• Cyrus Draegur@lemm.ee
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    8 months ago

    i 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.

    • Tar_Alcaran@sh.itjust.works
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      8 months ago

      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.

      • Cyrus Draegur@lemm.ee
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        8 months ago

        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.

          • Cyrus Draegur@lemm.ee
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            8 months ago

            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.

    • BakerBagel@midwest.social
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      8 months ago

      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?

    • Æsc@lemmy.sdf.org
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      8 months ago

      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.

      • hemmes@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        With smart contracts on blockchain you can do exactly that. Everyone involved in the process can ensure they get their cut.

      • jdeath@lemm.ee
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        8 months ago

        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.

    • trashgirlfriend@lemmy.world
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      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

    • Natanael@slrpnk.net
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      8 months ago

      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