I’m not sure about that - look at twitter verified accounts they’re more like 99% accurate I reckon. Something like that to drill down to the ‘right person’ seems not impossible.
3 Likes
You are reversing reality. In reality it is the artist who is punished, not the customer and that is for a simple reason: As I explained the product of artists often consists out of two parts: innovation and production. With digitalization reproduction cost goes to ~nothing, but innovation costs are still there. In your example the artist is exerting “eternal power” and maybe even “punishes”…the wording is inappropirate. There wouldn´t be any problem if people buy pieces of art and sell them if they don´t like it anymore. Point is, that mostly they don´t sell but copy, which leads to an inflation ~ devaluation of the artwork which is reduced to a product.
Your point is also ahistoric:
This arguments is often made by people who are not artists. You somewhat suggest the time when people couldn´t easily copy music was just an exceptional moment and now things turned back to normal - the truth couldn´t be more far. Before people could record (anything) information was scarce. In bars or clubs it was exceptional to have music, today it isn´t. Instead of paying the artists people play dozens of records at a rate at which they couldn´t possibly afford to have one artist/month - but the artists still have to pay their rent. Income from copyright are tiny ammounts, but they sum up and are an important income without which basically any artist could live. Today even prominent musicians cannot afford to live on playing live music. The argument that artist should come back to their “core business” is as invalid as it is popular.
Elsewhere I explained that the problem often emerges when innovation costs cannot be charged because the price would be too high for one individual. There are two solutions of which only one is feasible in my opinion:
-
When creating a digital good, i.e. a digital picture, you charge a price, let´s say 1,000,000 Safecoin. Everytime the file gets used a reward is given to the author until the 1,000,000 is reached. (alternatively you charge a price that has to paid each time the file is used until the sum is reached - apparently that is not a feasible solution).
-
You crowdfund your result. After the campaign the content becomes public domain.
The first solution is most likely technically impossible, the 2nd option is imho the best alternative. However, crowdfunding always need a critical mass within a short period. In case this becomes the dominant method, art will turn short-range. There will be less time to unfold its potential.
A tip is NOT a payment and it has ANYTHING to do with the product, since you do not trade. It is a freely chosen sum given by a (patronizing) donator as general expression of goodwill. Asking artists to live a beggars life won´t sound appealing to any artist who has regular expenses which he can´t freely choose not to pay.
The assignement is done by and with reliance on central entities - that´s why you (and others) call it accurate. It´s impossible to implement this kind of assigment in a decentralized environment.
1 Like
I’m 258 years old so I have a pretty good perspective of history. I remember going from tavern to tavern playing my rock lute, getting paid in ale by the landlord and at the end of the night a bar wench would pass around a tip cup (which I’d then spend on further ale). This was my way of life for longer than I care to remember, and a happy life it was.
Then I noticed something unusual happening. People would stay at home listening to their gramophone recording of these so called artists who had no flair for the performance, or crowd work, but who were able to artificially capture a single performance and sell it over and over again whilst they sat at home admiring their ever growing pile of shillings.
I became keenly aware that my gifts just didn’t translate to this medium. Instead of being mad about the shift in the way things were I stepped it up, I added a little tap dance and pelvic shaking to my routine. I evolved. I knew I had no right to complain about the technological shift that came to pass. I had no right to demand to the universe ‘I am an artist, you must pay me’. I had to make something people wanted to pay for, just like every businessman. I knew the world was changing as it always would and I chose to carry on with my experimental rock lute instead of go do something else (which many of my friends who were in the same boat ultimately did). Thanks to the inclusion of the pelvic gyrations in particular I was able to sell out tavern after tavern and in the end saved up and brought a hugely expensive gold codpiece which I wear to this day, and is what I will eventually use as my retirement fund. I’m sad that artists who’ve been selling the modern day equivalent of grammar phones are being forced to adapt to a changing world, where their work is available for free, but the world is not always what we want it to be. If we learn to adapt though, perhaps all wear gold cod pieces and live happily ever after just like me.
5 Likes
“You reckon” means nothing.
A year ago you said:
Going forward the ‘first uploader’ of content (so presumably the rights holder) will be rewarded correctly, but every piece of ‘copyrighted’ content which exists at launch is going to be earning money for someone else.
Are we supposed to believe that only SAFE Network will work for authors, because… (insert some made up reasons prefixed with “I reckon”)?
Or, more likely, that you simply have no clue (even though you got 2 likes from other “experts”)?
Me 
Its a numbers game. No-one has solved this problem, it has spawned a very lucrative and increasingly oppressive and controlling industry around copyright enforcement for that reason.
We will be free of that on SAFE, but there will be a cost to artists. Because of it, being people who want artists to be able to create and support themselves to some degree (well many of us do), we’ll try various measures to help this.
