DRM as a Smart Contract

[Tim May]

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