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Well let's say that the revenue for those novelizations all ran through a DAO (this is a naive simplification, but bare with me), and that DAO was programmed to

Well let's say that the revenue for those novelizations all ran through a DAO (this is a naive simplification, but bare with me), and that DAO was programmed to export X% of the revenue to Disney's wallet, and Y% to Mr. Foster's. Disney wouldn't be able to undo this later arbitrarily in this example, it's just enforced by the very fact the revenues are being collected by the smart contract. Again, simplification, but the point is these technologies actually can help with some of these issues, but not simply by taking the existing way of doing things and just "doing it better", but rather by re-imagining how payments are collected, how content is accessed, etc. It's a larger picture for sure, and this technology is in it's infancy.

pyrale 5y ago
> Disney wouldn't be able to undo this later arbitrarily in this example Simply stop revenue from running through a DAO. That's actually more or less what Disney did in that case ; they simply moved the books to another publisher.
- m3kw9 5y ago
  Yeah what I thought
- Kranar 5y ago
  The DAO is the distributer of the intellectual property. The DAO receives payments directly from the customer and redistributes the revenue. But sure, a company as big as Disney could setup an alternative distribution system and market it. So presumably a DAO for publishing would not be too effective if it represented only a single publication. But if you had a DAO that distributed a large number of works, then it would get progressively harder and harder for any single company to subvert it.
  - pyrale 5y ago
    The issue with that specific topic is that the DAO you describe would actually run against the right holders' interests, and therefore, they would have no interest in promoting or using it in the first place. In that specific situation, it would be against Disney's interests to agree to using it.
    - Kranar 5y ago
      Fair point. What interest is there beyond the revenue distributed by the DAO? Disney's interest is in marketing the DAO so that customers purchase from it, the authors have an interest in producing content to get marketed. What would Disney be against that?
      - pyrale 5y ago
        > Disney's interest is in marketing the DAO so that customers purchase from it There is little chance that having comics paid through the DAO would make new customers. The authors have an interest in the thing considering the event we're discussing, sure, but authors rarely get to choose their terms. Disney, as an IP holder, or publishers, currently are in a situation of power, and it would be foolish for them to pay into a new system for no tangible benefit.
- dntrkv 5y ago
  A lot of the benefits of crypto really come into play as more systems are integrated into the blockchain. If the whole series of payments and services are on the blockchain, you could build a system that is reasonably secured against these types of situations.
  - castlecrasher2 5y ago
    >If the whole series of payments and services are on the blockchain, you could build a system that is reasonably secured against these types of situations. I'm not intending to be snarky here, but statements like these remind me of the phrase "the devil you know is better than the devil you don't." I have yet to see blockchain provide any tangible value, and in my opinion any future possibilities proposed like from this comment chain will almost certainly be plagued by similar (if not worse) issues.
    - dntrkv 5y ago
      >I have yet to see blockchain provide any tangible value What do you define as tangible value? I'm not a crypto bro, but I can see the potential in blockchain, specifically the building blocks nature of smart contracts. A global, decentralized, API that runs on its own "currency" and anyone can interact and build upon, that sounds pretty valuable to me.
      - castlecrasher2 5y ago
        I've put a lot of thought into it and have come to the conclusion that I and I'd guess many others would prefer a system that can be adjusted as needed by people and the legal system. For context, I don't have a very high opinion of people or the legal system, either.
  - pyrale 5y ago
    So the true meaning of decentralized is "centralized elsewhere" ?
    - 5y ago
m3kw9 5y ago
Would this not work because Disney would need to first lock up that all the discounted cash flow money into the contract, which I think they won’t, otherwise there is still no guarantee?
ska 5y ago
> Disney wouldn't be able to undo this later arbitrarily in this example I think this is naive as there is no version of this in the forseeable future that wont allow a court to unwind or reassign the physical rights. You'd be left with a DAO that forwarded a percentage of 0.
- Kranar 5y ago
  A court order is not arbitrary. The problem that's trying to get solved is a major corporation using its power to unilaterally perform an adverse action against an individual that may or may not be legal. The author in this case has very little power to fight Disney; they could try to sue them and spend years and a lot of money to recoup the royalties and potentially fail... but that's a major burden to place on someone. Alternatively there could be a technology that levels the playing field so that instead of Disney being allowed to act unilaterally, the burden would be on Disney to first seek a court order allowing them to halt royalties and then present it to the author, who can then choose to challenge it in court or comply. In other words, we don't know if Disney is legally justified to halt royalties, maybe they are, maybe they aren't. But Disney is powerful enough to behave as if they are legally justified and give a huge middle finger to anyone who doesn't have the resources to fight back. The burden should be on the one changing the terms of an agreement to go through the process of establishing the legitimacy of that change, instead of the current system where the more powerful player just does what they feel like until they're forced to do otherwise.
  - ska 5y ago
    > Alternatively there could be a technology that levels the playing field so that instead of Disney being allowed to act unilaterally, Such technology does not exist, and none of the proposals I've heard of implement it. I'm not defending Disney at all, I'm saying that if you routed everything through that DAO one day Disney could change to not routing in that way - and we're in the same situation as today. The fallback is the court system, and that wouldn't change. I mean you can wave your hands about some theoretical system of the future that has address this, but none of them are really actionable.
captn3m0 5y ago
I don't think it is fair to expect the general public to read a Smart contract to understand its guarantees any more than it is for them to read the current legal royalty papers. In both cases, you end up trusting a third-party (lawyer, website, software) for its interpretation. And even then the final interpretation is upto a different third party (The blockchain VM or the courts).
- Kranar 5y ago
  The customer isn't the one who reads the smart contract or needs to understand it. The customer just pays for a product and receives it. The smart contract is intended to enforce provisions between an author and a publisher, and one should expect an author to understand how their property will be protected.

