From: tcmay@netcom.com (Timothy C. May)
Date: Thu, 11 Feb 93 00:32:21 PST
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: Tagging copyrighted text
Message-ID: <9302110831.AA00835@netcom.netcom.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


ld231782@longs.lance.colostate.edu (I'd use his real name, but this is all
I can find here....why don't people sign their messages?) writes,
commenting on some stuff by Marc Ringuette:

>>Tim May and many of us argue that copyrights will become unenforceable 
>>as copying bits becomes cheaper and crypto privacy and anonymity becomes
>>more widely available.  This will mean that any static collection of
>>bits will just be FREE.  Musicians will have to make money on live
>>performances, because they couldn't sell many recordings.  Etc.
>
>Er, I'd say this is another instance of cypherpunk extremism: ``The

Er, Marc R. didn't say the world as we know it is about to collapse, nor
did I. (BTW, for you cypherpunks, most of this debate about intellectual
property rights took place recently over on the Extropians list.) But I
certainly think some big changes are coming.

>world as we know it is about to collapse.''  Yes, information will
>probably be much freer over the nets, and copyright violations probably
>more difficult to pursue and punish.  But think about this: with the
>speed and ubiquity of networks, it now becomes possible for every
>author or creative artist to keep the only copies of his work. Then, he
>could post "links" to it anywhere in the world. When people pass around
>the work, they wouldn't pass around the work itself, they'd pass the
>"link".  Whenever someone wants to view the work, the link points to
>the unchanging address for instantaneous downloading.  A very small

With music, art, text, or executable code, once it is available for
listening, viewing, reading, or running on the customer's system, it is
also available for copying. This is the whole point--if you can read the
text, you can keep a copy of it. You mention this, but dismiss it as
inconvenient. Well, a popular song may be simultaneously requested by tens
of thousands of listeners....it is hard to imagine the 14 Gigabits per
second (10,000 x CD-quality sound) coming out of someone's home or business
to supply this need! The situation is vastly worse with video, naturally.
(I suppose some "servers," like ftp sites, could be set up to deal with
especially popular movies and music...cumbersome, though. And, yes, fiber
optics can in theory support very high bandwidths, but still not enough to
supply the video rental biz. And this traffic will clog the nets and cause
lots of problems, I would think.)

>transaction charge is billed to the receiver by the sender. (Of course,
>people could write stuff that would actually grab and store the text or
>whatever instead of just "play" it. But I'll bet that most people will
>eventually say, "why bother?" The direct access will be more convenient
>and the charge so minimal.)  Links could be embedded wherever there is
>information, like in bibliographies or references or compilations or whatever.

I agree that hypertext-like embeddings offer some hope, for things like
text especially, as a reader is essentially buying the total package of
texts and links, rather than just some specific text. (But any specific
text becomes vulnerable to "snagging.")

>Hey, consider that programmers are artists too.  I write some hot
>program, but I don't distribute it: I run it on one of my systems as a
>sort of network pipe.  People anywhere in the world pipe in their data
>and get it back with a small transaction fee to me.  In fact, what I'm
.....

Even with much faster networks, remotely running programs introduces lags
and inconveniences, not to mention security problems (e.g., "Now you can
use _our_ word processor at _our_ site to write your love letters!"). If
nothing else, speed of light delays will become very irksome.

But I do agree that "knowledge servers" may be a way for corporate
knowledge to remain bottled up in corporations (for example).

-Tim

--

Timothy C. May               | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,  
tcmay@netcom.com        | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
408-688-5409               | knowledge, reputations, information markets, 
W.A.S.T.E.: Aptos, CA       | black markets, collapse of governments.
Higher Power: 2^756839 | Public Key: MailSafe and PGP available.