Is there a way to reward people for popular content?

47

This may be true but the process is changing. We are entering into the hyper connectivity phase now where people can be made a celebrity involuntarily. Radical transparency / lack of privacy means the media can have far more power than ever before.

I think it’s one of the worst times in human history to be famous and I think it’s also easier to become famous than any time in human history. That is of course another subject though.

About film students tending to be rich and white that can easily change. One way it can change is through crowd funding which would allow you to do some things that you couldn’t do before. Funding will not come from the same places and movies will not be produced in the same way.

I don’t know exactly how it’s going to play out but I do know it’s going to change.

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48

I definitely agree with this. Fame ≠ money, like it used to. That’s no more evident anywhere than in LA. You’ll end up at bars hanging out with an actor who’s “that guy, from that thing… what’s his name again?” He’s famous strictly by definition, but he’s not wealthy. He’s complaining at the same 8 dollar drink as me and lives with roommates in the valley. Same with the youtube celebs. It’s getting harder to market the celebrity brand, thank god.

Yeah, I hope this is true. The use of higher education is completely outbalanced by it’s cost. The only purpose it serves is networking and guidance/pressure. Having people around you making you push harder. The knowledge is (and should be) freely accessible.

I have a few issues with the crowdfunding model. The echo chamber effect, as well as people funding sensational ideas because its the only thing to go on. High concept sells on paper, but execution sells final products. No one would have funded The Heat (unless the star power was used to gain traction, haha). But it was a very well received, popular, and honestly pretty decent comedy. Some folks say make the script available, but I think that’s dangerous for most genres. Mysteries and thrillers for obvious reasons, and comedies because, well, read a script to your favorite comedies. They’re soooo bad because all of the success is in actor rapport, editing, and timing. The scripts barely readable.

That said, I also really like the crowdfunding model for other reasons. It lets communities get things rolling.

49

So then I wonder how you resolve this issue: If you’re pulling micropayments, how do I know it’s not going to pull my whole wallet from me? Bitcoin and cryptos moving forward are based on the predication that its a push, not pull, system. So maybe I set money aside for media in a media wallet. I guess it could just be an open-source playback system online that you can see isn’t going to just jack all of your money…

I wonder how difficult it would be to build a Netflix-style service into MaidSafe. Anyone have any experience in this? In video streaming, I mean.

50

Because you wouldn’t put more into the wallet than you would want to spend. I don’t understand what you mean by pull your whole wallet. You’re worried about a possible exploit via micropayments which I don’t think is technically feasible.

But if anyone more knowledgeable than me is here maybe they can straighten this out.

51

@russell and @luckybit

Great discussion, just re-skimmed and think you guys should keep going on this. You’re combined experience and ability to come up with new ideas could create something very impressive here.

I think there are going to be technical things to sort out, but don’t think you need worry about that. Not even “getting it into the core”. The alternative is an app which signs and manages the content, micropayments, and provides all the distribution features within SAFE. If anything does need to be in the core it can be added later.

The core should be as simple as possible, so unless essential I don’t think putting these things in the core is sensible or would stop people ripping content and distributing it for free. I don’t think that is really a problem either. Let them. Paulo Coehlo profits by sanctioning it, others will lose, overall the gains will be maximised and we all share in the collective creativity. We will need to keep ripping content below a damage threshold, but not by control. Smarter measures please, and micropayments is one.

Also, I don’t think we can or should try to stop people breaching copyright by uploading to the network. How could we possible do that? Who would do that? There is no Google here, just a bunch of people sharing their computer resources together.

Different Approaches Are Possible

Back in the days of audio tape it was just assumed that people would tape a lot of content instead of paying for it, and a blank tape levvy was used to compensate for this, arguably at dubiously high level. Never perfect but good enough. Personally I think the levvy was overdone. I don’t think I would have bought any more music if I had not been able to tape it. I still spent what I wanted to spend, but got access to more music because I was able to swap tapes with people. I probably got more into music and spent more on it than I would have otherwise. Some will spend more, others less. No-one really knows the impact of these things, but I’m always skeptical of the figures put out by vested interests.

