strike out madly in every direction - kill more innocent people (and maybe one or two guilty ones) - and this will somehow make the situation *better*??
and then get ready to bend over and accept anal probes round the clock, and total police surviellance so that we can protect ourselves from terrorism?
neither of these approaches will have the slightest effect on the real causes of all this horror.
americans need to stop and take a good look at how much they are hated for supporting terrorism all over the world for decades. read noam chomsky for christ's sake - or ask the east timorese, or the guatemalans, chileans, etc. etc. whose children and grandparents and lovers have been blown to bits or tortured by people trained, managed, and fucking paid for by the complacent taxpayers of the USA.
the question is, how can we restore the world to balance?
If our response is just about revenge, then we're in for a great bloodbath, to make the wars of the 20th century look a parlor game - but haven't we already explored this option? can't we move on to something a little more mature?
like for starters, can we back off on driving 9-10ths of the world into poverty to meet the draconian demands of bankers - didn't jesus warn us about those creeps?
this is a wake-up call - the last chance to ask ourselves why the world is in such turmoil. is it all really just about money? religion? what is the big fucking problem that we can't work out people?
NO - we haven't "been through this" - we don't have micropayments yet, remember. It's all just smoke-blowing and hand-waving until we do. I think you're referring to Clay Shirky's "case against micropayments" (it's up on the O'reilly site somewhere) which makes this point. Which, despite my respect for some of his other ideas, seems singularly mistaken. Do you feel anxious about going into a produce market and picking your own apples out of the barrel, or do you need to have your groceries chosen for you? The point is that some things are appropriate for "all-you-can-eat" aggregation, and other things aren't. My big fear for the network system you suggest is that we'll end up with the same dubious interests deciding who has access to this network, and how the "subscription fees" are distributed. (try a google search on "music industry dubious accounting")
The "music industry" used to be in the business of distributing music - now it's in the business of preventing music from being distributed.
Of course they're also in the business of promoting music, stimulating popularity by bombarding the public with a tiny subset of the music being made at any given time. Popular taste is largely circular - something is popular because it's familiar, and familiar because it's popular.
How to break this cycle? Even though the billboard 100 may represent the aggregate tastes of the population, it doesn't represent individual tastes very well. Charts like that don't mean much to me, I want to see a chart in which only the opinions of people whose tastes resemble mine are taken into consideration. This could be achieved by a rating or "voting" system in which individuals are encouraged to promote their favorites - as long as all of this data remains publicly available, it may be cross-referenced to create personalized pop charts, in which one's own favorites are ranked together with material which may be unfamiliar, yet rated highly by individuals with similar tastes.
One problem to be overcome is the privacy implications of such a public rating system. We suggest that we apply the principle of the secret ballot to this system, in effect creating a democratic "info-commons" in which opinions are published without being "linkable" to real identities.
Another problem is the difficulty of ensuring that these charts are not susceptible to spamming or other forms of manipulation or abuse. A simple means to discourage frivolous or malicious "voting" would be to associate a small, but real cost to the process. We propose a micropayment of 1 penny per vote, to be split evenly between the "ratee" (ie. the creator of the book, song, movie being rated) and the *previous raters*. In this way we provide anti-spam "friction" on the abuse of the system, which at the same time providing an economic "traction" that encourages and rewards creators and grassroots promoters alike.
The "potlatch protocol" itself is an attempt to establish an open-source aggregated micropayment system which will facilitate this process. Basically it goes like this: in order for one's votes to "count" in some meaningful way, one must make a contribution to the system to "back them up." For eg. after making 1000 votes (possibly by listening to 1000 tracks on a music player with "potlatch mode" enabled) one would have to make a $10.00 payment into the system. The initial "0.1" draft protocol (http://potlatch.net/protocol.01.html) presumed that third-party aggregators would be necessary to mediate such transactions. However, it clearly doesn't matter who I pay, as long as it can be verified that I've paid *somebody* who has it coming. For eg. if I'm $10 down, I need to pay someone, anyone, who is $10 up and wants to cash out. In fact, it doesn't need to be cash - if I find someone who wants something that I've got and is willing to say it's worth $10 (eg. a book, cd, etc) then that would work too, in other words barter systems could be built on this. The key here is the ability to independently verify that a payment has been made, which involves a bit of fancy crypto footwork that will need to be worked out in more detail.
