Legal ramifications for PtD (Pay the Developer) feature in the SAFE protocol

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I’m not debating whether safecoin can go to zero. Only using it to explain that resources used to create a coin (or any other object to trade whether rocks or metal) is independent of it’s value. If someone creates an alt-coin and pre-mines all the coins, it is still worthless if no one wants to transact with it even if this person spent $10,000 in electricity mining the *hit. The coin only has value when it is transacted between two parties who recognizes that it has value. But we are in agreement here – if no one used the SAFE network then safecoin would be worth zero.

Since when? Since currency was first issued in human history. The Federal Reserve is not involved with my USD transaction when I purchase groceries or when I sell my car. One can argue they affect pricing because of the inflation caused by printing so much fiat. But in a transaction dispute in a court of law, the Federal Reserve and how it printed dollars does not come into play.

And even though SAFE created the coin, it does not have ownership because a thing cannot own a thing. A thing cannot be a legal entity in the court of law. Payment is also not recognized as a payment between a machine and a human. A machine can execute a payment on behalf of a human but can never be the originator. Using your gold example and assuming the mine is on property you own, then you own the gold. But if things can own things, one can argue that you did not create the gold. It was nature that did. So nature is the one who owns the gold. And since the state and federal governments are in charge of the country, the gold belongs to the state because that is the inherent intent of nature to give the governing body ownership of what it creates. See the absurdity this takes on when things can own things? That things can create things and be held responsible, liable, and has the ability to pay for that liability?

So who owns the safecoin when it is created by the network? Well, the SAFE network was created by the SAFE team and David Irvine because they are the ones who created the network and protocol in the first place. But they agreed to relinquish ownership by making it open source. So who then owns the safecoin? It’s those who bought MAID at the token sale who recognized that MAID held value and exchanged it for bitcoin or mastercoin and the private investors who supported David Irvine before the token sale. Then who owns the newly created safecoin? It’s the farmers because those on the network who own safecoin have agreed via the SAFE protocol as contract to give ownership of the new coin to the farmer after the farmer has proved they have provided storage and access for the current owners of safecoin.

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Follow the money. Where did you get your money? You either traded for it or you got it from the bank by taking out a loan. Fiat currency is created when people take out loans on stuff. It’s debt based money. So if you go to the bank to take out a loan to buy a car or whatever the bank agrees to exchange your debt for freshly created fiat money. And where to banks get their money? The Federal Reserve. P = P + I. Watch Money as Debt for a more detailed explaination.

Anyway the point I’m making is arguing that you own a portion of currency now does not mean you can say you own the currency in someone else’s wallet.

You the human being are not recognized under the law either. Only your legal person is recognized under the law. The law recognizes legal fictions and given that a corporation can gain a legal fiction I see no reason the SAFE network wouldn’t be able to gain one either. Also under which country’s jurisdiction would you try SAFE? SAFE is an international entity. It’s the internet. It has no servers, no centralized physical body, no nationality, no citizenship, no allegence of any kind. Who’s the say SAFE can’t be considered a legal entity. We’re writing history, and code as we speak. And code = law. Like currency, law is only valid if others opt to adopt it. But who is to say that SAFE, a decentralized autonomous network couldn’t be considered a legal entity. Ironic really considering that the goal is to get away from law. But if you want to argue such nonsense then why not?

Look what’s the point of having all these DAOs if you and people like you are going to argue they aren’t real entities and can’t really own anything? It’s ridiculous. Obviously they can because they do and they were created to do just that.

First off the mine is not autonomous and cannot issue currency and manage transactions or a whole network on it’s own. Second you’ve pretty much outlined how things are now. The state DOES own all of nature within it’s terretory. If you think you own property try not paying taxes and see how much you actually own. Taxes are your allegence payments to the king for the privilege of using his land. It hasn’t change since the bloody feudal age. I can’t believe you’re arguing this and perpetuating a feudal mentality that’s gone on for the last several thousand years. Yes DAOs can issue currency on their own. They can own currency because they are programmed to do so. He or it that creates owns.

