Nick Szabo created the idea of Smart Contracts several years ago. http://www.best.com/~szabo. These would be self-enforcing agreements that were based on technology rather than laws. It all sounded cool at the time. But isn't DRM a form of Smart Contract? If I need a special viewer to download some content, and that viewer enforces the terms of the contract which allows me to do the download, that enforcement happens without any laws. It is all handled by the technology. It's a Smart Contract. It's interesting how ideas can sound good until you realize that they won't let you take other people's creative output without their consent. Maybe it's time for cypherpunks to put principle over greed.
-- On 8 Jul 2002 at 1:51, Anonymous wrote:
Nick Szabo created the idea of Smart Contracts several years ago. http://www.best.com/~szabo. These would be self-enforcing agreements that were based on technology rather than laws. It all sounded cool at the time.
But isn't DRM a form of Smart Contract? If I need a special viewer to download some content, and that viewer enforces the terms of the contract which allows me to do the download, that enforcement happens without any laws. It is all handled by the technology. It's a Smart Contract.
Voluntary DRM is indeed a form of smart contract, If there was no pressure from the content industry, if copyright and patent law was not expanding lawlessly and corruptly, in defiance of technological trends, it would not worry me. If the smarts were in a dongle that that you attached to your USB port, or in a program that you could run or not run, it would not worry me. The trouble is that this idea looks as the a stalking horse for the policeman inside your computer. The history of this idea is as follows: The entertainment industry proposed and lobbied for an proposal to stop ordinary consumers to from having any more real computers. They wanted legislation, the SSSCA which would prohibit consumers from buying computers that could be programmed to do whatever the programmer desired. The computer industry went ballistic, foreseeing that customers would refuse to "upgrade" to these new, crippled, computers, and the proposal appears dead in the water. However it is the nature of businessmen to always try to make a deal, so any such conflict will be followed by some attempt to make a settlement with the entertainment industry, and palladium/DRM seems to be such a settlement. On the one hand, if the DRM is truly voluntary, it will not hurt upgrade sales, so the computer industry genuinely wants DRM to be truly voluntary, just as claimed. On the other hand, if DRM computers are acceptable to the masses, and are usually run in DRM mode, then IF they are widely accepted, the computer industry could accept a law mandating involuntary DRM in all new computers without losing sales. Thus DRM represents a marketing feeler -- it represents the computer industry trying to see to what extent it can make computers acceptable to the content industry without making them unacceptable to the user. --digsig James A. Donald 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG Fj1T7cM+dvYj4GMSBURIK+ul0L/XR5VWtbl9sy9W 2xMtrLIAKzh9iwHyUsHVLaWYcMGUbl0BDKb4uVHAf
On Sunday, July 7, 2002, at 04:51 PM, Anonymous wrote:
Nick Szabo created the idea of Smart Contracts several years ago. http://www.best.com/~szabo. These would be self-enforcing agreements that were based on technology rather than laws. It all sounded cool at the time.
But isn't DRM a form of Smart Contract? If I need a special viewer to download some content, and that viewer enforces the terms of the contract which allows me to do the download, that enforcement happens without any laws. It is all handled by the technology. It's a Smart Contract.
It's a technologically-enforced contract with a specific machine, not with a person, corporation, or other entity. I wouldn't call this a "smart contract," as if it were something new, because processor ID and "per seat" software seats have been around for a long, long time. (Others have mentioned what Sun has had, and I will mention that the Symbolics Lisp Machines I worked with in the mid-80s had processor IDs on the motherboards which software licenses for expensive software (KEE, the Knowledge Engineering Environment, from Intellicorp) could and did check. And if this infrastructure is mandated by government, it becomes a lot more than a variation on dongles.
It's interesting how ideas can sound good until you realize that they won't let you take other people's creative output without their consent. Maybe it's time for cypherpunks to put principle over greed.
"Put principle over greed"?! What makes you think this list is involved in Microsoft's scheme? --Tim May ""Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are ruined." --Patrick Henry
At 07:51 PM 7/7/02, you wrote:
Nick Szabo created the idea of Smart Contracts several years ago. http://www.best.com/~szabo. These would be self-enforcing agreements that were based on technology rather than laws. It all sounded cool at the time.
But isn't DRM a form of Smart Contract? If I need a special viewer to download some content, and that viewer enforces the terms of the contract which allows me to do the download, that enforcement happens without any laws. It is all handled by the technology. It's a Smart Contract.
It's interesting how ideas can sound good until you realize that they won't let you take other people's creative output without their consent. Maybe it's time for cypherpunks to put principle over greed.
If a large set of content providers adopt, as a cartel, a specific, single form of smart contract that requires the same specific form of hardware that they approve, and such adoption freezes out non-approved hardware from maintaining commercial scale, then questions of monopoly and collusion arise, and the question of greed seems to shine strongest on the cartel, in my view. Regardless, to look at the entertainment industry and cypherpunks as a group, some might suspect the greater greed is not among the cypherpunks. The largest single cost was distribution. Digital communications can make that essentially free. When may we expect a price reduction that parallels the cost reduction? Or are they greedy?
Anonymous joked:
Maybe it's time for cypherpunks to put principle over greed.
and On Sun, 7 Jul 2002, Ed Stone wrote:
If a large set of content providers adopt, as a cartel, a specific, single form of smart contract that requires the same specific form of hardware that they approve, and such adoption freezes out non-approved hardware from maintaining commercial scale, then questions of monopoly and collusion arise, and the question of greed seems to shine strongest on the cartel, in my view.
Regardless, to look at the entertainment industry and cypherpunks as a group, some might suspect the greater greed is not among the cypherpunks. The largest single cost was distribution. Digital communications can make that essentially free. When may we expect a price reduction that parallels the cost reduction? Or are they greedy?
Greedy might be an understatement :-) Really amazingly stupid is more like it. The entertainment industry should be bought out by the Bell's, and then the telco's can resume control of *all* com-links. They won't need DRM since they'll own all the data and the pipes it goes thru. If the entertainment industry wants safe platforms, they can sell them. If you buy one, you should expect it's going to have some specific limited uses. I don't think there's any problem with that. I've got a problem with it being mandated, and I've told my congress critters so. With luck, they'll listen. All those guys can be as greedy as they want. If they don't deliver a product, they got no sales to begin with. For lots of "content creators", the net bypasses the greedy guys. I don't see that going away too soon. Patience, persistence, truth, Dr. mike
participants (5)
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Anonymous -
Ed Stone -
jamesd＠echeque.com -
Mike Rosing -
Tim May