5 ms·

I'm not sure why people are calling this satire. If you want to host a video, make it available through a URI, protect your ownership rights and then make sure

I'm not sure why people are calling this satire. If you want to host a video, make it available through a URI, protect your ownership rights and then make sure it gets hosted for as long as possible, this is a way to do it.

meltedcapacitor 5y ago
The satire element comes the fact that doing it that way, while technically flawless, will get the creator as large an audience as piping the video to /dev/null.
- KptMarchewa 5y ago
  "flawless" I can't tell if this is satire.
  - 1_player 5y ago
    Certainly it can't be easier than going to my YouTube account and pressing upload.
- ThalesX 5y ago
  Oh, I missed on that. And yes, that is true. I can't help think that for a hackathon, it's a pretty good use case for something like this. The organizers can then take the files from wherever and post them to their YouTube channel for exposure and monetization if that's what they want. I'd be furious if I ended up posting some video, mandatory on YouTube, for a fun week-end hackathon and ending up with my entire YouTube account suspended. So if I ever do end up organizing a hackathon or similar event, I'll keep in mind that it might be better to ask for the video files as just files and then handling the posting on my side so as to not expose participants to this risk. If participants want to ensure their names are linked to the video bits used from their films, they can go through the all the blockhainy-web3-y trouble, if not they can just zip them.
- fsflover 5y ago
  But you don't have to put the video exclusively to IPFS, PeerTube and co.
gambiting 5y ago
I'm a professional programmer and like....I understand some of those words? If I had to guess, I'd say this is a joke, purely because of how nonsensical it sounds. Host it on what? Pair it with ETH? Like...the cryptocurrency? How does that work? How does that make money? Maybe I'm getting old. Scary world out there.
- ldehaan 5y ago
  Well, then I guess you can be a professional at something and still be unaware of all the tools at your disposal. Also just because you don't know something as a "professional" doesn't mean anything :D it's more like, oh I don't know what that I'd, im gonna go read the docs. But instead, I've never heard of it, its dumb...
  - gambiting 5y ago
    Lol, sorry, I didn't mean to say it's dumb, nor do I mean to use the "professional" title as some sort of badge. Simply that I work with tech every day, and yet I'm completely unaware of those things, that's why I'd guess it's a joke. Obviously it would be a bad guess. I guess for a different comparison you could be a professional truck driver and still be completely unaware that we have cars that almost drive themselves with the right tech and conditions. It's just not something you normally come across in your line of work.
- ThalesX 5y ago
  Also felt it was a scary world till I had the opportunity to read up a bit. The cryptospace is wild, and web3 is a wild west, but some parts make sense, and they’re a bit awesome! > Host it on what? Pair it with ETH? Like...the cryptocurrency? How does that work? How does that make money? You host it in IPFS, which is basically just a bunch of running nodes that store files using a hashing system that results in these identifiers (CID) per file. This CID always reflects the same file, no matter if you store it or I store it or we both store parts of it. Let’s say I upload my video file, and then send it to you on IPFS so now we both host it. Then, I decide to NFT it. So I register a contract on the Ethereum blockchain (for which I have to pay in Ethereum, the currency) that points to this CID. At this point, this particular video, its hash on the IPFS and the ETH blockchain entry under my wallet, give me a distributed right of ownership for those that choose to respect it. As per how it makes money, I have no idea, it all feels like a giant scam to me. The money aspect is a more cryptobro oriented question than a technical one.
acdha 5y ago
The key is knowing enough about the technology to know that none of that works. IPFS doesn’t solve the storage or bandwidth problems people use YouTube to avoid, so you’re still going to need to pay for hosting, which could be done cheaper without the blockchain overhead. Similarly, an NFT doesn’t prevent everyone from accessing it so you can’t force people to pay for the cost of their access and it doesn’t protect your ownership — that’s done by copyright laws enforced by the government. The only thing a blockchain is adding is the chance for people who sell blockchains to make money while distracting you from the real problems you’ll need to deal with either way.
- ThalesX 5y ago
  > [...] you’re still going to need to pay for hosting, which could be done cheaper without the blockchain overhead. IPFS has no blockchain, and the overhead of transferring files is incredibly low thanks to lib-p2p. > Similarly, an NFT doesn’t prevent everyone from accessing it so you can’t force people to pay for the cost of their access and it doesn’t protect your ownership — that’s done by copyright laws enforced by the government. By itself it does not, coupled with other mechanisms, it can. Access control to personal files is very much removed from where I expect government to exercise their own control.
  - acdha 5y ago
    > IPFS has no blockchain, and the overhead of transferring files is incredibly low thanks to lib-p2p. Filecoin does, however, while you'll note was proposed as part of this. The problem with IPFS is the general one with P2P: there aren't enough people who are going to use their storage + network capacity to provide a CDN for strangers, especially with the personal legal risks to do so, and it's slower than a high-quality professionally-managed service like YouTube or Vimeo. That means that if you care about long-term availability, you need to pay for hosting and that likely will also require paying for bandwidth if the content becomes popular and/or you want to provide a competitive experience rather than simply pure archival. > > Similarly, an NFT doesn’t prevent everyone from accessing it so you can’t force people to pay for the cost of their access and it doesn’t protect your ownership — that’s done by copyright laws enforced by the government. > By itself it does not, coupled with other mechanisms, it can. Yes, but that's like saying that if you buy a chainsaw and a loaf of bread you can make sandwiches. Either way you need to build and operate a system to store the video and provide authenticated access so the NFT is simply making that more expensive and adding additional failure modes. > Access control to personal files is very much removed from where I expect government to exercise their own control. This is like saying you don't expect the government to control access to your house. That's technically true but only if you define the problem so narrowly to omit the fact that the government provides the legal framework and enforcement which allows you to do so reasonably. For example, if you're trying to get paid for content someone will likely try to snag a copy and present it somewhere else with their ads; blockchains can't prevent that and will limit revenue only to the extent that the viewers care to validate an NFT. What does work is that you can send something like a DMCA request and get a prompt response from a hosting service because they know that the penalties for not doing so are enforced by the government rather than just your personal clout.

