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Comment by simias | Hacker News Reader

NFTs are just a few bytes in a distributed database, they absolutely do not solve these issues. The PlayStation store would still do content delivery and could simply refuse to do so, NFT or no NFT.

You could do content delivery in a decentralized manner (like, say, through IPFS) but then how do you enforce than only the NFT owners can watch the movie? The database is public, anybody can just look up the NFT and find what URL it points towards. You could "right click" the movie, so to speak.

NFTs are a really, really, really dumb concept, even by cryptocurrency/blockchain standards. Any use of NFTs for right management would require a proprietary, trusted, black-box player to enforce the DRM. If you use a proprietary, trusted, black-box player what's the point of using an NFT in the first place?

It's a CD key with extra steps.

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I don't think you understood my post. I am not proposing a way to replicate PlayStation store with NFTs - and restrict access to the media files based on who purchases the NFT. I am proposing a new model that does not rely on limiting access in order to fund the production of artistic media.

I suggest you read the two posts in full that I linked, as it might make this a little clearer.

Donations, swags and limited editions existed before NFTs, they did not suddenly get studios to create content under the public domain.

NFTs are not a new economic model. I'm not sure what they are, but they definitely don't solve this.

I have no opinion for/against NFTs for various use cases, but I will say this:

If you don't understand what something is ("I'm not sure what they are"), then I don't think you can go around telling people what they do/don't solve ("they definitely don't solve this").

We'd be better off sharing opinions about things we do have knowledge about, rather than guessing. And if we do guess, make it clear it's just a guess.

Ironically, if you yourself knew more about the domain, you would realize the person you’re responding to is correct.

There's a lot of things we don't understand and have useful opinions on.

I have unknown pieces of electronics I have no idea what they do, but can be sure it won't be part of my diner.

I also don't know much about NFTs but fully assume they don't solve font subpixel smoothing.

It's a turn of phrase.

I know how NFTs work, I know how people use them, I don't think it's useful for the things people use it for and I don't know what it might be useful for, though I don't reject the idea it might be useful for something.

NFT is not a donation or swag. It may be closer to a stock option or share in an organization or idea.

None of this is likely to sway massive Hollywood studios. But it may present a new economic model for some independent creators to get paid directly by consumers and fans to produce and distribute work - musicians, artists, filmmakers. See Camp Chaos example. Another example: the filmmakers behind sci-fi film Prospect (2018 - budget of $4M) are now exploring NFT and web3 models for their next production, we will see how successful it is when or if it is finished in a couple years.

> It may be closer to a stock option or share in an organization or idea.

It has nothing in common with either of those. It is am ownable token with some data, usually a URL, attached

It it doesn't give you any sort of ownership of the underlying work unless actual legal contracts, licenses, etc, exist to grant those rights to the holder. It absolutely is nothing at all like owning a stock option, share or idea.

So a NTF would not have allowed you to do anything here. Sony would still be required to remove movies from the URLs your NTFs point to and you would be the proud owner of worthless NFTs.

The needed change is legal, not technical. We need laws that protect consumers.

It sounds like you're suggesting using and nft as an access token or proof of purchase.

As the previous person said, even if a platform is a distribution point the content still needs to be hosted somewhere and that costs money for storage and transfer. Who pays for that? Studios won't, so then you might think everything would need to be centralised, but then the legal elements would prevent that being created easily, licencing, trust and security would be an issue etc.

Creative content like a film, regardless of who created it, generally gets distributed and adapted for a market at a territorial level with fees being paid to the owner by the local distributor. Nft is a idealistic idea but too removed from reality to be workable.

I am not suggesting a model where revenue is built on restricting access to media. I will just link to Camp Chaos article again[1] which is free to listen to[2].

[1] https://www.billboard.com/pro/camp-chaos-songcamp-nfts-50-pe...

[2] https://chaos.build/

That is not technically possible without a centralized authority, as smart contracts cannot hold secrets (ie DRM decryption keys for media).

If there is a centralized authority, the same risk still exists that they can tell you to FOAD like Sony has here.

There is no need to hold secrets - the economic model is not based on restricting access to media.

The songs are distributed DRM-free on IPFS which is peer-to-peer[1]. It remains to be seen how well Camp Chaos and its fans are able to host and pin this into the future as the media storage requirements are heavy - but that is an economic rather than technical discussion.

[1] ipfs://QmYRTuAA61E2kM9izfS13qk8JXTeKPYDWXvtHqqTykwQ7F/Act%202%20Band%201%20-%20Walls.wav

Or listen via CloudFlare, ipfs.io or another gateway:

https://cloudflare-ipfs.com/ipfs/QmYRTuAA61E2kM9izfS13qk8JXT...

If the songs are publicly distributed DRM-free, then the whole licensing scheme is superfluous. The discussion is about media that is not distributed for free.

The discussion stems from my original post [1] presenting the idea of a new economic model for media that is free - production and distribution isn’t reliant on restricting access to only purchasers.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32011346

Oh yeah I just latched onto a portion of your comment that was suitable for my soapboxing, I didn't mean to sound adversarial.

But more generally I don't think there's a good technical solution to this problem. You'll never "own" Iron Man, Star Wars or The Godfather in a true sense, only a license which gives you some rights. Even when you bought physical media you weren't allowed to do many things, such as public viewings for instance. Not because of a technical issue, but a legal one.

I don't think there is a "true sense" of ownership - the term is contextual. You can purchase and "own" an art print, vinyl record, or book even though you don't own the intellectual property rights of that copyrighted material. In the context of blockchains - ownership means having the private key to a public address associated with a token ID.

Camp Chaos and various creative-commons NFT projects are interesting because they generate revenue on the work without having to enforce strict licensing and IP agreements. Users are not buying these tokens to claim "licensing ownership" but "blockchain ownership."

You're asking for the complete end to the economic artistic system. Who would impose the end of that system, since corporations will naturally steer toward the most profitable distribution system, which is inconceivable to be what you're proposing unless there is muscled intervention to force everyone to switch to it.

What? This isn’t ending the system - it is proposing a new model that some creators and consumers can use to avoid some of the problems in current model.

DRM is a centralized proprietary thing by definition. It's nonsense to have open distributed NFT database for DRM. Why don't break the DRM if it's open?

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