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The idea of NFTs as access keys makes me wretch. How can we make DRM worse? I know, let's make it speculative and even worse for the environment. (Re: proof of

The idea of NFTs as access keys makes me wretch. How can we make DRM worse? I know, let's make it speculative and even worse for the environment. (Re: proof of stake, I'll believe it when it happens without Ethereum forking again)

chrisco255 5y ago
It's not DRM. It's token-based authentication. Are you against token-based authentication? Are you against Software-as-a-Service? Are you against membership-based organizations as a concept? Are you against board voting by stockholders? If you're not against these analogous concepts, why would you be against NFT-based versions of this? One difference with NFTs is you retain the right to resale and transfer at all times. Which is totally different than DRM. As for Proof of Stake, it's already live: https://ethereum.org/en/eth2/beacon-chain/ https://ethereum.org/en/eth2/beacon-chain/ It was shipped in December of 2020. The remaining component is the Merge, which merges the Proof-of-Work chain with the Proof-of-Stake chain: https://ethmerge.com/ https://ethmerge.com/ . That is coming this summer. The Ethereum community is almost 100% behind the merge, so it's highly unlikely that ETH forks over it, and even if one occurred, the forked chain would not succeed.
- gizmo385 5y ago
  > That is coming this summer. Hasn't that date been continuously pushed back? Like the parent you replied to, I'll believe when I see it. And regardless, the mining infrastructure spun up because of the gold rush on Ethereum isn't going away at thia point. Those miners will just move to different chains. And while proof of stake does partially minimize some of the environmental concerns, it introduces other problems that aren't great (like all of the power being systematically consolidated into the hands of early adopters and the wealthy).
  - chrisco255 5y ago
    > Hasn't that date been continuously pushed back? Like the parent you replied to, I'll believe when I see it. And regardless, the mining infrastructure spun up because of the gold rush on Ethereum isn't going away at thia point. Those miners will just move to different chains. It's been pushed a few times. Like any complex technical upgrade with hundreds of billions of dollars worth of assets on the line, it has to be taken very carefully and has to be tested very thoroughly against numerous vectors. But there are live testnets of the Merge already, if you feel like testing it out: https://kintsugi.themerge.dev/ https://kintsugi.themerge.dev/ Please submit any bugs you find. > And while proof of stake does partially minimize some of the environmental concerns, it introduces other problems that aren't great (like all of the power being systematically consolidated into the hands of early adopters and the wealthy) Not here to get into PoW vs PoS debate. But its worth noting that Ethereum has hundreds of billions of dollars worth of non-native assets sitting on-chain. Many of these are protocols that didn't even exist 2 years ago. Anyone can create a whole new token on Ethereum that backs a new application and be their own early adopter. For a more philosophical deep dive on PoW vs PoS, see Vitalik's writing on this: https://vitalik.ca/general/2020/11/06/pos2020.html https://vitalik.ca/general/2020/11/06/pos2020.html
- 8note 5y ago
  Isn't the authentication your private key? The nft would be authorization, which sounds a lot like digital rights management to me. The power is still with the record company to decide whether a sold copy is still valid
  - chrisco255 5y ago
    Your private key would be used to sign a message that proves your public key. But your public key is all that's needed to validate which NFTs you own or whether you hold an NFT from a particular collection. > The nft would be authorization, which sounds a lot like digital rights management to me The NFT can be used as a token to access a particular service. But by no means is it anything like DRM. An NFT is recorded in a smart contract. The record of an NFT's purchase and transfer history is immutable and on-chain. It's not revokable by a record company if they sold it under some particular terms to begin with. At this point, however, it's far more likely that a music NFT has been produced and sold by the artist themselves, rather than a record label (3LAU https://nft.3lau.com/#/auction https://nft.3lau.com/#/auction), Euler Beats (https://eulerbeats.com/genesis/21575894274 https://eulerbeats.com/genesis/21575894274), RAC (https://rac.fm/nft https://rac.fm/nft) as some examples. That's part of the beauty of this system, though, in my mind. An artist can have a direct relationship with their fans and keep nearly 100% of the revenue. They may even focus on obtaining 1000 high dollar mega-fans rather than hoping for a billion plays on Spotify, for example. And that's going to be perfectly ok as a business model in Web3.
TimJRobinson 5y ago
NFTs can actually be the opposite of DRM. They are ownership without exclusivity. It is literally impossible to prevent piracy, but we still want people that create art/music/games to get paid - NFTs are the solution to this problem. The artist gets paid, fans get indie bragging rights, and everyone gets to enjoy the content.
- gitgrump 5y ago
  Why would I bother with an NFT when I can already effortlessly copy bits? Digital property is not physical property and I'm not sure why people are still so intent on shoehorning the characteristics of the latter into the former.
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > NFTs are actually the opposite of DRM. They are ownership without exclusivity. Their is no ownership without exclusivity. (And NFTs are exclusive; they just happen to currently mostly be used as pointers to non-exclusive items with no other meaning, but there is nothing inherent in the technology restricting them to that use.)
  - TimJRobinson 5y ago
    > Their is no ownership without exclusivity. Why not? Plenty of people own parks and gardens that are open to the public. Art in galleries is all owned by someone but many are free for public viewing. Everyone getting to enjoy the thing while the creator still gets paid sounds like an awesome future to me.
    - scubbo 5y ago
      Those things you have described are still exclusive in that the owner _could_ prevent public access if they chose to.
    - dragonwriter 5y ago
      > Why not? Because “ownership” is the right to exclusivity. > Plenty of people own parks and gardens that are open to the public You can choose not exercise the right to exclusivity (or to do so selectively), but if you don't have it, you don't own anything. > Everyone getting to enjoy the thing while the creator still gets paid sounds like an awesome future to me. Sure, patronage of public art can be great, but it's not ownership (except maybe “ownership” of an exclusive right to receive some defined form of credit for the patronage.)