As for nature being an entity, you know the First Nations and other ancient peoples that honored the earth used to do that. They respected and honored nature and only took what they needed, and were careful to replenish whatever they harvested from the earth. In short to put back whatever they took out. If we viewed the Earth as an entity deserving of respect with a finite amount of resources (Earthcoin anyone?) maybe we wouldn’t be in such an absolute environmental mess that we are now.

So because a “thing” cannot own a thing you’re going to distort the entire meaning of ownership and barter? So why can a human create something but a machine cannot? Create = Own. If you say a machine cannot own then you are arguing a machine can’t create.

Or better question. If a thing cannot own a thing then aren’t we all co-owners of the Earth and it’s natural resources? I mean a thing cannot own a thing so when did the earth transfer ownership to the first human that claimed it? Or even so aren’t we all invested in the Earth and environment? We breathe the air, drink the water, grow food from the earth, it seems to be a pretty heavy investment. Wouldn’t anyone being grossly negligent of the environment be then automatically held liable? Wouldn’t pumping out pollutants into the atmosphere or radiation into the sea or dumping trash into a river be considered a crime against all humanity? I mean we’re all shareholders right? See where the chain of logic goes when you say a thing cannot own a thing?

Look either the safe network is an entity and owns safecoin outright OR it’s a fancy decentralized vending machine. It recycles your safecoin every time you return them and pops new safecoin out in return for resources and you can use safecoin to order cloudspace resources. But saying it’s a vending machine doesn’t change the fact one can’t get in behind the glass and just grab all the safecoin for oneself. More to the point adding value to something doesn’t mean one created it. I can sell a Van Gough painting but does that mean I created it? No. I can buy or sell novels, buy low sell high, add value, does that mean I own a share in novels everywhere? No. What about marbles? What if I bought and sold marbles? Would that mean that my investment in marbles would mean I am a co-owner of marbles everywhere? No. But even if I was why marbles and not books? Or cheese sandwiches? A currency is nothing but an easily transferable and mutually agreeable tradable good. That’s it.

A rock cannot issue it’s own currency. A mine cannot mine itself or issue it’s own currency. A DAO like SAFE CAN in fact issue it’s own safecoin, send it to the user in exchange for resources and manage a variety of different tasks. If you give a rock a dolar does it give you something back? No it just sits there. If you give a mine a cheque does it care? No. It just sits there. But if you give the SAFE network safecoin or resources it responds. It reacts. And more to the point other DAOs will do the same. That’s why they’re called autonomous. Because they aren’t just objects waiting to be acting upon but rather reactive.

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Wrong. Fiat currency is created out of thin air by central banks then lent to member banks at their own lending rate. Then that money from the member banks is lent to other banks which in turn are lent to people who want to take out loans. It’s debt-based money because the central bank charges interest out of the currency it created.

Wrong. Everyone in the US is recognized under law by the Bill of Rights. Likely similar in other countries.

No clue how legal fiction applies to payments and creation of money. But one thing is for sure, the SAFE network cannot gain legal fiction like a corporation because a corporation is a legal entity and the SAFE network is excluding its human participants as we are arguing (i.e. a piece of software, a machine, a thing) is not.

Here’s the definition of legal entity with source:
An association, corporation, partnership, proprietorship, trust, or individual that has legal standing in the eyes of law. A legal entity has legal capacity to enter into agreements or contracts, assume obligations, incur and pay debts, sue and be sued in its own right, and to be held responsible for its actions.

Read more: http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/legal-entity.html#ixzz42zLCvbNF

Look up association, corporation, partnership, proprietorship, and trust; you’ll see a person or group of persons is behind each of these. The key phrases are “legal standing in the eyes of law” and “held responsible for its actions” which do not apply with the SAFE network without its participants but solely as a thing.

The US, Canada, the UK, most countries if not all in Europe, South America, Africa, etc. SAFE is not a legal entity without a person or group of persons held responsible for it. See definition above.

Wrong. Code is not law. Here’s a link to the definition of law.

A person has a choice to follow the law or break the law. If that person breaks the law, they will face punishment. Unfortunately, they will not be able to opt out of punishment.

Not arguing about this at all. But it does show the absurdity at where it can go when things owning things come into the argument which is my point.

