those licenses are entries on the blockchain, they could be transferred on the blockchain. You could sell your game used when you’re bored of playing it. You can’t play it after you sell it but someone else can. Publishers hate resale markets though, when people buy used games they don’t make any money. So they’ll probably never go for this.
yeah on top of that, if your computer breaks or something now you lost all of your keys.
say goodbye to whatever you own on the blockchain when the keys are gone. poof!
this is the biggest problem with any scheme tying private keys (digital) to anything in the real world.
Once my mom threw out ask the cases for my computer games and put all the disks into a cd binder to save room.
It was devastating.
She wanted you to hear some of her favorite chiptunes but she didn’t know how
You can lose access to regular accounts as easily as to a blockchain. In fact, losing database of your password manager is even worse, because even if you have backups, they're not going to be complete.
With a blockchain all you have to worry is your private key. And you can write it down on a piece of paper, if you want, and put it away in a safe or a bank vault or something. Then, if you use it to restore your access years later, nothing will be lost.
"There are 2 types of people in the world: those who make backups, and those who don't make backups yet."
Not really. You backup you keys like a normal human. Or create any of those new account abstraction keys that are tied to another account, or anything else.
Not really. You backup you keys like a normal human. Or create any of those new account abstraction keys that are tied to another account, or anything else.
With smart contracts on blockchain you can do exactly that. Everyone involved in the process can ensure they get their cut.
All such copyright licenses are rooted in local jurisdictional law, so your country’s copyright office should be the authority because anything else means the courts can tell you that your on-chain transactions are invalid
trashgirlfriend@lemmy.world 8 months ago
I feel like here you get to the NFT problem of having proof of ownership of something doesn’t mean much when that thing is being hosted on servers you don’t control
so if you have an entry with a licence for a steam game, and steam gets closed, you are out of luck
Draegur@lemm.ee 8 months ago
it’s that holding a license for a game entitles you to operating a copy of it regardless of where you bought it.
it’s the whole basis for why emulation and ROM images were LEGAL
because you had a right to retain a backup of the software you own through the license.
with an independent licensing infrastructure, if GoG closes you can take your licenses with you, download the game from anywhere, and if anyone tries to charge you for stealing it, you can just present your license: “See, i bought it fair and square.”
if i bought a dryer from SEARS, it didn’t stop being mine when SEARS closed.