So what to do?

Friction can help make this work. Make it easy, spread the cost, give enthusiasts opportunity, reward everyone (be inclusive). What can we do if people rip content and distribute it outside SAFE? Well, make it easier and better to do it in the SAFE app and incurr the micropayment for viewing, share in the micropayments from viewers who got access through your sharing.

If people rip content from the app and push it via SAFE they lose the opportunity to share in the micropayment they get for promoting it.

That’s just to illustrate the thinking I like, not intended as a solution. Back to you guys for that! :slight_smile:

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52

From my understanding there will be a 2 tier system - all content which currently exists will be able to be made available by ‘pirates’ who will ultimately be rewarded financially in safecoin. As far as I can tell there is no way to truly associate the true rights holder to their content for pre-existing material. Going forward it will be relatively simple that the first uploader of content will reap the rewards for popularity.

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53

The idea that people would incur a micro payment for viewing seems way too restricting and likely to encourage games. In a truly open system (one not based on needless amounts of scarcity) people would only ever pay when and if they wanted and exactly the amount the end user wanted free of seller or supplier influence. I think a pure buyer’s market should be the goal. I don’t think we would ever want any variant of sellers having price control, ever again. Pre-existing content can be voluntary (clicked for) micro payment in an escrow.

Over and over it seems the aim is to come up with suggestion that would preserve current revenue levels or allow cash-in or allow people to get rich quick. I think this is completely wrong and would destroy the potential of the network. The current internet is legendary for effecting a 100x revenue reductions and making the new replacement service provider well off for the displacement. To me the revenue reduction for current players would be even more aggressive. Its what happens when you tear down enclosure and replace it with function commons vice the over blown nonsense about tragedy of the commons. In a virtual environment with virtual wares there is no externality or waste where people can over use. It just gets rid of all the market will bear style nonsense, its an argument for parasitic profit based on profiting from restricting access.

So much of what cable and telecom are trying to do is reverse this 100x revenue reduction and repair info enclosure with sponsorship. We can have either open systems and transparency or lock down and the censorship, secrecy and spying and erosion of quality of life and rights that result.

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54

I disagree.

No one is feasibly going to create a system that stops people from distributing content without the creators consent. We’ve established that. There’s no way to do that without government force (a topic that’s been exhausted, so let’s not talk about it).

So, assuming that, why not create a system where buyers can choose a price for their content? If it’s going to be distributed-without-consent anyway, then it’s just a front-end suggestion, right? The hope here is that people will feel inclined to pay the creator instead of the person distributing her content without her consent.

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55

He’s dreaming… You remove just one bit from a compressed file format and it’ll be impossible to detect it’s the same content (not without additional computation like video or content analysis, which somebody would have to pay for, and why would they?).
To be honest I’m alarmed by the shreer number of “do gooders” on this forum and the support they seem to be enjoying. IMO this is very bearish for Maidsafecoin.

56

I know it’s an old thread but maybe you’ll find the following idea useful.

What if we used something like Factom to keep track who the original content creator was? The author would register the act of creation with Factom and only then start sharing their work through MaidSafe.

This way if a third party steals the content and starts their own unauthorized distribution the author is the only one who can prove s/he was the creator because there will be an irreversible entry with a timestamp proving this in the Factom database.
I know this will not stop unauthorized distribution but at least will give people who want to download the original content the option to do so. I believe that most people having a choice would choose to support the original creator even if that meant paying a bit more.
Of course there would have to be a trusted service which makes it all easy for the user but you will never have to trust it completely as you could always check the facts with Factom.
(Imagine a search engine that works like this: you type a title of a film and it gives you all existing search results but after checking it up with Factom also indicates which one is the original content)

In other words, we could use Factom like a decentralized a patent office.
(And I believe we don’t even need to use Factom as a similar mechanism could be implemented right inside MaidSafe)

57

Lol…we must be preferred to the “do-badders”…that alarm you are hearing is from your clock, telling you to Wake Up!.. :smiley:

58

It’s Factom needed for this? Content published can be watermarked to identify the creator, and the publication date plus watermark are unable proof of first upload.

