Quote from: TPTB_need_war on February 05, 2016, 11:37:25 AM

Quote from: banano on February 04, 2016, 01:34:18 AM

Here's a cool example of a useful smart contract app

http://www.blocktech.com

using ipfs/bitcoin/ether/florincoin/etc.

I'd use it anyway.

Sorry but afaics that sucks.

I can't find any mention of how it uses Ethereum? Appears it is using Florincoin. If it is using Ethereum, that doesn't mean Ethereum can scale decentralized (which I have already explained it can't!).

Nevertheless, there are other flaws in this Alexandria project.

1. It is relying on IPFS, which is a decentralied file storage system. IPFS is interesting for orthogonal reasons (which I will discuss below), but there is an insoluble flaw of decentralized file storage in that copyrighted content illegally distributed without compensating the copyright owner, can't be forceably removed from all nodes, and thus the protocol ends up banned by hosts[1]. Not only is it economically and technologically unrealistic to fight the enforcement of copyrights by having users stand up their own nodes connected over asymmetric upload bandwidth of home ISPs[1], but it also deprives all of us of the Knowledge Age decentralized economic ecosystem and social networking we will need to implement the Knowledge Age devolution of the corporation (see the last link in [1]). Note it might be possible to design a decentralized file storage system that enforce removal orders and enforced per-per-download royalties to the copyright holder, it is impossible for these decisions to be made without centralizing the control over these decisions. I suppose one could dream up a design where all the nodes voted and reached a consensus about each copyright claim, and the participants would be motivated to do the right thing so as to avoid the protocol being banned/regulated by government, such a design is going to suffer from unbounded preemption and thus will need to use centralized trust, so it is right back to being centralized after all.

2. In the video for Alexandria, note how he pins the files to his local computer in order to attain free access. But as soon as he has done downloading, he can unpin and thus he has given nothing to the network if no one has downloaded the pinned files while he was downloading them. For this and other economic/marketing/technical reasons, the aims of this project are unrealistic and insoluble.

Regarding IPFS, I read some of the white paper and viewed some of the video presentation (which I highly recommend) and about 17 or 18 minute point it gets into the key points I want to share my analysis on. So I entirely agree with the creator of IPFS (Juan Benet) that resources should be referenced by hash rather than by URLs. As even he points out in his presentation, that is orthogonal to whether there is a decentralized protocol for storing these resources (and add my point that storing on home user's P2P servers such that copyright and royalties can't be enforced). And I entirely agree with him that we need a way to declare resources as immutable so they can be cached nearest to the use, which is needed both by offline use cases and to minimize redundant transfer of content (and Juan makes the astute point that bandwidth is not scaling as fast as storage nor CPU computation ... and I would draw the analogy to that the Scrypt paper also points out the same for RAM latency not scaling as fast as RAM storage and speed).

So how to we reconcile these needs and the issue of needing to enforce copyrights? We need a decentralized protocol because we don't want to rely on any one host or federated collusion of them (and also to wrap high availability and optimization in an algorithm/protocol versus inferior/non-interoperable adhoc solutions), and we need to record the copyright parameters in a block chain. But how can the block chain verifiers determine whose claim to a copyright is valid? I don't think there is an algorithmic way yet to determine for example if two songs are close enough (including for example in the case of musical content, DJ mix songs that resample other songs) in content to be a copyright violation? If there was, we could have a rule that the first person to sign a hash of content (and submit it to the block chain) is the copyright holder. But change even one bit of the content and the hash of the content changes. I believe there can be an algorithmic solution probably drawing from existing technologies that have not yet been applied to this problem. So then we'd need a way for the copyright holders of existing works which are already public (so any one could submit the hash to the block chain) to prepopulate their hashes on this block chain.