pyrale 5y ago

> Disney wouldn't be able to undo this later arbitrarily in this example Simply stop revenue from running through a DAO. That's actually more or less what Disney did in that case ; they simply moved the books to another publisher.

m3kw9 5y ago
Yeah what I thought
Kranar 5y ago
The DAO is the distributer of the intellectual property. The DAO receives payments directly from the customer and redistributes the revenue. But sure, a company as big as Disney could setup an alternative distribution system and market it. So presumably a DAO for publishing would not be too effective if it represented only a single publication. But if you had a DAO that distributed a large number of works, then it would get progressively harder and harder for any single company to subvert it.
- pyrale 5y ago
  The issue with that specific topic is that the DAO you describe would actually run against the right holders' interests, and therefore, they would have no interest in promoting or using it in the first place. In that specific situation, it would be against Disney's interests to agree to using it.
  - Kranar 5y ago
    Fair point. What interest is there beyond the revenue distributed by the DAO? Disney's interest is in marketing the DAO so that customers purchase from it, the authors have an interest in producing content to get marketed. What would Disney be against that?
    - pyrale 5y ago
      > Disney's interest is in marketing the DAO so that customers purchase from it There is little chance that having comics paid through the DAO would make new customers. The authors have an interest in the thing considering the event we're discussing, sure, but authors rarely get to choose their terms. Disney, as an IP holder, or publishers, currently are in a situation of power, and it would be foolish for them to pay into a new system for no tangible benefit.
dntrkv 5y ago
A lot of the benefits of crypto really come into play as more systems are integrated into the blockchain. If the whole series of payments and services are on the blockchain, you could build a system that is reasonably secured against these types of situations.
- castlecrasher2 5y ago
  >If the whole series of payments and services are on the blockchain, you could build a system that is reasonably secured against these types of situations. I'm not intending to be snarky here, but statements like these remind me of the phrase "the devil you know is better than the devil you don't." I have yet to see blockchain provide any tangible value, and in my opinion any future possibilities proposed like from this comment chain will almost certainly be plagued by similar (if not worse) issues.
  - dntrkv 5y ago
    >I have yet to see blockchain provide any tangible value What do you define as tangible value? I'm not a crypto bro, but I can see the potential in blockchain, specifically the building blocks nature of smart contracts. A global, decentralized, API that runs on its own "currency" and anyone can interact and build upon, that sounds pretty valuable to me.
    - castlecrasher2 5y ago
      I've put a lot of thought into it and have come to the conclusion that I and I'd guess many others would prefer a system that can be adjusted as needed by people and the legal system. For context, I don't have a very high opinion of people or the legal system, either.
- pyrale 5y ago
  So the true meaning of decentralized is "centralized elsewhere" ?
  - 5y ago

m3kw9 5y ago

Would this not work because Disney would need to first lock up that all the discounted cash flow money into the contract, which I think they won’t, otherwise there is still no guarantee?

ska 5y ago

> Disney wouldn't be able to undo this later arbitrarily in this example I think this is naive as there is no version of this in the forseeable future that wont allow a court to unwind or reassign the physical rights. You'd be left with a DAO that forwarded a percentage of 0.

Kranar 5y ago
A court order is not arbitrary. The problem that's trying to get solved is a major corporation using its power to unilaterally perform an adverse action against an individual that may or may not be legal. The author in this case has very little power to fight Disney; they could try to sue them and spend years and a lot of money to recoup the royalties and potentially fail... but that's a major burden to place on someone. Alternatively there could be a technology that levels the playing field so that instead of Disney being allowed to act unilaterally, the burden would be on Disney to first seek a court order allowing them to halt royalties and then present it to the author, who can then choose to challenge it in court or comply. In other words, we don't know if Disney is legally justified to halt royalties, maybe they are, maybe they aren't. But Disney is powerful enough to behave as if they are legally justified and give a huge middle finger to anyone who doesn't have the resources to fight back. The burden should be on the one changing the terms of an agreement to go through the process of establishing the legitimacy of that change, instead of the current system where the more powerful player just does what they feel like until they're forced to do otherwise.
- ska 5y ago
  > Alternatively there could be a technology that levels the playing field so that instead of Disney being allowed to act unilaterally, Such technology does not exist, and none of the proposals I've heard of implement it. I'm not defending Disney at all, I'm saying that if you routed everything through that DAO one day Disney could change to not routing in that way - and we're in the same situation as today. The fallback is the court system, and that wouldn't change. I mean you can wave your hands about some theoretical system of the future that has address this, but none of them are really actionable.

captn3m0 5y ago

I don't think it is fair to expect the general public to read a Smart contract to understand its guarantees any more than it is for them to read the current legal royalty papers. In both cases, you end up trusting a third-party (lawyer, website, software) for its interpretation. And even then the final interpretation is upto a different third party (The blockchain VM or the courts).

Kranar 5y ago
The customer isn't the one who reads the smart contract or needs to understand it. The customer just pays for a product and receives it. The smart contract is intended to enforce provisions between an author and a publisher, and one should expect an author to understand how their property will be protected.