3 ms·

Have any companies played around with the idea of re-selling or trading digital licenses? For example, say a website has a bunch of music to download. If you ge

by tmh88j 15y ago

Have any companies played around with the idea of re-selling or trading digital licenses? For example, say a website has a bunch of music to download. If you get sick of one song, you can trade that license to another user for a song that they're willing to give up. This is probably the closest thing you'll have to "owning" it. You can sell a DVD to someone else, but as far as I know you can't do that with digital copies. I know licensing is an extremely complex field, I'm just curious if anything like this exists.

gee_totes 15y ago
Not to my knowledge, and that sounds like an interesting concept. The first slide of your pitch deck can be "Stubhub for DRM" :)
rickmb 15y ago
Not going to work for a very simple reason, regardless of the complexity of licensing: making a copy is easier. No registration, no licensing, no DRM, no intermediate, just you and the person that has a copy of the other song. The very essence of P2P. Yes, it's "illegal", but that's the whole point: it's only illegal because people thought that a model based on making copying illegal would work. It doesn't, at least not in the 21st century. No business model is going to fix that, "illegal" copying is here to stay. All we can do now is remove the "illegal" part and start finding entirely new business models that don't depend on such restrictions.
- tmh88j 15y ago
  >Not going to work for a very simple reason, regardless of the complexity of licensing: making a copy is easier. Itunes and Amazon Marketplace work so I don't see any reason why this couldn't. I'm not claiming it's pure gold (I agree that there are absurdly large barriers to cross), just arguing your reasoning as to why it won't work.
  - marquis 15y ago
    Itunes and Amazon work as long as you are the kind of person who deals with restrictions ok. How many times have I had non-technical friends come to me with their iPod and ask me how they can share music with another friend and be frustrated that it's not possible, I've lost count.
  - diego_moita 15y ago
    > Itunes and Amazon Marketplace work The study is about emerging economies. Itunes and Amazon Marketplace barely exist for them.

by tmh88j 15y ago

gee_totes 15y ago

Not to my knowledge, and that sounds like an interesting concept. The first slide of your pitch deck can be "Stubhub for DRM" :)

rickmb 15y ago

Not going to work for a very simple reason, regardless of the complexity of licensing: making a copy is easier. No registration, no licensing, no DRM, no intermediate, just you and the person that has a copy of the other song. The very essence of P2P. Yes, it's "illegal", but that's the whole point: it's only illegal because people thought that a model based on making copying illegal would work. It doesn't, at least not in the 21st century. No business model is going to fix that, "illegal" copying is here to stay. All we can do now is remove the "illegal" part and start finding entirely new business models that don't depend on such restrictions.

tmh88j 15y ago
>Not going to work for a very simple reason, regardless of the complexity of licensing: making a copy is easier. Itunes and Amazon Marketplace work so I don't see any reason why this couldn't. I'm not claiming it's pure gold (I agree that there are absurdly large barriers to cross), just arguing your reasoning as to why it won't work.
- marquis 15y ago
  Itunes and Amazon work as long as you are the kind of person who deals with restrictions ok. How many times have I had non-technical friends come to me with their iPod and ask me how they can share music with another friend and be frustrated that it's not possible, I've lost count.
- diego_moita 15y ago
  > Itunes and Amazon Marketplace work The study is about emerging economies. Itunes and Amazon Marketplace barely exist for them.