I agree tipping doesn’t look promising to me, reward the uploader has massive holes etc etc. Regarding twitter authentication - is anyone aware of any cases where it has been subverted? I’m not, but even if it has, its pretty self evident that it is very reliable because the kind of accounts that are verified are ones that would quickly be outed because they are very popular identities.
So each scheme, though flawed may help, and providing ways for people to identify the true originator of work is certainly valid IMO. Whether by some service that claims to verify identities, or web of trust etc.
All systems in this area are likely to be gameable because no-one has solved this yet. That is life. Pointing and laughing all the time isn’t helping artists. It is much easier than coming up with constructive suggestions though.
1 Like
Hillarious fairy tale. As with every fairy tales it has not much (anything) to do with reality.
You´re right, let´s come up with constructive suggestions. What about NOT rewarding uploaders to prevent people creating surplus on the back of artists?
Paying the provider of content is the only way not to rip off content creators. When people are asked to pay for content they will look out carefully who they are paying and they (at least) rather pay those who actually worked for the result than those who are simply copying the content.
I agree and suspect content aggregation will continue regardless of a GET reward incentive.
Aggregator (Original) VS Aggregator (Re-upload)
Assume we do not implement the GET reward incentive. We could have 2 kinds of content aggregators. Then it will be up to the community to support one over the other.
The (Original) aggregator enables the community to support/verify/tip/donate the original content creator, using Safecoin. This pushes the original creator to the top of the search list if there are any imposters, using the same name/channel.
How will the community determine who is the original creator?
- The original creator can make a video/picture showing everyone their SAFE wallet address/channel/etc…
- The original will be the first-to-upload.
- The original would only have their content listed.
There are many ways for the community to find the original creator, they just need the tools to do it.
If the community follows the path of least resistance, why would they use the (Original) instead of the (Re-upload)?
- Some people want to engage the “real” content creator.
- The (Original) should be the first to Update/Upload.
- Ability to directly support the creator.
The key to success depends primarily on the community and what tools they have to support/verify the original content creators. I think “benign” aggregators are very useful in spreading content because they really want to support the original, in which case, they would credit/link the original.
1 Like
Given the right culture, any system can work. But what I think will happen is that most people will not care or even know that a fraction of Safecoin is redirected to the uploader of data. The average joe will use the aggregator that is the easiest to use regardless of anything else. I’m not saying aggregators are bad, they fill an important role, it just puts them in a situation of conflict of interest.
I wonder @dirvine, is the reward on get open for debates?
1 Like
Just a question, does the aggregator have links to the content of does it have its own copies.?
Are the copies direct copies of the original version put up by the artist (or whoever)?
The reason is that de-duplication may also come into play as well.
Good question!
Reuploading VS Linking
If the aggregator is paid on the GET request, they have an incentive to “reupload” the content, using their own watermark (Safecoin Wallet Address). I suspect they are making a different version of the file, avoiding deduplication.
If that is true, the reuploaded chunks earn for the aggregator. IMO, this aggregator is malignant.
But if the aggregator only “links” to the original file, then the GET payment goes to the original uploader. I consider these aggregators benign.
Obviously, linking is faster and cost almost nothing, while reuploading takes time and consumes PUT storage.
Question
Is it possible to create a file with a watermark, but when a 2nd watermark is added or tries to replace the original, the file gets corrupted. That would be really interesting, and means others cannot replace your original watermark. The only way to change it would be to have the original untainted file. I’m doubtful this will work as someone will reverse engineer the watermarking process…
1 Like
With the pay the creator/producer there is no watermark on the content. Only the chunk’s meta data has the pay address.
Thus as you said before if the file is linked the original uploader gets rewarded, if no change to content then the original uploader gets rewarded since the 2nd upload was de-duplicated and the only effect is that the new uploader pays the PUTs (see @dirvine posts on this) because the network does not tell the uploader de-duplication occurred.
Only if the file is modified (eg add a byte in first 1MB) is the new uploader rewarded.
I would have no issue with the aggregator who links or faithfully reuploads the original file. In fact they would be doing the original uploader (hopefully the artists are smart enough to upload their better versions) a favour in attracting more GETs on their content…
Honestly I see the “reward the producer/creator” as an incentive rather than a living wage. The artists need to be proactive and upload their good versions of their content and have additional content around their works that will earn them a lot extra. Since they are the first, I cannot see why people will use hit-n-miss pirate stuff.
2 Likes
…An incentive, exactly. An incentive for everyone to upload popular stuff and earn some bucks by the work of others. Your argumentation would make sense if every artist uploaded his*her stuff anyway, but aside from the fact that this will rather be about aggregators than about artists, this won’t happen. neither now, nor in the near and not even in the far future. Most artists are dependent on selling their goods. Even if SAFE sparks a new free culture (who knows?) there will be lots of people who dont want have their stuff hosted there.