A machine can create but it cannot own that creation. It’s the human who created the machine (assuming he wasn’t under contract for only his services and did not sell the machine and was free from any other contractual obligations) who owns anything created by the machine. A machine cannot own because of its inability to take responsibility in case something goes wrong and a law is broken. No court on this planet will prosecute a machine for a broken law. They will always trace it back to a person. How does one punish a machine beyond destroying it? Is that justice in the eyes of the person who was maimed by what it did or if it killed a loved one? No, a person is responsible and all punishment is defined in the laws for a person.

I hear ya man. It’s just that the courts will not.

According to law, SAFE is closer to the later – a fancy decentralized vending machine.

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Well actually he’s right. Central Bank doesn’t need to create anything. You deposit $100 at a bank, the bank can instantly create $500 worth of loans and still have a 20% reserve. They don’t need to go to the CB for anything.

http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/publications/Documents/quarterlybulletin/2014/qb14q1prereleasemoneycreation.pdf

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But the money supply did not increase in this example. Yes, the banks can create $500 loans from $100 – that is the fractional reserve system. This is leverage, not money creation because the money was already created when the bank borrowed the $400 from the central bank. They are still liable for the $100 if the borrower of the $500 cannot pay back and the $100 deposit cannot be withdrawn by the depositor. If the bank cannot pay the depositors, it’s insolvent and the central bank can decide whether or not to bail them out. If the bank is too big too fail, the central bank will likely bail the bank out by creating money (thus, increasing the money supply) and lending this to the failing bank. Otherwise, the central bank can choose not to lend it any more money and let it fail.

In short, only the central bank is allowed to create the fiat money and lend it out. Other banks must borrow in order to lend.

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Yes, seriously.

Not a single like on this OP.

People can try to argue against PtP (but it will still be tested out regardless) all they want, but trying to take it this far is downright wrong.

Glad everyone agrees, as shown by the likes on the first 2 posts of this thread.

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Wow that was a lot of heavy reading! All I can say is that under God’s law, I am free and clear. Under man’s law however…not so sure. If the Feds come knocking at my door to make an example out of me, I know @neo can’t be there to defend me bless his heart. I also know that whether I have is case or not is irrelevant so long as I can afford the best lawyers to defend me.

It seems that the one area most who posted here agree on is that there may be risks involved and I guess in life sometimes you have to take risks. @Blindsite2k has worked out a whole script to respond to the Feds if they come knocking. My script will be “I plead the 5th and I want to speak with my lawyer”.

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http://www.enotes.com/homework-help/what-differences-between-natural-law-positive-law-361838

Whether you believe natural law is derived from some divinity or from just nature and how things naturally work I think this applies here. SAFE can own currency because it obviously can, it does, it’s a matter of fact. To blindly say that SAFE cannot own currency when it can in fact do so is a gross and obvious attempt to usurp power from a sovereign entity.

As for money. Please watch this.

Here’s a video that explains things like trust law, jurisdiction, usufruct, etc. It’s Canadian law but shouldn’t be THAT much different from U.S. law. You should find the same basic concepts in the U.S.

David Irvine et all created Maidsafe. They granted use to us all via the GPL, they didn’t give up ownership, they granted use via a liscence agreement. GPL = General Public Liscence. So David = Parent and Maidsafe = Child. If you want to argue that a thing cannot own a thing then it’s a better analogy to use the parent and child analogy in that the parent has “responsibility” and the child does not have liability. But at no point did Maidsafe Co give up ownership of the SAFE network from a legal standpoint because from a legal standpoint it’s still connected via the patents and GPL. If someone wants to fork the network they still need to abide said patents and GPL or risk getting sued.

But in a practical ense David Irvine is releasing SAFE as an independent entity. Btw @dirvine please, correct me I’m saying anything incorrect here. I don’t mean to speak for you here. He’s sending it out into the wild. And given that SAFE was created by a human with the intention of being released as an independent entity why then does it not have the same rights as a human? It clearly can own currency since it was created specifically to do just that. If any human is to be named to be “owning currency” by proxie it would be David Irvine et all. But it’s been made clear that has been passed on to the network itself.

