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Remember when NFTs sold for millions of dollars? 95% of the digital collectibles are now probably worthless.
(markets.businessinsider.com)
this post was submitted on 21 Sep 2023
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I still think NFTs could be used to make a form of DRM that is actually fair to the consumer, by maki g it so you can resell your digital goods and also make it so your digital rights don't vanish as soon as the seller gets bored. But nobody in a position to make that happen wants that.
DRM =/= fair to the consumer.
DRM as a concept seeks to limit your digital rights. Any DRM of any kind is a form of punishment to the consumer. You bought it, it should be yours to do with in perpetuity as you please.
What about the rights of the creator and fair compensation? That argument alone is driving the entire backlash against AI and AI created art whereby people's work was read and incorporated in some level without restriction, why not here too?
So you're pro-DRM then if it helps content creators sell one copy per customer?
People can buy multiple copies if so they wish to. Most digital sellers are perfectly happy to charge you multiple times for things you technically already own. Artificial scarcity by way of limiting a digital good is unethical.
I was under the impression that the main point of DRM was to prevent blanket copying of a product and sharing with others who haven't purchased said product.
If I buy an e-book I should be able to read it on any device I want. If I purchase software I should be able to install it and use it on as many devices I own that I want.
You can't buy a book, print off a ton of copies, and then sell those copies. You can do whatever you want with your book, lend out, give it away, but you're not allowed to profit off it.
Sure you are. You're allowed to sell it to a book store, and if it's somehow more valuable than what you paid when you bought it, you profit.
You can't make copies and then sell those copies to the book store
Legally I cannot, but physically the book does not come with a device that prevents me from doing so.
That's why you get paid up front for your work.
We should worry more about what corporations are doing with people's work, than what individuals are doing with what they've paid for.
Or simply, if someone's profiting off of someone else's work, then worry about the rules.
I guess this is kind of my point. The general left consensus on copyrights, creator's content, DRM, and AI is not founded a position of principles, it's foundation is seemingly only what serves the end goal which is whatever is perceived to help middle/lower class the most.
Which of course I can totally get down with, but I just resent that everyone covers their arguments as if it's coming from a principled idea when in actuality they hold little principles on the matter and just want an end goal.
Copyright only exists to serve society, to promote the creation of content. It's not about restricting anything, other than as far as it helps more people create, more creation happen. Corporations stomping on individuals does not promote creation.
DRM could be fair to the consumer, it just isn't in the interests of the publishers to make it so, and as a result the versions of it we have are not fair to the consumer.
DRM certainly can't be fair as long as it's illegal to circumvent.
NFTs or blockchains are not needed for this. You could just implement selling or transfers in the content platform.
I do think using contacts for escrow and having the sale being independent from the vendor are cool features, bit not at all essential ones.
Okay but what happens when the platform goes away, or decides to change the rules? That`s the only part I could see NFTs actually potentially answering. If the ownership verification was all done client-side via a blockchain it could potentially survive the shutdown of the store you bought it from.
Don't get me wrong, I can see problems with this. And potentially this could also be done with simple public key cryptography.
Yes, but that's a different, independent problem.
How would that be fair? There would still be drm running on your computer to verify you have the nft. That would have all the issues of DRM already. And those who want information to be free could still just make illegal cracked copies and distribute them.
Video game ownership rights have been going downhill for years. Most games can disappear from your account at a whim, and you can't sell them on when you're done anymore. At least with blockchain-based DRM, you'd be able to sell it when you're done - and if the thing is hosted in a decentralized manner (IPFS, Pinata etc) then the creator can't simply delete it or delist it. You'd own it without permission.
In theory it could be a good idea. If done right.
Or not. The company could choose not to honor that sale.
In the situation I'm referring to, the issuer has no control over the asset once it's been bought; it would be sold to another buyer, and the transaction could be done on any third party marketplace. In return for loss of this discretionary power, the issuer receives a cut of the secondary resale - that is baked into the token when it is created.
It'd be as close to mimicking the rights of owning a DRM-free physical copy that I know of, with the added bonus of cutting creators into the secondary market, which incentivizes them to care about long term support. I like that bit, and it is too rarely mentioned.
Why not instead imagine a future without DRM where there's no artificial scarcity for digital goods?
If I'm in the mood to fantasize, I can do a little better than that.
Hmm, kind of an open source Steam client that shares game files in a secure and verified peer to peer manner and only lets users play that have the corresponding NFT in their connected wallet. Now you'd only need an incentive for someone to develop something better and way more complex than Steam without making anything close to the same profit from it. Also you'd need a reason for publishers to sell their games this way, if after half a year they won't sell a single copy anymore, as there is always someone that offers their used license cheaper.
Uh, yeah. GameStop is making it, from what I hear. They can't keep selling old physical copies forever and the new board knows it. They're already partnered with some blockchain firms to build it. Means + motive on a platter.
As to why a developer would go for it? This kind of token can be sold on any such marketplace, but can have a royalty baked in so that no matter who sells it or where, they get a perpetual revenue stream. I usually hate rent-seeking behavior, but in the case of software you need a way to pay for continued support, and this solves it.
You're adding another person to the equation (the player that sells their game) and everyone is supposed to profit? Someone will make a loss compared to the status quo for this to work out and it's never the marketplace operator.
When we buy a game, there is already an intermediary. The GoG, Steam, Itch, whatever. This would be the same number of middlemen. The unique selling point would actually be disintermediation, since buyers would be able to resell the game and creators would be cut into the 'used game' market, giving them an incentive to maintain its quality long-term. There are other useful angles as well, but that's the one I like best.
I would say that wouldn't solve the main problem with DRM, the fact that it locks you out of your own computer. I don't settle for any DRM.
I prefer physical DRM-free copies. If the industry as a whole is going to try to move away from that model, as it appears to be, I'm not going to walk away from gaming; I'd rather be at the table and talk about viable compromises rather than be left out of the conversation.
How is it unfair? To me fair means making sure the creator gets paid without stomping on the rights of the purchaser; in particular, the right to keep the thing after the publisher has gotten bored of selling it, and the right to sell it, though that last one is a difficult proposition with digital goods, seeing as they don't devalue.
I would say any DRM is unfair, because it works by locking down your own system from yourself, and you should have a right to use your system unencumbered by any restrictive DRM, which tries to take away your right to use the system. Check out Securom and the Sony rootkit. You could buy discs from the publisher, and resell them. But your system was still locked down by the DRM.
Who is going to buy those digital goods?
And which developer is going to implement the digital goods of an other developer instead of creating their own which makes them money?
Not talking about that kind of thing. When I say digital goods, I mean things like games, things we currently have DRM for.
Of course, there being no reason to buy a game new if someone is selling it used, that part would never work.
They'd also be sort of crap at that job.
But yes, it would be a step up from a landscape that is, to date, 100.0% scams.