12 ms·

>I cannot buy ebooks with a resale limitation I think within 5-10 years digital media like ebooks, games, movies etc will transition to being represented by ER

by Sargos 6y ago

>I cannot buy ebooks with a resale limitation I think within 5-10 years digital media like ebooks, games, movies etc will transition to being represented by ERC-721 tokens which brings with it the benefits of physical media (permanent ownership, sharability, etc) while also being easy to store, transport, read digital items. The main benefit is that you can buy your ebook/game/movie in one store/ecosystem and even if that system goes out of business your purchase will still be valid at other stores and platforms. Like physical books, these items can be re-sold and given to anyone you like (granted you won't have access to the book anymore.)

simonklitj 6y ago
Any material on these tokens? Sounds cool!
- xena 6y ago
  it's a blockchain meme, probably gonna end up being vaporware
  - mthoms 6y ago
    ERC tokens have existed for about half a decade.
    - zentiggr 6y ago
      So nowhere near the point of stability or ubiquity.
      - mthoms 6y ago
        Ok, but you're moving the goalposts. The parent said it didn't exist at all.
- Sargos 6y ago
  http://erc721.org/ http://erc721.org/ (Edit: https://cointelegraph.com/explained/non-fungible-tokens-explained https://cointelegraph.com/explained/non-fungible-tokens-expl... is probably better) has a nice friendly writeup. It's basically a token on Ethereum representing a unique object such as artwork, media (like above), a cool sword in a game, cards in a trading card game (Magic like games such as God's Unchained), or even physical items such as cars, houses etc. These tokens represent an individual thing that needs to be usable in the digital world (sending to others, selling/trading, using for identity management etc).
X6S1x6Okd1st 6y ago
Just because something would be nice for consumers and is technically feisable doesn't mean it'll happen
michaelmrose 6y ago
1. How do you stop a person who can legally read a book, and thus has the key needed to decrypt it in memory, from obtaining that key and using it to create an unencumbered copy on their hard drive without totally depriving them of ownership of their computer to provide a controlled environment where such copying is impossible? 2. I remember a substantial issue with Etherium wherein someone was able to steal a large amount of currency from other users in 2016. What are the risks of an attacker say stealing a large number of tokens intended to be sold to users from distributor or even the ability to create them? In a decentralized world how do you invalidate them? If you can invalidate them doesn't that mean any seller can take back anything? This can happen now of course they can steal a copy of your pre production movie but potential to monetize is garbage and effect on your legitimate value proposition may be largely unchanged. In this brave new world their stolen tokens may actually have a legitimate market. Steal 1 million tokens sell all 5 days after release as already read for 10% less than going rate before owner bans tokens from legitimate market. 3. What about the case in which someone breaks into your computer or infects it with malware and effectively loots all your books and music and sells it on craigslist/amazon/facebook. How do you invalidate those purchases without a secondary authority. If you can haven't you recreated central distribution with more steps?
- Sargos 6y ago
  1. ERC-721 tokens don't replace DRM. Effectively you would buy the book and use any DRM scheme you want as the DRM would verify that you owned the ERC-721 before allowing the media to be used. 2. True, there is always smart contract risk. The DAO hack happened right after Ethereum was founded as nobody really knew what they were doing and tooling was extremely basic. Things are still in the early dial up days for crypto but even now tooling is vastly better, there are dedicated firms for contract/code auditing and the systems being created today are much more robustly designed. With that said, nothing can be certified 100% safe and the only concrete proof of security we have is the passing of time itself. These systems will be new for a while and adoption of this tech will happen slowly over time in the same way the internet grew over two decades into what we know today. There will likely be a system that withstands the test of time and becomes old enough to be trusted by even conservative developers, but until then there will likely be mechanisms built-in where the content creator can destroy and re-create tokens in case of failure. Not every token will be this way and the decision is up to the content creator themselves. 3. This is a problem for wallets in general and lots of people are working on it. The leading solution seems to be social recovery which is where you designate trusted addresses (family members, hardware wallets, friends etc) and configure it to allow your wallet to be recovered if say 3 of the 5 agree that you legitimately lost it. If you ever lose your wallet because you forgot the password or your computer/phone died then you can recover it easily and safely, no complicated and technically hard key backup systems needed which is key for normal non-HN people. You can also set outgoing filters so your ERC-721 tokens couldn't be sent unless it's to a whitelisted address or you verify it with another of your trusted addresses, so even if a hacker got into your wallet they couldn't transfer the tokens and you would just recover your wallet using the system above. It's still early days but Argent is the best example of this.
Passthepeas 6y ago
or if we're really lucky, it will be represented on a blockchain that doesn't have a massive pre-mine and actually values immutability.

