Bitcoin Forum

I am not the technology expert, so I want to ask you. Since BitCoin solved the identity issue to provide for safe transactions which cannot be faked and introduced the idea of uniqueness to the Internet this way (where copying was the second nature), can Bitcoin help inforce the copyright law in the long term?

This is becoming a FAQ. The answer is no.

Edit:

• "identity theft" is actually identity fraud. Bitcoin solves this by ignoring Know Your Customer laws.
• Copying is encouraged by the Bitcoin protocol. The only thing that is not copied widely is the private key(s) used for spending Bitcoin
• Copyright was invented as a censorship tool in response to the invention of the printing press. We should consider abolishing it.

Historically, copyright is a fairly new concept.
In Shakespeare's era (for example) it was assumed that most creative works were inspired ("copied") from past efforts and the objective was to improve upon what had existed before. ~Source = "A book I saw at the library"

With software, the issue is not as simple:
1) Open Source is a great option and the products are often free to use.
2) Commercial software companies have the right to make money, and I think it is wrong to "steal" useful closed-source software.

This is a rather intriguing question for one to think about.  I think In some ways this could lead to other technologies with similar but very different uses in our society IMO.  You ask can this happen and I say yes I believe it can.  Will it however that is a different question but I could imagine it happening.

...

I am not sure I am answering the OP's question correctly, but I have been reading that there is enormous interest in using the Blockchain and other BTC technology to do other things:

-- notarize documents
-- form companies
-- copyrighting documents & photos ( I may have one I would like to try) *
-- other interesting uses I cannot remember now...

* Anyone who can help me copyright a photo (funny and sort-of true) please PM me.

This sort of attitude to copyright annoys me greatly, I can only assume you don't work in the creative arts and don't understand what censorship means.  An author is free to distribute their work as they see fit, with protection applied if they wish so that someone else doesn't rip it off as their own effort - how is this censorship?

To the question, yes, it seems on the surface that a "coin" with associated blockchain could be used to implement a proof-of-ownership (work) to enable unique, distributable copies of material.  

Informative:
A lack of copyright can be a good thing. For example, if you are a young musician and want to be famous, you could reach many people on piratebay.
Of course people want to make money, but there are many more ways to make money than selling discs  :)






 

Can't see how bitcoin's transactions could help copyright. Maybe by protecting files and stuff, like the datacoin intends to do? Use blockchains to protect copyrighted materials would be really a WOW discovery, at least as far as I know.


Crypto in general can and is used to protect stuff, but it always fail. Even the kindle is failable: you make a scripto to take a print sceen, flip the page, take another print screen, and so on, until you have a bunch of files you can turn into a djvu or try to extract the text from them.

Thank you for inputs, everybody. If someone can find more information about this, which I meant in the OP, I would be very grateful.

I am not supporting copyright in my question, I just wanted to know whether BitCoin could somehow destroy the freedom of Internet - Powerful weapons need to be properly handled.

Bitshares Music (google it up) is relevant in this regard.

The moral rights of the author for attribution and control over publication are independent of Copyright Law.

Censorship happens at the publication stage. Also, every time somebody refrains from building on what came before: over copyright concerns (in the case of Disney they appear to be trying to make mickey mouse a trademark as well).

For example, Apple's online store demands that authors produce exclusive content in order to reach their locked-in users (this is typical of DRM platforms). As a consequence, (Free and) Open Source Software is prohibited in the app store. The exclusive content does not have to be elaborate; but is a prohibition on the author from publishing work elsewhere. For example, the iTunes version of Alestorm's "Black Sails at Midnight" album includes "P is for Pirate". The (labeled) Official version on youtube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PM_Q7B2B568) is a drunken rendition. Though, in a related video, presumably ripped from iTunes, the uploader comments they appeared to be drunk in that version too.

In researching my reply, I came across a tangentially-related Wired article entitled: The Long Tail (http://archive.wired.com/wired/archive/12.10/tail.html). It explains why publishers are only interested in publishing "hits". It goes on to explain why "hits" make up for less than half the demand for media. The author suggests that publishers with well-curated collections may be able to compete with "free" (as in pirated copies of random quality).


I don't see how. You can prove an document existed at a certain date by: scanning it if necessary, hashing, and putting the result in the block-chain. However, that does not prove ownership. I can hash the works of Shakespeare and claim ownership if I really wanted to.

Here is an example of proof-of-existence: [CASASCIUS] 0.5 BTC coins: BTC 0.89 (incl. shipping, capsule, proof-of-age) (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=221343.0) Note that the owners can change several times without changing the proof of existence. Edit: The process is explained in this post (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=221343.msg2348107#msg2348107).

i dont see how bitcoin could really help with that because wat happens with the people that dont use bitcoin? its not that widly addapted.

This is not censorship, this is a company's commercial perogative to conduct their business as they wish.  It does not prevent that open source from being published.  Do you call it censorship if a store chooses not to stock a particular brand?  The morals of author ownership are worthless without strong law, and while it is certainly abused and overextended, it is a good law in my book that means the individual author is protected as much from a corporation as a corporation is protected from those individuals that want a free ride.



Good, discussion.  The hash would be on a copy of the works, not "the works".  You produce a piece of digital work and can digitally sign that it has been paid for.  Someone can confirm they are purchasing/aquiring a copy that legitimately reimbursed the author for their efforts.  This could work alongside open source possibly, not requiring expensive (3rd party) or difficult to administrate digital signatures?

Provable copyright and timestamp:

https://pay.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1zyvdt/dorians_lament/

Basically, he embedded the hash of a document in the blockchain with an OP_RETURN transaction, and then used the input address to prove he was the one who did that transaction, and was thus the owner of the material.  This gives ownership and timestamping proof... i.e. copyright.

The censorship arises because in order to enforce copyright protection via DRM, publishers collude with computing device manufacturers to take away control over those devices from citizens. They then lobby governments to pass laws to prevent citizens from taking back control over the devices they already own, under the guise of "anti circumvention". In the Apple example the censorship arises not because Apple may choose not to carry a title in their store, which of course is their right, but rather because Apple uses DRM to prevent their customers from obtaining content from another non Apple source.

The crucial item is that it is not content creators who are at risk here. In traditional publishing they get a very small fraction of the retail price for their work. In many cases well below 1%. So if a creator sells directly to the end user they can tolerate a large amount of "piracy" and still come out way ahead financially. The "piracy" in effect replaces the function of the publisher by promoting the work. It is publishers whose business models have been made obsolete by technology and try to turn back the clock to the late 19th century, (Distribution of music on an Edison cylinder or printed books via sailing ship for example.), by the use of DRM that are the problem here.

Bitcoin in this respect does help solve "the problem" by facilitating the sale of content by creators directly to end users, bypassing all the intervening rent seekers including of course Apple.

is  good ho ho ho

"Copyright was invented as a censorship tool in response to the invention of the printing press. We should consider abolishing it."

Well, now, that is an interesting approach to the protection of intellectual property rights.

My $.02.

;)

No it isn't, that is simply not true.