I’m one who’s partial to natural law. Gravity, physics, if you treat someone good they’ll naturally treat you good and if you treat them bad they’ll naturally treat you bad. That sort of thing. It’s not rocket science. It’s obvious the SAFE network can own currency. Saying it can’t in defiance of the facts seems absolutely ludicrous to me. It’s like saying the earth isn’t round even when you’re viewing it from orbit or have just taken a round the world trip.

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I’m for digital governance, that is correct. But I did not say “government” because that assumes only one and assumes it’s not voluntary. Governance means anyone can flow between many governing structures, with different rules, with different morals, and there could be exclusive structures, inclusive structures, meta structures.

The point is you have to order digital space in order to make it relevant, useful, valuable., You don’t have value in unstructured gibberish data. You don’t have meaning until people give it meaning.

People want curation, reputation, and governance. You might be a total anarchist who hates all forms of government and governance but that isn’t a common position even among anarchists. Most anarchists just don’t like the governments we have, or don’t think what we have is free enough, and these people you can cater to, but you still have to have some mechanism to allow like to associate with like, whether you want to call it a government, peer aggregation, preference aggregation, sentiment aggregation, the fact is people want to associate with networks and technologies which adapt to their preferences whether it’s moral or economic.

So to say you can have a network which doesn’t adapt to preference is to say you don’t want a complex adaptive system.

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Who said there only can be one app database?? That is like assuming there can only be one blockchain or one curation app or one app store. There can be an unlimited number and unlimited amount of permutations. This is the whole point of designing for evolvability, for flexibility, for adaptation and change.

SAFE Network did right to mimic nature in some ways but then messes up with PtP which is inflexible, doesn’t mimic nature, it’s one algorithm to rule them all, and it could end up being a disastrous choice, but with no way to vote that algorithm down or out, or to have multiple choices between algorithms, you end up stuck with a hard coded fixed in stone choice made from supreme geniuses which can only be changed by hard fork.

And it could end up being a situation like with Bitcoin with the block size debate. Sorry but I’d rather have a democratic process for algorithm selection or a market mechanism, than to have to either accept PtP or fork. We should simply let there be many competing algorithms and treat PtP as another smart contract. Abstraction is the answer because it leads to flexibility and adaptability. Nature might have favored forms but life favors the most adaptable.

PtP should be an app and should not be hard coded at the network layer. It should be nothing more than a smart contract which can be rated up or down, subject to the mechanisms of the market place for apps. As far as programming goes, I know C++ and several other languages and while I do not know Rust I’m pretty sure if I really had the time I could learn it. The point being is I think other projects offer better flexibility (Ethereum) and more choice for developers and for users, which means I favor the network with the most flexibility and better governance capabilities because I know these networks have to adapt to human society, human preferences, including local laws in local jurisdictions, including religion and social norms some of which I might not even agree with.

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The way you are describing “governance” does not describe governing or governance to me. That’s not governance that’s collaboration. There is no such thing as voluntary governance. If it was voluntary it wouldn’t be governance it would be collaboration and free association.

You know I think you might have a point there. Moreover there are security vunabilities about PtP that were discussed in the curation thread that have me concerned. So whether it’s legal or moral is debatable but I’m starting to doubt whether it’s practical or whether it indeed introduces weaknesses into the network itself.

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Exactly. I am talking about risk management, calculated smart risks. Not recklessness.

If the goal is to create a SAFE Network which can survive, evolve, adapt, then you have to put in governance structures at a toolkit level so people can organize appropriately for the situation at hand. Whether this is a DAO, or a DAC, or DCO, or automated company, or whatever it ends up being called, it’s going to have to co-exist with mainstream society which means it has to adapt to the preferences of mainstream society (not just fringe anarchists by the thousands).

You can accommodate both the fringe anarchists and the mainstream society at the same time on the same platform if you design it right. If you design it wrong then the platform will have it hard coded to be just for the most anarchist of the anarchists and the mainstream will not touch it, which of course will make the platform and even the technological type much easier to demonize as it will not have use cases for anyone except the people who are marginalized.