[1]

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1340057.msg13670558#msg13670558
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1344997.msg13730325#msg13730325
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1342065.msg13782055#msg13782055 (alternate copy: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=355212.msg13782246#msg13782246)

Quote from: TPTB_need_war on February 06, 2016, 10:04:32 AM

Quote from: TPTB_need_war on February 05, 2016, 11:37:25 AM

1. It is relying on IPFS, which is a decentralied file storage system. IPFS is interesting for orthogonal reasons (which I will discuss below), but there is an insoluble flaw of decentralized file storage in that copyrighted content illegally distributed without compensating the copyright owner, can't be forceably removed from all nodes, and thus the protocol ends up banned by hosts[1].

[...]

[1]

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1340057.msg13670558#msg13670558
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1344997.msg13730325#msg13730325
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1342065.msg13782055#msg13782055 (alternate copy: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=355212.msg13782246#msg13782246)

I received a reply from Juan Bennet (author of IPFS) and he referred me to the following:

Quote from: https://github.com/ipfs/faq/issues/47

IPFS has as a design requirement that nodes be able to only store and/or distribute content they explicitly want to store and/or distribute. This means that computers that run IPFS nodes do not have to host "other people's stuff", which is a very important thing when you consider that lots of content in the internet is -- in some for or other -- illegal under certain jurisdictions.
IPFS nodes will be able to express policies, and subscribe to network allow/denylists and policies that express content storage and distribution requirements. This way, users and groups can express what content should or should not be stored and/or distributed. This is required by users to (a) comply with legal constraints in their respective countries, (b) required by users with stricter codes of conduct (i.e. content that is legal but undesired by a group -- e.g. a childrens website).

Question and Answers:

Q: When I add content, what happens?
A: It is stored in your local node, and made available to other nodes in your network, via advertising it on the routing system (i.e. the IPFS-DHT). The content is not sent to other nodes until they explicitly request it, though of course some content may already exist in the system (content-addressing).

I don't see how that solves the problem that IPFS is a protocol that enables people to advertising the availability of illegal content on the DHT, and then illegal content can move to new ephemeral nodes, i.e. Whack-A-Mole. Thus authorities are eventually very likely to regulate Hosts and tell them that by running IPFS they are providing hosting for a DHT which routes illegal content. IPFS can infringe the millions of indie artists who struggle to earn an income.

Also as pointed out in that thread, then there is very low guarantee that any data is backed up by the system or that the other desired properties of content being cached closer those who need it will be achieved.

Decentralized file storage requires fungibility of data, but this can't be attained without BOTH a block chain for recording the policies of content owners and algorithms that automatically detect which content infringes other content.

Quote from: TPTB_need_war on February 06, 2016, 05:55:10 PM

Quote from: hv_ on February 06, 2016, 11:37:30 AM

Quote from: TPTB_need_war on February 06, 2016, 10:04:32 AM

[...]

Decentralized file storage requires fungibility of data, but this can't be attained without BOTH a block chain for recording the policies of content owners and algorithms that automatically detect which content infringes other content.

IPFS looks great - and yes, I see the legal aspect - but once the idea is there & great, I just imagine the hunting - but then there will be an IPFS_1, _2,.... and you need to close the internet.

Huh

Quote from: TPTB_need_war on February 05, 2016, 03:45:47 PM

And he will not also admit the following is why he incorrect about stealing content.

Governments are organizing now around controlling the internet. The illegal activity through Bittorrent (which also steals from ISPs which have higher upload bandwidth allowances) is helping the governments feel they are justified in regulating the internet via Net Neutrality and other measures. You young fellow feel free to pursue theft of music and other content which deprives the millions of artists of income to pay their rent. You are not going to create the new Knowledge Economy with your theft model. And by advocating theft, you are helping the NWO totalitarianism to take form by providing an economic incentive and political support from millions of artists who are violated by piracy. Dumb. But I expect that from you.

Quote from: TPTB_need_war on February 06, 2016, 11:38:53 PM

Kim.fat.com.idiot was a brilliant marketer

He tapped into the desire of millions of hackers/people to steal from themselves.