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Okay I’m still reading this thread so forgive me if this has already been addressed but this just caught my attention and I just had to step in.

This assumption is just fundamenly wrong. Granted I’m sure there are pirates out there that copy material and then sell it. But the vast majority that I know of don’t. Most just copy it and use it. And not because we want to “make a buck” usually just because we believe said content should be free, or because it’s grossly overpriced, or it’s not worth paying for an album. I might download a Shania Twain album that I may or may not listen to every now and again. But I ******* well am not going to PAY for it. It’s not worth it. I might download a whole bundle of country music for my sister who loves it but I’m not going to pay for it. Again, not worth it, especially when neither of us could afford it in the first place. Which is another complication: a lot of people pirate simply because the asking price is too bloody high. $20 per album? Forget it. Even at a $1 per song on itunes or whatever that’s still too high. Maybe if it was $0.20 an album or there was some kind of subscription but I’m not giving up a third of a weeks grocery budget for a measily 10 or 20 mp3s.

Microsoft charges $400 bucks for their crappy OS. You think that’s not going to get pirated? Same with things like photoshop or Illistrator or Microsoft Office? Software that runs over $50 or $100 is going to be pirated not because people want to SELL IT but simply because it’s too bloody expensive to buy.

You seem to have this notion pirates pirate in order to make profit off sales. That’s simply not true. While it might be true for some it can’t be used as a generalization for all. Pirates pirate for political reasons, for financial reasons, they pirate out of sheer lazines sometimes. It’s cheaper and easier to go on google images and look up an image and download it than it is to look up the rights holder, contact them and ask permission to see if you can use their copyrighted image in your project. It’s easier to copy and paste a quote and stick it on an image than to ask for permission and worry about royalties. Seriously you aren’t taking quotepics and text into consideration here? You aren’t taking the teacher who downloads a copyrited picture for her students or all the people that like to post quote pics and poetry on their social networks into consideration? What about those that rip and mix movies to make AMVs and parodies? There are tons of songs I’ve never even heard of until I watched them in an AMV. (Lots of anime I hadn’t ever heard of either for that matter.) That’s marketing all thanks to artists who pirate, rip and remix.

There are many pirates who just want to give software away. Again this runs counter to your assumption that pirates are in it for profit. Sometimes it’s just about getting something working or creating somethng awesome.

While I admit many do want to make profit from their work I contend it’s not, nor should it, be the underlying motivation of all production.

I’d also like to point out that even if you have the original artist and some cheap copier and both need to be paid, if the copier has a wider selection and his coin is CHEAPER it’s more likely to be popular.

You are also assuming that making it possible to incentivize downloads and pirated software would make people WANT to do it. As I have said contrary to popular belief the motivation of pirates is often NOT to make money. Pirates are not paid to upload torrents nor are people paid to seed nor are people paid to download. They pirate because they want to provide a service, for free, and get good content out there. They could theoretically ask for money but they know no one in their right mind would pay them and that would entirely change their relationship with the person on the receiving end. I don’t know about the rest of you but I treat people asking for money ENTIRELY differently than people who don’t ask for money and who rely on donations.

If I wanted to distribute pirated content on your system I’d simply upload it and allow anyone to freely download it and simple ask people to buy my coin, not require it. I got the content free you can have it for free. And if people liked my stuff they’d buy my coin. I could do this for original content I created too. But my point here is that by not playing into tit for tat I entirely bugger your system as your entire set of assumptions is based on tit for tat quid pro quo and the idea that people want to require compensation for their work/content/whatever.

60

No, they don’t. You can get Windows 10 now for free (and it will remain free).

When price is too high, usually you don’t make a deal, you walk away. But you download it without paying, even though you say right here it’s worth approximately $0.2 an album. In the first instance (were you think the price is too high) you didn’t agree to make a deal, in the second (the seller thinks $0.2 is too cheap), they didn’t agree.
If either side disagrees, it’s not a fair deal, so your logic doesn’t make sense.
Either you think there is intellectual property (in which case the above is theft), or you don’t (in which case the price is merely a suggestion and thereby irrelevant since IP according to your opinion has no value).