by Sargos 6y ago

simonklitj 6y ago

Any material on these tokens? Sounds cool!

xena 6y ago
it's a blockchain meme, probably gonna end up being vaporware
- mthoms 6y ago
  ERC tokens have existed for about half a decade.
  - zentiggr 6y ago
    So nowhere near the point of stability or ubiquity.
    - mthoms 6y ago
      Ok, but you're moving the goalposts. The parent said it didn't exist at all.
Sargos 6y ago
http://erc721.org/ http://erc721.org/ (Edit: https://cointelegraph.com/explained/non-fungible-tokens-explained https://cointelegraph.com/explained/non-fungible-tokens-expl... is probably better) has a nice friendly writeup. It's basically a token on Ethereum representing a unique object such as artwork, media (like above), a cool sword in a game, cards in a trading card game (Magic like games such as God's Unchained), or even physical items such as cars, houses etc. These tokens represent an individual thing that needs to be usable in the digital world (sending to others, selling/trading, using for identity management etc).

X6S1x6Okd1st 6y ago

Just because something would be nice for consumers and is technically feisable doesn't mean it'll happen

michaelmrose 6y ago

1. How do you stop a person who can legally read a book, and thus has the key needed to decrypt it in memory, from obtaining that key and using it to create an unencumbered copy on their hard drive without totally depriving them of ownership of their computer to provide a controlled environment where such copying is impossible? 2. I remember a substantial issue with Etherium wherein someone was able to steal a large amount of currency from other users in 2016. What are the risks of an attacker say stealing a large number of tokens intended to be sold to users from distributor or even the ability to create them? In a decentralized world how do you invalidate them? If you can invalidate them doesn't that mean any seller can take back anything? This can happen now of course they can steal a copy of your pre production movie but potential to monetize is garbage and effect on your legitimate value proposition may be largely unchanged. In this brave new world their stolen tokens may actually have a legitimate market. Steal 1 million tokens sell all 5 days after release as already read for 10% less than going rate before owner bans tokens from legitimate market. 3. What about the case in which someone breaks into your computer or infects it with malware and effectively loots all your books and music and sells it on craigslist/amazon/facebook. How do you invalidate those purchases without a secondary authority. If you can haven't you recreated central distribution with more steps?

Sargos 6y ago
1. ERC-721 tokens don't replace DRM. Effectively you would buy the book and use any DRM scheme you want as the DRM would verify that you owned the ERC-721 before allowing the media to be used. 2. True, there is always smart contract risk. The DAO hack happened right after Ethereum was founded as nobody really knew what they were doing and tooling was extremely basic. Things are still in the early dial up days for crypto but even now tooling is vastly better, there are dedicated firms for contract/code auditing and the systems being created today are much more robustly designed. With that said, nothing can be certified 100% safe and the only concrete proof of security we have is the passing of time itself. These systems will be new for a while and adoption of this tech will happen slowly over time in the same way the internet grew over two decades into what we know today. There will likely be a system that withstands the test of time and becomes old enough to be trusted by even conservative developers, but until then there will likely be mechanisms built-in where the content creator can destroy and re-create tokens in case of failure. Not every token will be this way and the decision is up to the content creator themselves. 3. This is a problem for wallets in general and lots of people are working on it. The leading solution seems to be social recovery which is where you designate trusted addresses (family members, hardware wallets, friends etc) and configure it to allow your wallet to be recovered if say 3 of the 5 agree that you legitimately lost it. If you ever lose your wallet because you forgot the password or your computer/phone died then you can recover it easily and safely, no complicated and technically hard key backup systems needed which is key for normal non-HN people. You can also set outgoing filters so your ERC-721 tokens couldn't be sent unless it's to a whitelisted address or you verify it with another of your trusted addresses, so even if a hacker got into your wallet they couldn't transfer the tokens and you would just recover your wallet using the system above. It's still early days but Argent is the best example of this.

Passthepeas 6y ago

or if we're really lucky, it will be represented on a blockchain that doesn't have a massive pre-mine and actually values immutability.