I was talking to a friend and fellow anarchist recently when I started telling him about DECENT, a new cryptocurrency I've been working with. It essentially allows for blockchain-based content ownership and distribution. Content stored on its P2P cloud network may optionally be made available only to paying consumers, either for trivially-small microtransactions or typical song/movie/other media prices.
Now, I'd like to start out by saying that DECENT is not a Steemit competitor. DECENT is more like YouTube, Netflix or Steam (the gaming platform), whereas Steemit functions more like Reddit or a social media platform. The only overlap is in text content, which DECENT also allows in any chosen format, but I think they're going to have very different audiences. I also work for NewsBTC, for example, but I'm also still here
My friend's real objection was with the idea of intellectual property, a concept which has been horribly abused by the mainstream music industry. When many anarchists hear "intellectual property," they think of high-powered lawyers suing teenagers for millions of dollars. As a long-time fan of the Pirate Bay, myself, I am totally sympathetic to that view, but DECENT is nothing like the RIAA.
The Non-Aggression Principle
The difference between DECENT and traditional intellectual property initiatives is that DECENT doesn't require a central authority for enforcement. There will be no lawyers or men with guns. Content on DECENT is encrypted, broken into pieces, and distributed randomly across the network, making it impossible to retrieve in its original form. If it's not free, it is accessible only to those with a valid private key (paying customers).
One could, of course, pay to acquire content and then copy it as it streamed to your computer. For text content, this would be easy, but quality will suffer for multimedia. In the far future, with interactive content like video games, that won't be possible, at all, as you could only record the output and not the game's logic and code, itself. Even if you could copy everything, there would never be serious conflict over who the original owner was, as it's recorded on the blockchain (which we all know is secure).
At worst, one person could claim another uploaded his or her content before he or she got the chance, but that's not an issue DECENT would ever get involved with, and it's something that already happens frequently, anyways. The DECENT Foundation that oversees development and promotion will never have any incentive to attack consumers or participate in such efforts, even if a glitch in the system occurs.
Basically, this is all voluntary. You can still put your music on the Pirate Bay, if you want. The traditional world of intellectual property is involuntary because distribution and advertising are controlled by media conglomerates, but with DECENT you do not require a middleman. You can directly record yourself as the original author of something on the DECENT blockchain--whether it's open source or proprietary--and if you choose to charge for accessing it, you will keep almost all of the revenue.
If you do start to find that your favorite content is harder for you to acquire, it will beg the question: what kinds of artists are you following? When I go on YouTube, if I find a song I used to like is no longer accessible, often times it just makes me think less of the band. As middlemen in the publishing industry are increasingly rendered obsolete, such reasoning will only become more valid. There are plenty of successful artists who already understand this paradigm shift.
I think that there will be many blockchains for verification of original work, which is good because that's decentralised.
I have not been on DECENT, or the other sites, nor am I big fan of IP, very good points and informative post.
DECENT stands for?
I don't think it was originally meant to be an acronym... I'm not much for names. The token itself is called DCT, though. It's not yet live on any exchanges
Since we're on the topic of IP, can someone explain how steem it fights plagiarism? What if I were a crappy writer and all I did was copy paste other people's work and put it up on steem? What's stopping me from copying this article itself and putting it up as my own?
There is currently no good way of stopping that on any platform, including Steemit. As a content producer, it's incumbent upon you to hash it and insert that hash into a blockchain as soon as you can.
when you told it about posts and news i think DECENT was a good idea but... what happens if you are an Artist or Professional Creator ?
¿Why you should pay to the government or a BIG CORP , taxes to protect your creation ? for text and news.... is too easy make an opinion but... ¿ what happens when you do a big project or great innovations, art pictures, new apps...etc ? Some people invent things that will change the direction of the world , or simply some things what milions of people will Love only with being seeing or are very useful, and they need to protect them to the clutches of the economical oportunists And projects like this will protect all valuable information from the clutches of opportunist tyrants, making a secure and indelible property on the author rights IS VERY IMPORTANT and ... projects like this will do it possible:
https://steemit.com/art/@rayandoelimi/are-you-an-artist-or-creator-check-this-is-for-you
Congratulations @sirwagginston! You received a personal award!
You can view your badges on your Steem Board and compare to others on the Steem Ranking
Vote for @Steemitboard as a witness to get one more award and increased upvotes!