61

Yeah that pretty much sums up my opinion of “intellectual property”. However unfortunately I’ve got to live with people that Do believe in intellectual property.

You can’t claim ownership of something that can be copied infinitely and therefore is not a scarce resource which is why the token idea makes more sense. You CAN copy content infinitely but you CANNOT copy the tokens which is why laying claim to the tokens and not the content makes sense. All IP does is tries ineffectively to create a scarce resource out of abundance: in short IP’s purpose is to create artificial scarcity.

Here’s the logic basically. After you have your file it costs a mouse click and a stack of discs, each probably worth less than $0.99 each to distribute it. That’s your production costs. Anything above that is what I think the music is actually worth. So for an entire CD I shouldn’t be paying much more than a dollar base line. Anything more than that should be up to me the listener as to it’s worth whether it’s good or bad. Same for movies. Would I be willing to pay/donate more if the quality is good? Maybe but if it’s bad? Or if I don’t listen to it much. No I don’t think so. What if the artist thinks that’s too cheap? Tough. They need to create better content to attract my attention and therefore my wallet. If it’s purely digital I shouldn’t have to pay a cent unless I think it’s worth it. Why? Because they aren’t delivering a scarce product. If a painter painted a picture and hung it in an art gallery there would be only one copy and they could charge money for it. If however that same painter took a photo of their painting and uploaded it they have now turned a scarce product into an abundant product. You can make as many copies as you like. So why pay? Now you ight still have to pay for the original but for the photo there’s no reason and totally up to the viewer as to if they believe it’s worth supporting the artist.

62

Okay, that’s clear, and I’m familiar with the concept.
There’s no “fair price” in that case, anything one may give to the author would be a gift or tip.

By the way, related to this topic, there are HTML5 players with built-in DRM now.
However that doesn’t make MaidSafe different from regular HTTP.

Also, in response to claims that MaidSafe users would reward content authors more generously than Web users - that’s just an assumption. While the majority MaidSafe users might be more enlightened than Web users there is also less (or maybe no) chance to get caught for IP violations, so in all likelihood the proliferation of pirated content should be more prevalent on MaidSafe than on the Web and that can also be observed in many comments on this forum.
(I am not saying who’s right and who’s wrong, just writing down my observations).

63

I don’t think that’s the reason why on SAFE people will get more tips/donations for prodiving content. I think it’ll be because the payment system will have the lowest possible friction. The effort of sending micropayments over the current internet isn’t worth the value of the micropayment itself.

For example, if I’m reading interesting articles on the internet and I see a PayPal donation button I don’t click it because going through that process is too much an interruption of my current activities. I don’t even want to be directed to another page, let alone enter a username/password that I might not remember.

Since SafeCoin is part of the SAFE core, I could mindlessly click on the micro-donation button as if I’m clicking a Like-button and resume my activities without interruption. Micro-donating as an impulsive action, in the heat of the moment, that’s what I’d like to have!

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You didn’t get my point. Pirates don’t hate artists they just want to survive. Most pirates are also fans. So if you give the fans a way to make money along with artists then they don’t have to compete with artists.

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Theft of what? It’s not possible to steal something which isn’t physical. You steal something and the other person loses something. Copying is what is going on here not stealing and we need to stop calling it stealing and treating it as if it’s physical.

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66

Are you waiving your right to sue me if I publish you private medical and financial info? Please let us know. Blindsite2k feel free to join.

Perhaps, but:

  1. the current prices aren’t micro prices. On sites where you’d like to micro-pay you mostly cannot, while on sites where people can pay, many claim the prices are bloated. I doubt the lack of cheap and convenient micro payments is why people don’t pay where they can,
  2. $0 is even more convenient than $0.2.

There are browser apps that enable auto micro-donations based purely on time spent on each site (when auto-pay is enabled). That way you don’t have to click, which is neat - assuming you set the max value per site per month and don’t spend time on sites you don’t want to reward. I didn’t check how much is donated that way, I think the sums must be pathetic.