We all know there is no way and no intent to prevent that, fine. But why would the system pay the uploader? If SAFE supposedly has value to creators why would you need to provide an incentive at all?
It’s so obvious what this reward will cause that I wonder whether it is intended: fill the network with interesting stuff no matter whether you are the creator or not - we’ll pay you. While the network itself will cause a negative backlash to many affected content creators, the information that the pirates are even REWARDED for doing so will take away all potential sympathies. A good way to devastate the slight chance of mainstream adoptance.
So again, why precisely is the incentive for uploaders (not creators) needed?
I agree.
Maidsafe is the Internet the way it was intended to be. Having some weird enforced pay the uploader rule across the entire Internet is a really bad idea. It’s economic tyranny, enforcing such a rule. There’s no need to go adding in unnecessary artificial economic rules. Security by default is more than enough of a feature. People can create their own websites on MaidSafe that reward the uploaders if they want. It should not be enforced Internet-wide.
1 Like
It may be worthwhile to approach this from an App-centric point of view. App devs get rewarded by how often their app is used. Apps are in the unique position to distribute data and at the same time get rewarded for that distribution even though they weren’t the original creators of that data.
What if content creators were able to upload files to the network under a private share and then give the App access to that private share? Or the App provides their public key under which the content creator encrypts their data, uploads it onto a public share, and the App can serve that decrypted file on a per-view basis.
In return, the App that was serving that data (movies, music, art) on a per-view basis could give a cut of their profit to the content creators on a royalty-like basis. That enables apps to act as producers of the media. To provide a platform with which to distribute that data and reward the content creators based on the popularity of that data.
That also could have the side effect of generating a competitive marketplace where the app that offered the most rewards would become temporarily popular until another app starts to offer a bigger percentage of their profits towards content creators at the same or similar platform quality. The free market is then in charge of which platforms get big, and which artists do as well.
EDIT: There’s no better watermark than encryption!
3 Likes
I agree, Safecoin is already a killer feature that will power a frictionless payment ecosystem. I think we would be much better serve if the energy was put on creating multitude of ways to pay for stuff like for exemple a platform for crowdfunding, patronage, shopping cart, escrow, subscriptions, ads, etc.
How? Where does the app decrypt that data? Locally? Then there’s no way to enforce payment. This can’t work without a server. Even then, the first pirate that pays for the content will upload it unencrypted and publicly on SAFE.
4 Likes
I agree reward the producer/uploader is not perfect, but I think it is still potentially worthwhile. I think we should look for better ways, but I’m not convinced removing it is better.
Doing so preserves the status quo, which I think is not good either. We are now in a digital communications age, where information costs virtually nothing to share, and that includes creative content. The problem is how to reward the creators without depriving almost all human beings of access to things that they could otherwise enjoy, and benefit from.
It’s About More Than Art
By the way, this is not just about entertainment, the same issue also pertains to sharing designs for 3d printing, software etc, so this is about utility, invention, and improving the lives of people all over the world, not just rewarding rights holders.
Who Are The Rights Holders?
Firstly, who are we talking about here? Take two extremes:
- those with clout: lots of popular content, revenue, access to lawyers, politicians, government enforcement etc
- small fry: enthusiastic amateurs, up and coming hopefuls, or long time pros who can make a living but not big money
Obviously there’s a spectrum here, but I think the above can help articulate our aims.
In terms of numbers, I think it is obvious that across the creative spectrum, far far more individual creatives are in the second category. There are less creatives in the former category (though still large numbers of them!), but at the same time there are lots of stakeholders involved in the high popularity/lots of revenue category.
Our approach to this question will be highly influenced by which of these groups we are most concerned with. I also expect that most people, though less so in this forum perhaps, think of this from the point of view of the first group, because it is their voice we hear most.
Personally I think the status quo works for the first category already, imperfectly sure, but hardly at all for the second category.
I also think that the arguments against pay the producer on this thread apply mostly to the first category. Frequent references to “popular content” for example.
One of the motives I have for supporting SAFE is to push back against the increasingly oppressive laws and practices of a copyright industry that cares far less about artists or users, or users freedoms and rights, or about humanity in general (and why should they), than about profit, and wishes to spy on us and limit what we can do with our computers, just so they can preserve an outdated business model that to me seems harmful to humanity, suppresses creativity by focussing on what is profitable rather than beneficial, shutting down scope for innovation, increases security risks etc. (If you don’t know what I’m talking about, go listen to some of the keynote speeches Cory Doctorow has given in 2014-2015).