Quote from: myself in private messaging

> Fat.com.idiot is a roly-poly savvy marketer and we should partner with him

Anyone can be a good marketer if they create a site to help steal via Bittorrent and then charge a small commission on that activity.

Fat.com had his 10 minutes of criminal fame. Now will receive justice for his crimes.

> As to 'theft' and 'copyright' we are obviusly in disagreement - and let us leave it at that, no need for us to spend energy on that.

Huh Huh

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1350711.msg13796388#msg13796388
Quote from: TPTB_need_war on February 05, 2016, 03:45:47 PM
And he will not also admit the following is why he incorrect about stealing content.

Governments are organizing now around controlling the internet. The illegal activity through Bittorrent (which also steals from ISPs which have higher upload bandwidth allowances) is helping the governments feel they are justified in regulating the internet via Net Neutrality and other measures. You young fellow feel free to pursue theft of music and other content which deprives the millions of artists of income to pay their rent. You are not going to create the new Knowledge Economy with your theft model. And by advocating theft, you are helping the NWO totalitarianism to take form by providing an economic incentive and political support from millions of artists who are violated by piracy. Dumb. But I expect that from you.

Quote from: TPTB_need_war on February 07, 2016, 09:37:21 PM

Quote from: r0ach on February 07, 2016, 08:19:35 PM

Quote from: TPTB_need_war on February 05, 2016, 03:45:47 PM

You young fellow feel free to pursue theft of music and other content which deprives the millions of artists of income to pay their rent.

I view this in completely different terms. Before file sharing existed, people would record songs off the radio onto their tape cassettes. The music was already technically (but not legally) out in the public domain for anyone to hear, you were just bypassing the business model of ad supported revenue. The music was even being beamed at you via radio waves against your own will, yet there's probably plenty of obscure laws trying to govern whether you can or can't record it and what you can do with it.

We have a similar situation with ad blockers on websites. Their business model is starting to fail. To me, the whole situation with music is just the state trying to prop up an invalid business model. In the old days, entertainers were considered to have the lowest of social status possible. This is one of the initial reasons Nero was ridiculed as an emperor, because he wanted to be an actor and emperor at the same time. Even if entertainer's social status was garbage, they could still get paid doing it, they just had to do it through live performance. There was no "record thyself and make millions".

Modern civilization elevates these entertainers from the social status of garbage men, to basically higher than the president of the country in both fame and wealth. This is not to say they shouldn't get paid, but past history and current technology both point to the idea that they will likely be required to do so only through live performance. If you're saying it's the government's job to make sure their invalid business model is still able to make them mega-millionaires without even having to do live performance at all, then that would be an extreme left wing view.

I really read your rebuttal with an open mind, because if I am incorrect I will suffer immensely. So I am not writing the following based in what I want to believe, but rather based on my sober analysis of the facts. I am eager to read any rebuttal which can teach me why I am wrong.

First of all, distinguish SUPER STARS from the average indie musician earning couple of $100 a month, or the more successful indie or small label outfit earning just above the poverty line. The former number several dozens to maybe a few hundred (active) whereas the latter number in the 100,000s to millions (and maybe much more if they could earn a bit more).

Depriving indie musicians of a decent income (not even wealth!) to pay their rent and food is not the way to build a new age Knowledge Age economy wherein we creative people create things and sell them direct to each other instead of being slaves to corporations. If you are going to advocate stealing music, and since we are moving into a digital age where all work will be digitized, then let's advocate stealing everything then including 3D printer designs, commercial software, etc.. so that we will be reduced an economy valued only by physical raw materials and energy production so the bankers will own and control all value in economy. Yeah nice. Cry

Afaik, the reason artists were devalued throughout history was due to two facts:

Lack of abundance in the ancient economy which is required to produce a gift culture. The artists in a gift culture are on the receiving end of the gifts because they don't directly produce necessities of life that are thus in abundance in a gift culture.
Economies of yore have been capital intensive, economies-of-scale (e.g. Rome road building, post Dark Age agriculture, Industrial Age factories) thus artists contributed no useful labor to the capitalists. The point being that the capitalists were in control. But I have explained this all changes in Knowledge Age[1]

Why you not want to pay an insignificant tip to indie musicians so they can flourish and you don't have to view ads? We are now in an abundance economy. There is no excuse to not tip the indie artists.

