DRM as a Smart Contract

[Mike Rosing]

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