[2018-04-20]How Blockchain Can Overcome Piracy Leaving Everyone Happy

[Vladdirescu87]

The issue of content piracy is probably the most frequently mentioned problem in today’s digital world. While often referred to as a victimless crime, piracy strips copyright holders of billions of dollars yearly.

While certain measures to tackle piracy are being introduced, such as torrent tracker bans and DRM, piracy doesn’t seem to go away. Such measures have been enforced for decades now without any substantial results, and we must begin to question their relevance. Moreover, studies show that anti-piracy measures are fundamentally flawed and do not address the issues that bring piracy about in the first place.

Read the details in the article of Coinidol dot com, the world blockchain news outlet: https://coinidol.com/blockchain-can-overcome-piracy/

[Carlton Banks]

Notice how the text talks about copyright's long list of failures. And not how blockchain can do anything to help.


Blockchain can't cure this problem. One can apply the model of private keys in a crypto system to all digital assets (or any information for that matter). And what do we say in Bitcoin? Keep your private keys absolutely as private as you possibly can, handle with extreme care. The instant you expose them somehow, consider the money gone.

And it's no different with any type of information: as soon as you release the information, you can't expect to keep it secret any more. It's blindingly self-evident, but plenty of people of got some blockchain snake-oil to sell you that will magically wipe hard disks of unauthorised copyrighted material, and magically leave the paid-for copies intact.

[FrueGreads]

Notice how the text talks about copyright's long list of failures. And not how blockchain can do anything to help.

Well, I agree when you say that blockchain can't solve the problem, but it can provide easy access to media content legally. The first part of the article is quite accurate in my own experience. I have a hard time finding legal ways to watch some TV series and movies. In some cases I could, but I would need to pay for a complete service, when I would just want to watch one particular movie, or TV show, instead of all the others that the private channels in my country offer. Apple and Netflix help a little, but it's still not good enough. So if some blockchain service, ends up offering paid access to just the media you want to consume, and for a good price (or even for free, if you think about advertisers), then a lot of users wouldn't probably end up downloading illegal content.

[hatshepsut93]

The issue of content piracy is probably the most frequently mentioned problem in today’s digital world. While often referred to as a victimless crime, piracy strips copyright holders of billions of dollars yearly.

I don't think that this issue is the most mentioned or the most important, I feel like people talk much more about privacy, with the recent controversies about Facebook and other companies. Other hot topics are Net Neutrality and Russian hackers/trolls. Also, I don't think that copyright holders are losing that much money - most people pirate because simply can't afford to buy, since they live in poor countries.

So if some blockchain service, ends up offering paid access to just the media you want to consume, and for a good price (or even for free, if you think about advertisers), then a lot of users wouldn't probably end up downloading illegal content.

I don't see how exactly blockchain solves anything in this field. I've heard that some companies want to use it for DRM to track every single digital item they sell, but this have always been done via serial keys, and it didn't stop piracy. You can always hear about startups promising to bring blockchain to some industry and solve all problems, but you never hear them explaining in detail how they will achieve it.

[entrepmind23]

If someone wanted to watch a show that is unavailable in his country then he would be force to use any means necessary to obtain it and most likely it would be illegal. As what the research shows, 60% of the pirates are still the one who spends the most legally because they are just force to pirate it since they have no access to it. Accessibility is the issue here so if blockchain is use then the producer of that movie/film would be paid legally.

If the movie or series is worth watching then the viewers wouldn't mind paying unless they cannot afford it. Piracy wouldn't be totally eliminated because there would always be people who would like something for free but at least it can be reduce by using blockchain. If a coin is use in paying then it would be better compared to using fiat because not everyone can have debit/credit card but any one can have coins.

[Carlton Banks]

So if some blockchain service, ends up offering paid access to just the media you want to consume, and for a good price (or even for free, if you think about advertisers), then a lot of users wouldn't probably end up downloading illegal content.

Explain how using a blockchain to serve media content can possibly solve piracy in a different way than if a regular streaming service were to simply making prices lower or allowing pay per view (pay per view already exists on, say, vimeo.com).

Accessibility is the issue here so if blockchain is use then the producer of that movie/film would be paid legally.

Explain how using a blockchain to serve media content can possibly solve accessibility in a different way than if a regular streaming service were to make distribution deals so that all content is available in all regions. How could using a blockchain help secure distribution rights in places where they cannot now?


After that all that, I'll explain about how much more expensive it would be to serve media content from a blockchain instead of just using web servers.

[FrueGreads]

So if some blockchain service, ends up offering paid access to just the media you want to consume, and for a good price (or even for free, if you think about advertisers), then a lot of users wouldn't probably end up downloading illegal content.

Explain how using a blockchain to serve media content can possibly solve piracy in a different way than if a regular streaming service were to simply making prices lower or allowing pay per view (pay per view already exists on, say, vimeo.com).

Like I said, I agree with you. It doesn't fix anything, but it could help, because of the service it provides.
As for the service itself, and from a consumer point of view it wouldn't be any different from a regular streaming service. Yes, there would probably be a coin associated with the platform, but nothing really special there, as for a consumer, just a way to "pay per view" the content would be enough, and they probably wouldn't care if they were paying with crypto or fiat.

I do think that for the content creator (either a team, or a individual), being able to share their content in a decentralized platform could help for the normal reasons usually associated to blockchain. No need for a middle man (like Apple on iTunes for example), so this would probably mean bigger gains for them.

Also, and I'm not sure if this is possible though, I guess that getting the content just available in that platform could probably help as well. Of course that anyone would probably just record it, as they do in theater movies, so no real advantages there. Although I do think that piracy gets easier when the content gets available on other media formats like DVD, Blue ray, etc. Don't really know what kind of media sources pirates recur to, in order to make the content available illegally on torrents, etc, but maybe something could be done here as well.