Would you prefer to have massive unemployment and social welfare system that will sink us into a Dark Age?

Do you want all those unemployed artists on welfare to vote to steal your money with capital controls because the economy failed them?

Not everyone wants to be a programmer or what ever.

If you enjoy or listen to a song regularly, then is absolutely no financial reason you can justify for not tipping the creator a penny. You will only destroy society, the Knowledge Age, and yourself by being so selfish and myopic. Perhaps you could justify it for other reasons such as micropayments being a hassle and subscription being a lockin (to one provider) paradigm.

What might be more convincing to me, is to argue that those people who are going to steal (or who won't bother to find the music in official venues) will do it any way (or at least will have been exposed to the music thus potentially being another fan for the musician to sell a T-shirt to), thus arguing there is no economic incentive to prevent bootleg copies from appearing on decentralized file storage systems. And thus to argue that the business model that works is give away free the downloads, and sell the fans trinkets and live performances. Perhaps that is your point?

Afaics, SoundCloud was supposed to be offering that model and the musicians pay SoundCloud to offer the downloads for free. In return musicians could afaics promote their music and gain fans for example on their Facebook page and then sell the fans stuff such as T-shirts. But lately SoundCloud has started to limit apps to 15,000 plays per day, apps that play SoundCloud content aren't allowed to develop social networking type features, and SoundCloud disabled their Facebook embedded player (changed it to a link to SoundCloud's website) so that SoundCloud could drive ad revenues and/or synergies on their own site. Appears SoundCloud was being hammered by the RIAA with DCMA requests and SoundCloud caved in to the major record labels. Now Universal has accesse to delete any song from SoundCloud.

So one could argue that a decentralized file storage could provide the function SoundCloud was supposed to be offering.

Musicians like to get statistics on how many plays their song has. They like to get feedback on their songs. Etc.

If society decides to adopt the decentralized file storage and end copyrights, then I will adjust to it. But for the time being, it is not clear whether that is the best model for the indie artists and for our Knowledge Age future.

For example, it is not clear to me that I need 150 T-shirts, one each from each indie band I like. And then how do I tip them for new music they create if I already bought a T-shirt? I don't have time to go to live concerts and what if the band is not in my area. We are moving to global economy (check out songdew.com for music from India). Wouldn't it make more sense for my music organizer to tip them automatically based on my plays? So I don't have to hassle with it making sure I take care of the artists who provide my music that I love.

So you could argue okay, but no reason to not let others steal it if they really want to. Well maybe true, but in that case the decentralized file storage can coexist with the micropayment model.

Which outcome do you think is realistically the most likely and why?

[1]	https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=355212.0 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=355212.msg13761518#msg13761518 (see the "Edit:")

Quote from: TPTB_need_war on February 08, 2016, 10:09:51 AM

Quote from: ArticMine on February 08, 2016, 02:32:29 AM

The issue that is being ignored here is that when one pays for "legal" music the actual amount to goes to the artist is in most cases zero and in those cases where there is an actual net royalty to the artist *the very famous" artists it is a minuscule percentage. The bulk of the revenue goes the "music industry" which has been made obsolete by changing technology. Digital distribution of music is fundamentally different than pressing vinyl or even pressing CDs, in that there is minimal up front up capital required so there is no need for a capitalist to provide this capital. A simple pay what you want approach https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pay_what_you_want will yield the artist way more by eliminating parasites such as "the music industry" or Apple with its 30% big brother tax. Of course the gross is far less, but would you rather as an artist receive 95% of say 2 USD or 0.0001% of 20 USD?

