[13213] in cryptography@c2.net mail archive
Re: DRM technology and policy
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (John Kelsey)
Tue May 6 12:12:48 2003
X-Original-To: cryptography@metzdowd.com
X-Original-To: cryptography@metzdowd.com
Date: Mon, 05 May 2003 23:28:50 -0400
To: EKR <ekr@rtfm.com>, Bill Frantz <frantz@pwpconsult.com>
From: John Kelsey <kelsey.j@ix.netcom.com>
Cc: Derek Atkins <derek@ihtfp.com>, cryptography@metzdowd.com
In-Reply-To: <kj65oyd27a.fsf@romeo.rtfm.com>
At 09:19 AM 4/28/03 -0700, Eric Rescorla wrote:
...
>I don't actually believe this. As far as I can tell, the SPP doesn't
>adequately address the free rider problem. Sure, I'd be willing to pay
>$5 (or whatever) to see a new Motorhead album released, but the
>probability that it's my $5 that pushes us over the limit is so low
>that it's a dominant strategy to simply wait for everyone else to
>pitch in. Of course, everyone can engage in the same reasoning,
>and that's the problem.
Yep. The SPP can be used as a way to enforce promises to release the work
when the payments are all made, but not as a way to solve the free-rider
problem. That basically has to be driven by people wanting to pay the
artist, just like it is for real street performers.
This kind of model does work for some things--public television and radio
stations get a lot of their money from voluntary contributions, street
musicians and musicians in coffee shops and such places often get tips,
etc. But it's clear that many kinds of work won't be produced when there's
no way to withhold the content until the payment is sent. It's not clear
to me how this affects the ultimate availability of music; easier
distribution (without a small number of companies sitting astride the
channels and demanding a cut) makes a lot more music available, but no way
to collect copyright payments makes a lot more musicians keep their day
jobs, instead of making music full time.
Also, as a sideline comment, I've heard the comment several times that Eric
Hughes independently came up with a bunch of the ideas in the SPP paper,
years before, to give credit where it's due. (And much of our purpose in
writing the paper was actually to point out the problems with copyright
enforcement schemes, more than to propose fixes.)
>-Ekr
--John Kelsey, kelsey.j@ix.netcom.com
PGP: FA48 3237 9AD5 30AC EEDD BBC8 2A80 6948 4CAA F259
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