chrisco255 5y ago

It's not DRM. It's token-based authentication. Are you against token-based authentication? Are you against Software-as-a-Service? Are you against membership-based organizations as a concept? Are you against board voting by stockholders? If you're not against these analogous concepts, why would you be against NFT-based versions of this? One difference with NFTs is you retain the right to resale and transfer at all times. Which is totally different than DRM. As for Proof of Stake, it's already live: https://ethereum.org/en/eth2/beacon-chain/ https://ethereum.org/en/eth2/beacon-chain/ It was shipped in December of 2020. The remaining component is the Merge, which merges the Proof-of-Work chain with the Proof-of-Stake chain: https://ethmerge.com/ https://ethmerge.com/ . That is coming this summer. The Ethereum community is almost 100% behind the merge, so it's highly unlikely that ETH forks over it, and even if one occurred, the forked chain would not succeed.

gizmo385 5y ago
> That is coming this summer. Hasn't that date been continuously pushed back? Like the parent you replied to, I'll believe when I see it. And regardless, the mining infrastructure spun up because of the gold rush on Ethereum isn't going away at thia point. Those miners will just move to different chains. And while proof of stake does partially minimize some of the environmental concerns, it introduces other problems that aren't great (like all of the power being systematically consolidated into the hands of early adopters and the wealthy).
- chrisco255 5y ago
  > Hasn't that date been continuously pushed back? Like the parent you replied to, I'll believe when I see it. And regardless, the mining infrastructure spun up because of the gold rush on Ethereum isn't going away at thia point. Those miners will just move to different chains. It's been pushed a few times. Like any complex technical upgrade with hundreds of billions of dollars worth of assets on the line, it has to be taken very carefully and has to be tested very thoroughly against numerous vectors. But there are live testnets of the Merge already, if you feel like testing it out: https://kintsugi.themerge.dev/ https://kintsugi.themerge.dev/ Please submit any bugs you find. > And while proof of stake does partially minimize some of the environmental concerns, it introduces other problems that aren't great (like all of the power being systematically consolidated into the hands of early adopters and the wealthy) Not here to get into PoW vs PoS debate. But its worth noting that Ethereum has hundreds of billions of dollars worth of non-native assets sitting on-chain. Many of these are protocols that didn't even exist 2 years ago. Anyone can create a whole new token on Ethereum that backs a new application and be their own early adopter. For a more philosophical deep dive on PoW vs PoS, see Vitalik's writing on this: https://vitalik.ca/general/2020/11/06/pos2020.html https://vitalik.ca/general/2020/11/06/pos2020.html
8note 5y ago
Isn't the authentication your private key? The nft would be authorization, which sounds a lot like digital rights management to me. The power is still with the record company to decide whether a sold copy is still valid
- chrisco255 5y ago
  Your private key would be used to sign a message that proves your public key. But your public key is all that's needed to validate which NFTs you own or whether you hold an NFT from a particular collection. > The nft would be authorization, which sounds a lot like digital rights management to me The NFT can be used as a token to access a particular service. But by no means is it anything like DRM. An NFT is recorded in a smart contract. The record of an NFT's purchase and transfer history is immutable and on-chain. It's not revokable by a record company if they sold it under some particular terms to begin with. At this point, however, it's far more likely that a music NFT has been produced and sold by the artist themselves, rather than a record label (3LAU https://nft.3lau.com/#/auction https://nft.3lau.com/#/auction), Euler Beats (https://eulerbeats.com/genesis/21575894274 https://eulerbeats.com/genesis/21575894274), RAC (https://rac.fm/nft https://rac.fm/nft) as some examples. That's part of the beauty of this system, though, in my mind. An artist can have a direct relationship with their fans and keep nearly 100% of the revenue. They may even focus on obtaining 1000 high dollar mega-fans rather than hoping for a billion plays on Spotify, for example. And that's going to be perfectly ok as a business model in Web3.

TimJRobinson 5y ago

NFTs can actually be the opposite of DRM. They are ownership without exclusivity. It is literally impossible to prevent piracy, but we still want people that create art/music/games to get paid - NFTs are the solution to this problem. The artist gets paid, fans get indie bragging rights, and everyone gets to enjoy the content.

gitgrump 5y ago
Why would I bother with an NFT when I can already effortlessly copy bits? Digital property is not physical property and I'm not sure why people are still so intent on shoehorning the characteristics of the latter into the former.
dragonwriter 5y ago
> NFTs are actually the opposite of DRM. They are ownership without exclusivity. Their is no ownership without exclusivity. (And NFTs are exclusive; they just happen to currently mostly be used as pointers to non-exclusive items with no other meaning, but there is nothing inherent in the technology restricting them to that use.)
- TimJRobinson 5y ago
  > Their is no ownership without exclusivity. Why not? Plenty of people own parks and gardens that are open to the public. Art in galleries is all owned by someone but many are free for public viewing. Everyone getting to enjoy the thing while the creator still gets paid sounds like an awesome future to me.
  - scubbo 5y ago
    Those things you have described are still exclusive in that the owner _could_ prevent public access if they chose to.
  - dragonwriter 5y ago
    > Why not? Because “ownership” is the right to exclusivity. > Plenty of people own parks and gardens that are open to the public You can choose not exercise the right to exclusivity (or to do so selectively), but if you don't have it, you don't own anything. > Everyone getting to enjoy the thing while the creator still gets paid sounds like an awesome future to me. Sure, patronage of public art can be great, but it's not ownership (except maybe “ownership” of an exclusive right to receive some defined form of credit for the patronage.)