Firstly, I don’t think the impact of pay the producer or not will be very great on the amount of popular content that is uploaded. The incentive is already there - people already upload all the most popular content even with risk of draconian penalties for doing so. Not having pay the producer will have little impact on the amount of this happening on SAFE. It just means that those trying to profit from it will use advertising (eugh - there’s another threat to humanity IMO) rather than have to compete with SAFE sites that don’t inflict this, but survive purely on pay the producer revenues.
So there’s another benefit - a major plus for me - advertising is no longer the only way to profit from uploaded content (legitimate or otherwise).
Who Benefits
Well the users and humanity might benefit in various ways if you consider the above, but what about the not yet popular creatives? What about the small fry? I think pay the producer was conceived with the majority in mind, those who are not popular enough to be worthwhile signing, promoting, giving a TV show, or frankly bootlegging.
I think it will be beneficial overall for this group, while for many it is easy to suggest, perhaps erroneously, that it will have a negative impact on those who are already very popular. Firstly, even though the benefit is small, it accrues to many and it does so without suppressing anyone, or controlling their computers, or shutting down creative possibilities. In fact it enhances all these.
So I suggest it could work, at least in a small way, for the vast majority who don’t ever become popular enough to be considered for selection by the big labels, channels, agents etc.
I also think, it could work for those who move from this category to become successful. It provides an alternative path to success that benefits the creative in various ways, and without suppressing the rights, freedoms, creativity or innovation of others, or depriving us of the benefits of that innovation. The future is sharing, and I think this is a part of that. Its a different model, so it is hard to know exactly how it will play out, and it is also hard to accept because it is a new paradigm - change!
For example. A little known musician is writing and performing songs and video and uploading to their own site (or an aggregator) on SAFE. Let’s say they get popular - either an overnight hit or through years of slog and word of mouth - their content is now popular and lives on SAFE. Firstly, they will get the pay the producer rewards from the initial rush. People at this point will start to bootleg their content, but they will have to compete with the original source, not easy.
Also, unlike artists who had to have the help of big corp (a label, a TV channel etc) to get popular, the musician that just published on SAFE has retained control over their creative output. Even when they became popular, they didn’t have to fork out for hosting on some big content delivery service, SAFE just cached the content and didn’t charge them anything from their earnings to cover the extra work of serving up their now very popular content.
Also, if people spotted this artist and did bootleg their content, they are part of what helped make the art popular, so perhaps they should be rewarded too. The artists own site and aggregated content will attract more GETs, but should they get all the rewards? Its a moot point, and no system can perfectly reward everyone. Life is not fair. Just take a look at the news if you get overly caught up (like me) in trying to make it so! For an example, consider Paulo Coehlo’s attitude to people pirating his books (here’s a summary)
I’ve not spent a lot of time thinking about this, and not necessarily argued the case that strongly at this point, but I think there is a lot more to pay the producer than has been explained on this thread, so I hope this post will broaden the debate a little.
I’m all for improvements on pay the producer, but I’m not convinced that removing it is a good idea.
5 Likes
Agreed, one way to consider the negative parts is, there is digital sharing, it will happen, we cannot stop it. However, future artists could upload and automatically get paid, same for the people who put up a great blog post or similar that they never knew would be valuable. Wikipedia etc. could pay for itself and more.
So yes I see a lot wrong when we look at this from an old way of working, but I do feel sometimes we need to say the horse has bolted on old stuff it is shared, however if the older artists did re-release higher quality songs/movies then this may work better.
I feel automatic (zero input) recondition may be a good thing. Interesting to see differing perspective though, that is what it’s all about.
6 Likes
It´s not about “old” and “future” artists. There will always be people who don´t want to put their stuff on SAFE. It obviously leads to exploitation and people making money from the work of others. To me this is literally showing the finger to those who are dependent on getting income from their artwork by saying : come to us, otherwise someone else will make money out of your work.
Re: Wikipedia to me is the best example NOT to reward uploaders of content. First off: Wikipedia always managed to live on donations and it does really well. It is non profit and doesn´t reward authors or moderators - most of the payments are used to sustain servers. In fact, if Wikipedia would use SAFE it would be much less dependent on donations (most of which are needed to run servers) without the need of any sort of reward. There is absolsutely no need to monetize on the content. People would pay for uploading, which leads to a fair distribution of the cost they are causing.
Besides: Quality work on Wikipedia cannot be estimated by volume and consumption. Most of the “hard” work on the Wikipedia is moderation, not content provision. Moderators wouldn´t profit at all from uploader rewards - quite the opposite: some people would run the most popular articles and edit them to get some reward and the moderators would have even more work. If at all, for Wikipedia it would make much more sense to reward authors based on community votes and distribution of community funds - you don´t need any automation for that.