The same is also the case with book / ebook publishers and authors, and the parasitic scientific publishing industry, vs scientists in University Industry or Government. These dying parasitic corporate players are causing a lot of damage with "technologies" such as DRM that attempt to protect "intellectual property". DRM and the attempt to protect "intellectual property" is among the greatest threats to civil liberties and individual freedom in most western counties. It is also the ultimate cause of a very significant and rising portion of China's greenhouse gas emissions.

Edit: One only has to compare the relative Developer ranking in https://www.coingecko.com/en of Monero 81 (Pay what you want) vs Ethereum 74 (Traditional capitalist IPO model). Z.cash is following the Ethereum model with its 11% pre-mine to fund the venture capitalists. Those pictures of spinning diamonds did not come cheap.

ArticMine, one of my points is we need to enable fans to pay musicians directly for music without a middleman taking most of it (ditto other digital creations perhaps such as video, but video is quite different from music in usage patterns). This what for example Bandcamp is doing (taking a 15% fee, although the credit card companies take another 5+%) and btw the CTO/co-founder Shawn Grunberger used to work in Tech support at Fractal Design when I was a Programmer and I interfaced with him on my own initiative as a liason. I even was the one who encouraged him to become a programmer and I remember he was telling me his idea for Bandcamp back then in 1995. So he finally did it. Congrats to him. Unfortunately he did not reply to my attempt to contact him, so they may find soon they have me as a competitor rather than as an ally. C'est la vie.

Bandcamp has a weakness in their model in that one can only sample a few of the songs for free. (Also I found their app navigation and music finding UI is poorly designed, as well no social features!) Sorry but that is why Bandcamp doesn't have the wide distribution and 150 million musicians that SoundCloud has.

You don't put a paywall in front of your users and expect to achieve popularity. That is a fundamental tenet of marketing and attrition minimization. Perhaps they understand the market better than me, which is why I am very interested in this discussion.

I forgot to make the point in reply to r0ach that FM radio quality audio could indeed be distributed for free by musicians and this wouldn't necessarily destroy the musicians' ability to sell higher quality versions of the same songs. So I don't agree with r0ach that FM radio set a precedent for theft, because I remember I used to buy $9 - $18 CDs even though I could record from the radio station (and that even before I become rich as programmer when I was just earning a typical income as young man working odd jobs). The FM radio will have the radio DJ/host or advertising talking/fading in at the start or end of a song, it will have equalization added, it is of lower quality, and the paid CD may have additionally remix versions. I had in my 20s some hundreds of CDs and 1000s of songs that I paid for. That is why I was really pissed off when I had to buy the same songs again when I lost my CD collection due to my turbulent/adventurous life of travails and travels, so then I reverted to using means of obtaining the music for free. But still I did pay $0.99 per song over recent years at Amazon for songs I couldn't locate easily for free. And I would not prefer converting songs from Youtubes versus spending 5 - 10 cents to pay a musician directly, know I'm getting the high quality original, and have it all organized for me and so I never have to pay again for the same song and I can never lose my collection again (I am so incredibly overloaded and have not even enough time to replace the blown cigarette lighter fuse on my car, meaning I am apt to lose my song collection again because I can't keep track of everything in my life)!

ArticMine, I never understood the model of having researchers pay to obtain white papers (other than as a legacy from when journals were printing on paper and physically distributed). Researchers are not funded by their cohorts buying their white papers. I don't understand your point about DRM? Please make your point more cogent?

Btw (and entirely tangential/orthogonal to the discussion I added above), I like greenhouse emissions. If I obtain more funds, I will upsize my SUV and perhaps get a few dozen Hummers so I can make more greenhouse gases. I'll eat more beans (for farts) and cows (for their farts) too if I get healthy. The anthropogenic global warming (climate change redux/goal post moving) fraud is junk science and deception. Anyone who mentions that I immediately classify them as a kook, delusional, and incapable of researching scientific fact vs. fiction. Sorry to bust your bubble, but we are headed into a Mini Ice Age.

Bobby Jimmy & The Critters - Somebody Farted