Re: Copyright commerce and the street musician protocol

[Steve Schear <steve@lvdi.net>]

>Comments?  This is clearly not all that new, but I've never
>seen it in a crypto context from anyone but me.

The first somewhat serious treatment of this I saw was Hughes's DEFCON IV
presentation entitled, I believe, "Universal Piracy System."   The first
part proposed an Eternity-like system to anonymously publish information
which was compatible with most Web index engines.

In the second part, Eric predicted that because of the Net's economics and
anonymous mailing and publication potential copyrights were on their way
out.  He acknowledged that some workable method of artist compensation was
still needed and proposed the movie industry as a possible model.  In this
scenario a multi-level money collection and product distribution scheme
would be supported by artist reputation and completion bonds.

--Steve

(Esther Dyson is a supporter of alternative publication economics, and I've
heard Eric's approach.)