meltedcapacitor 5y ago

The satire element comes the fact that doing it that way, while technically flawless, will get the creator as large an audience as piping the video to /dev/null.

KptMarchewa 5y ago
"flawless" I can't tell if this is satire.
- 1_player 5y ago
  Certainly it can't be easier than going to my YouTube account and pressing upload.
ThalesX 5y ago
Oh, I missed on that. And yes, that is true. I can't help think that for a hackathon, it's a pretty good use case for something like this. The organizers can then take the files from wherever and post them to their YouTube channel for exposure and monetization if that's what they want. I'd be furious if I ended up posting some video, mandatory on YouTube, for a fun week-end hackathon and ending up with my entire YouTube account suspended. So if I ever do end up organizing a hackathon or similar event, I'll keep in mind that it might be better to ask for the video files as just files and then handling the posting on my side so as to not expose participants to this risk. If participants want to ensure their names are linked to the video bits used from their films, they can go through the all the blockhainy-web3-y trouble, if not they can just zip them.
fsflover 5y ago
But you don't have to put the video exclusively to IPFS, PeerTube and co.

gambiting 5y ago

I'm a professional programmer and like....I understand some of those words? If I had to guess, I'd say this is a joke, purely because of how nonsensical it sounds. Host it on what? Pair it with ETH? Like...the cryptocurrency? How does that work? How does that make money? Maybe I'm getting old. Scary world out there.