PtP is just not a good idea. It doesn’t take into account that preferences matter whether it be moral preferences or economic, they matter a lot. An entity, corporation, AI, or lifeform which cannot adapt to it’s surroundings does not survive. In order to adapt sometimes requires maintaining a good reputation and if the SAFE Network itself has a bad reputation then just like anything with a bad reputation it will have a much more difficult time surviving. So PR does matter very much, but to maintain decent PR just means to be willing to adapt to the needs of the user, the global user, the 7 billion+ users, not just adapt to early adopters or to the hardcore anarchist.

It’s only a success when every human can find utility in it which outweighs the risks or costs. Appeal to preferences and satisfy preferences to win.

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Governance as you are thinking about it is geostates. In digital space we don’t need to define territory by geogrpahy. In digital space we can define territory by mind space, by psychology, by morality, by ethics, ultimately by preferences.

So your border is based on what kind of network you’re willing to accept according to your preferences. Anyone can join you on your side of the border, or go to the other side. It’s fluid, it can be forked, different governance structures can compete in the market. I encourage you to look at Bitnation and Liquid Holarcracy. I also encourage you to look at the polystate model.

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You should check out what we’ve been working on over at the Bitlaw threads. I agree why base collaboration and associations based on geography? Why not on ideology, psychology and preferences. In meatspace it makes some sense, after all different geographical areas offer different physical challenges and propinquity is important but ultimately isn’t that what transportation and communication is for?

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In short, there’s a paper by the Central Bank of England that claims the same thing that Blindsite and I told you.
If you disagree, so be it. It makes no difference to me.

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Likes don’t make it right. It just says it’s agreeable with others.

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I will need to be more specific in the terminology I use. Instead of “money”, I should be using “currency”. I was using money synonymously with currency which is incorrect in the strictest sense. The focus here is currency such as USD and safecoin. Same goes with money supply. I am referring to only the currency component of M0, M1, M2, M3 – i.e. the currency supply. Only the central banks are authorized to create new currency.

This creation of “broad money” explanation also shows the accounting games the banks use to allow them to lever up even more as this quote shows, “Just as taking out a new loan creates money, the repayment of bank loans destroys money.” It’s the creation and destruction of debt/credit, not the creation nor the destruction of currency.

Here’s a good link on money supply measures M0, M1, M2, M3.

Click on the links M0, M2, M3 under “BREAKING DOWN ‘Money Supply’”. Interestingly, note the alternative names they give them – “narrow money”, “near money”, “near, near money”, etc. The authors of the article seem to take the definition of money even further and call it “broad money.”

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I am familiar with the M’s, but no matter how much you narrow it down (say, to M3), you can’t deny that if I term deposit $100 the bank can make a $500 loan to you right away, without having to raise any capital.
My M3 money becomes your M0 money. Your current account balance goes up by $500, and my $100 deposit is still $100 of M3.

Yesterday I had $100 in M0 cash, today I have $100 in M3 and you have $500 in M1 (or whatever) which you can even turn into cash should you want to withdraw that loan. $100 becomes $600 without the central bank…
But even if you spend it on Amazon.com, it still remains in circulation (the seller gets $500, he withdraws $50 and pays his supplier with the remainder, etc. The M0-M3 currency/money remains in the system as long as your debt is not extinguished.

Anyway, this has no legal ramifications for Pt(anything).

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Machines and robots may have human rights in the future with more AI. It is inevitable the discussion will happen. For now, I am concerned about the safety of SAFE users. I don’t want to be jailed not do I want anyone on this forum to be jailed and used as scapegoats or whipping boys for the NSA, FBI, etc., especially David Irvine and his team. We have to be extremely careful and do our due diligence with any potential gray areas in the law. Lawyers and especially policy makers love gray area because it gives them the opportunity to twist and spin existing laws in their favor. Gray area while parading the threat of terrorism, child porn, drug dealing, etc. gives authorities more ammunition and resolve and reasons to shut down noble efforts like SAFE. Look at all the legal *hit Apple is going through at the moment with the backdoor court order. Insane.

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Yeah, but we hoped this discussion would happen in the right topic :slight_smile:

Since asking for people to stay on topic doesn’t work, I might as well chip in and say I hope they don’t get human rights too soon. I need a sexy robot maid for my home, at least for a while, before they pass a law on human rights for robots.

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