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The problem with all of this is that there is no standard method to describe, assert, and validate digital rights as a technical grammar that is 1) computer par
by PeterCorless 5y ago
The problem with all of this is that there is no standard method to describe, assert, and validate digital rights as a technical grammar that is 1) computer parsable and 2) human interpretable.
A long while ago, while back at Cisco, I suggested just such a grammar, called the Digital Rights Framework. It would be an inventory list embedded as data within a file, or an associated metadata file, that would clearly say "This is a unique name for a digital property with associated rights. This is my relationship towards the creator. These are the rights the creator gave me, or where I got a right from some authorized reseller of this digital property."
Basically, we needed an industry standard for this kind of thing in the 1990s. Sadly, me and 10,000 of my closest friends got laid off back then. So all the work we were doing was scrapped (aside from getting a few patents around it). But the need for this sort of rights management and negotiation system has never lessened.
Plus, it can't just be something that is done for one tech giant, and each tech giant does it differently. This needs to be a grammar as open as IETF standards, or W3C standards. Something that is extensible and customizable.
Because then you'd be able to shove a list of your digital rights statements right in the face of someone who said you were violating copyright and tell them to shove it.
Now, how you store and forward these rights is also up for debate. Do these need to be portable? Is this stored in a "wallet?" Or do these need to be accessible, and thus stored in a highly available or strongly consistent database?
This is basically the nightmare I and others saw back in the 1990s that we simply never, as a collective tech industry, ever really addressed.
It is literally a billion-dollar business for a trillion dollars of annual revenue if someone can figure out how to standardize this and make it simple and readily implementable.
- Accujack 5y agoThe question is... would creating something like this cause an increase or decrease in the profits of large media corporations?
- PeterCorless 5y agoYes and yes. It would cause a net increase because there'd be a larger pie. But there would be fairer competition to the small players who literally have zero leverage now.
- f1refly 5y agoBut, if I now had such a certificated piece of media, what would stop me from stripping that information, attaching my own and uploading the resulting re-certificated work that matches my cert store?
- PeterCorless 5y agoAssertion of rights was going to be separated from enforcement. Imagine, for example, that you "file" your rights with a central authority. Then if someone else comes to try to to jack you, there'd be a mechanism to find infringement and negotiate either a) a successful negotiation of lawful rights, or b) revoke the unauthorized use, or c) send it to some formalized method of arbitration.
- sircastor 5y agoI like this solution, but it really only solves the problem for licensed use. I don’t think all uses need to be licensed or even should need to be licensed. The trouble with copyright is that there are no automatically protected rights for the non-rights holders. It’s all legal defense, which is unapproachable for the average individual.
- PeterCorless 5y agoLicensing was going to be only one part of it. You could also assign rights — work for hire. You could also negotiate per-use rights — like single-view rights. In other words, the grammar should be continually be extensible to new types of rights negotiation.