4 ms·

Digital ownership seems like a wonderful use case for blockchain technology, and it baffles me that there hasn't been a DRM company yet that's jumped on this id

Digital ownership seems like a wonderful use case for blockchain technology, and it baffles me that there hasn't been a DRM company yet that's jumped on this idea.

mcmcdtx 3y ago
I keep seeing things that seem like they would be good uses for blockchain security and then I remember that all the investment in that space has gone into trying to print money.
mfer 3y ago
I think there is a misconception. Most of the time you don't own the digital asset. This is an intentional quirk around money, contracts, etc. You have the right to use it in the present form through the platform as long as the platform has a contract with the IP owner to enable that. For this to change there either needs to be incentive for the platform and IP owners or there needs to be legal changes to require it. Also, blockchain means that anyone who has your ID can know you entire catalog of ownership. This removes privacy.
ForkMeOnTinder 3y ago
Putting digital ownership on a blockchain would mean enabling a secondary marketplace. Why would any big media company ever want to allow that?
- Goronmon 3y ago
  Why would any big media company ever want to allow that? Not even "big media companies". Why would even say, an indie game developer, want to have a secondary marketplace where there games are sold?
  - ajsnigrutin 3y ago
    Why would a consumer want a game, that they can't even resell? Imagine the same applied to phones, cars, houses, etc? Should the governments (=laws and regulations) be protecting a few media houses or millions of consumers?
    - nlawalker 3y ago
      > Why would a consumer want a game, that they can't even resell? Because it's less valuable than one that could be resold, and thus should be obtainable more cheaply. What goes unsaid in all these threads is that people don't just want "ownership", they want it for the same price that they're currently getting whatever it is they're getting today. The inability to resell or lend something is priced in; the market has established that people will pay $x for a license to access something that they can't lend or resell. Gabe Newell once said "piracy is not a pricing issue, it’s a service issue", but it's not, it's a value issue. The reason content providers don't provide the service people want is because they know no one would pay the price at which they would consider offering it, so they don't bother.
      - PawgerZ 3y ago
        > The inability to resell or lend something is priced in Why are the physical versions of games the exact same price as the digital version? Shouldn't the digital version be much cheaper because you can't copy, lend, or resell it? Ditto for all forms of media
        nlawalker 3y ago
        The digital version is also substantially more convenient than the physical version. > copy Crucially, most retail physical media is not copyable (by most people). If it were, the market landscape would look very different.
        johnnyanmac 3y ago
        Probably due to pricing parity agreed upon by physical retailers. You're right in that they should be cheaper, but Walmart/Gamestop et al. were smart enough to negotiate that early on in digital distribution. For the same reason, many early Steam releases was not beholden to this and thus cheaper. Nowadays, there's enough market capture that they can simply charge the same amount due to greed, though. But there are early reasons for that.
Goronmon 3y ago
Digital ownership seems like a wonderful use case for blockchain technology, and it baffles me that there hasn't been a DRM company yet that's jumped on this idea. Why would any content creator (outside of those specifically pushing it on idealogical grounds) want to lose control over the distribution of their content by using blockchain and cloud storage technologies?
freejazz 3y ago
Because it's actually not. The issue isn't the record keeping, they license because they can.
Ekaros 3y ago
I hear about this all the time, but how is the hard side that is content delivery solved? It is really not about ownership, but delivery or then unlocking the local copy? Which gets pretty messy with enforcement and so on...

Digital ownership seems like a wonderful use case for blockchain technology, and it baffles me that there hasn't been a DRM company yet that's jumped on this idea.

mcmcdtx 3y ago

I keep seeing things that seem like they would be good uses for blockchain security and then I remember that all the investment in that space has gone into trying to print money.

mfer 3y ago

I think there is a misconception. Most of the time you don't own the digital asset. This is an intentional quirk around money, contracts, etc. You have the right to use it in the present form through the platform as long as the platform has a contract with the IP owner to enable that. For this to change there either needs to be incentive for the platform and IP owners or there needs to be legal changes to require it. Also, blockchain means that anyone who has your ID can know you entire catalog of ownership. This removes privacy.

ForkMeOnTinder 3y ago

Putting digital ownership on a blockchain would mean enabling a secondary marketplace. Why would any big media company ever want to allow that?

Goronmon 3y ago
Why would any big media company ever want to allow that? Not even "big media companies". Why would even say, an indie game developer, want to have a secondary marketplace where there games are sold?
- ajsnigrutin 3y ago
  Why would a consumer want a game, that they can't even resell? Imagine the same applied to phones, cars, houses, etc? Should the governments (=laws and regulations) be protecting a few media houses or millions of consumers?
  - nlawalker 3y ago
    > Why would a consumer want a game, that they can't even resell? Because it's less valuable than one that could be resold, and thus should be obtainable more cheaply. What goes unsaid in all these threads is that people don't just want "ownership", they want it for the same price that they're currently getting whatever it is they're getting today. The inability to resell or lend something is priced in; the market has established that people will pay $x for a license to access something that they can't lend or resell. Gabe Newell once said "piracy is not a pricing issue, it’s a service issue", but it's not, it's a value issue. The reason content providers don't provide the service people want is because they know no one would pay the price at which they would consider offering it, so they don't bother.
    - PawgerZ 3y ago
      > The inability to resell or lend something is priced in Why are the physical versions of games the exact same price as the digital version? Shouldn't the digital version be much cheaper because you can't copy, lend, or resell it? Ditto for all forms of media
      - nlawalker 3y ago
        The digital version is also substantially more convenient than the physical version. > copy Crucially, most retail physical media is not copyable (by most people). If it were, the market landscape would look very different.
      - johnnyanmac 3y ago
        Probably due to pricing parity agreed upon by physical retailers. You're right in that they should be cheaper, but Walmart/Gamestop et al. were smart enough to negotiate that early on in digital distribution. For the same reason, many early Steam releases was not beholden to this and thus cheaper. Nowadays, there's enough market capture that they can simply charge the same amount due to greed, though. But there are early reasons for that.

Goronmon 3y ago

Digital ownership seems like a wonderful use case for blockchain technology, and it baffles me that there hasn't been a DRM company yet that's jumped on this idea. Why would any content creator (outside of those specifically pushing it on idealogical grounds) want to lose control over the distribution of their content by using blockchain and cloud storage technologies?

freejazz 3y ago

Because it's actually not. The issue isn't the record keeping, they license because they can.

Ekaros 3y ago

I hear about this all the time, but how is the hard side that is content delivery solved? It is really not about ownership, but delivery or then unlocking the local copy? Which gets pretty messy with enforcement and so on...