ldehaan 5y ago
Well, then I guess you can be a professional at something and still be unaware of all the tools at your disposal. Also just because you don't know something as a "professional" doesn't mean anything :D it's more like, oh I don't know what that I'd, im gonna go read the docs. But instead, I've never heard of it, its dumb...
- gambiting 5y ago
  Lol, sorry, I didn't mean to say it's dumb, nor do I mean to use the "professional" title as some sort of badge. Simply that I work with tech every day, and yet I'm completely unaware of those things, that's why I'd guess it's a joke. Obviously it would be a bad guess. I guess for a different comparison you could be a professional truck driver and still be completely unaware that we have cars that almost drive themselves with the right tech and conditions. It's just not something you normally come across in your line of work.
ThalesX 5y ago
Also felt it was a scary world till I had the opportunity to read up a bit. The cryptospace is wild, and web3 is a wild west, but some parts make sense, and they’re a bit awesome! > Host it on what? Pair it with ETH? Like...the cryptocurrency? How does that work? How does that make money? You host it in IPFS, which is basically just a bunch of running nodes that store files using a hashing system that results in these identifiers (CID) per file. This CID always reflects the same file, no matter if you store it or I store it or we both store parts of it. Let’s say I upload my video file, and then send it to you on IPFS so now we both host it. Then, I decide to NFT it. So I register a contract on the Ethereum blockchain (for which I have to pay in Ethereum, the currency) that points to this CID. At this point, this particular video, its hash on the IPFS and the ETH blockchain entry under my wallet, give me a distributed right of ownership for those that choose to respect it. As per how it makes money, I have no idea, it all feels like a giant scam to me. The money aspect is a more cryptobro oriented question than a technical one.

acdha 5y ago

The key is knowing enough about the technology to know that none of that works. IPFS doesn’t solve the storage or bandwidth problems people use YouTube to avoid, so you’re still going to need to pay for hosting, which could be done cheaper without the blockchain overhead. Similarly, an NFT doesn’t prevent everyone from accessing it so you can’t force people to pay for the cost of their access and it doesn’t protect your ownership — that’s done by copyright laws enforced by the government. The only thing a blockchain is adding is the chance for people who sell blockchains to make money while distracting you from the real problems you’ll need to deal with either way.

ThalesX 5y ago
> [...] you’re still going to need to pay for hosting, which could be done cheaper without the blockchain overhead. IPFS has no blockchain, and the overhead of transferring files is incredibly low thanks to lib-p2p. > Similarly, an NFT doesn’t prevent everyone from accessing it so you can’t force people to pay for the cost of their access and it doesn’t protect your ownership — that’s done by copyright laws enforced by the government. By itself it does not, coupled with other mechanisms, it can. Access control to personal files is very much removed from where I expect government to exercise their own control.
- acdha 5y ago
  > IPFS has no blockchain, and the overhead of transferring files is incredibly low thanks to lib-p2p. Filecoin does, however, while you'll note was proposed as part of this. The problem with IPFS is the general one with P2P: there aren't enough people who are going to use their storage + network capacity to provide a CDN for strangers, especially with the personal legal risks to do so, and it's slower than a high-quality professionally-managed service like YouTube or Vimeo. That means that if you care about long-term availability, you need to pay for hosting and that likely will also require paying for bandwidth if the content becomes popular and/or you want to provide a competitive experience rather than simply pure archival. > > Similarly, an NFT doesn’t prevent everyone from accessing it so you can’t force people to pay for the cost of their access and it doesn’t protect your ownership — that’s done by copyright laws enforced by the government. > By itself it does not, coupled with other mechanisms, it can. Yes, but that's like saying that if you buy a chainsaw and a loaf of bread you can make sandwiches. Either way you need to build and operate a system to store the video and provide authenticated access so the NFT is simply making that more expensive and adding additional failure modes. > Access control to personal files is very much removed from where I expect government to exercise their own control. This is like saying you don't expect the government to control access to your house. That's technically true but only if you define the problem so narrowly to omit the fact that the government provides the legal framework and enforcement which allows you to do so reasonably. For example, if you're trying to get paid for content someone will likely try to snag a copy and present it somewhere else with their ads; blockchains can't prevent that and will limit revenue only to the extent that the viewers care to validate an NFT. What does work is that you can send something like a DMCA request and get a prompt response from a hosting service because they know that the penalties for not doing so are enforced by the government rather than just your personal clout.