The point is to establish a peer-to-peer payment and promotion system that is free, open, and publicly owned, in perpetuity. Without something like this, the corporate stranglehold on popular culture will only continue to get stronger, more concentrated, and more corrupt. Anyone out there want to help us build this thing? comments welcome: dinsdale(at)potlatch(dot)net
what's to prevent Nike or Coca Cola from taking your music and sell their brand with it?
that's a double-plus barf-out in my books. enought to kill the idea dead. In fact, the first time this happens, it will.
oh well, back to the old drawing board...
well actually most bands get most of their money from signing bonuses and advances. And perhaps merchandise, if they were lucky enough to retain those rights. The chance of actually seeing any money beyond this is slight - even for big stars. Witness Courtney Love's lawsuit, TLC's bankruptcy, etc. (and it's been going on for a long time - listen to Moneygoround by the Kinks, which should be the marching song for those folks trying to start a musicians union.)
The only way forward for music as an art form and as a cultural force (other than as a purely commercial product) is to give control of music back to the musicians. The EFF licence is well-intentioned, but it concentrates on the perspective of the audience, and we need to establish a creative partnership between artists and audiences and eliminate the need for any other parties in the equation.
The bottom line is, musicians need to support homes and families - and their audiences totally understand this - "open sourcing" music only makes sense within a framework in which voluntary payments are brainlessly easy, and socially encouraged. Putting an (o) beside your track should be the same as saying - here's some music we made - give us money and we'll keep making this crazy shit. The street performer protocol is somewhat misnamed , because street perfomers don't withhold music until they are paid, the give it away, and keep doing it as long as enough folks are paying.
So here's the pitch - we're working on an open source business process for musicians - see potlatch.net - the projects kinda been on hiatus for a month or so, but we need it now more than ever. There's a mailing list set up to discuss and develop a 'potlatch protocol' which aims to provide a basic transport layer for voluntary payments.
Everybody needs this - It's now or fucking never -
I'd wager my next paycheck that Sean Fanning was a hotline user, and that the inspiration for Napster was to create a centralized one-trick-pony hotline that combined the server & client in a single app. Cause that's basically what it is. I was disappointed that not a single person (so far as i know) at the recent P2P conference in SF mentioned Hinckley or Hotline, which as far as I'm concerned was the beginning of the "file-sharing revolution".
Also, the initial statement that money is nothing more than a promise to pay is fundmentally wrong.
dude! please clarify! ever hear the phrase "pay the bearer on demand..."
as for "won't work" - you're not giving us much to go on there either:P
btw, steven king made a cool half million this way, and what's more, he still owns his work. I guess if the NY Times says it's a failure it must be true - they wouldn't have any reason to make us think artists can find an audience without the help of large corporate publishing consortiums, would they?
abstract: A potlatch is a gift festival and an economic system based on abundance, gift, and reputation. The potlatch protocol describes a decentralized peer-to-peer micropayment system based on digitally signed XML promissory notes, aggregated for settlement on an open market. It provides an economic framework that builds upon the "infinite supply" of digital products rather than opposing it, and argues that such a framework is both appropriate and necessary.
OK folks, the ice is definitely melting on this concept. In a world in which you can't prevent people from copying your work, once it's been converted to a digital format, then the only way you're going to get them to pay is on a voluntary basis. We don't think much of the term "tipping" - it might be taken to imply an unequal relationship - we just call it "paying." The fact that it doesn't happen under threat of incarceration is irrelevant - it's still just a payment. Which requires a payment mechanism - some type of negotiable currency that can be transmitted in arbitrarily large or small amounts.
Amazon jumping into this space is clearly a direct attack on paypal's dominance in "what-passes-for-micropayments-nowadays", which is in turn a validation of what paypal is doing. The two biggest problems with the first generation of micropayment systems was
ease of use (not)
proprietary and patented "standards"
Among on-line payment systems, paypal has done the best job so far of making it easy to send and recieve money - which isn't saying much. As for standards - who knows what patent horrors await us? Presumably one or another of these titans will begin some massive strategic litigation and try to clear, or at least clog up, the field. But while dinosaurs fight, there's some mammals somewhere eating their eggs.
The open source community and the independant music scene needs to join forces. Here's a quote from a recent post to the Pho list:
"I don't know any hacker who doesn't think that musicians should get paid
for their music. Some of my hacker friends compose music. I don't know any
musicians that aren't excited by the subversive nature of the Internet
and peered distribution mechanisms and, consequently, who don't respect
hackers.
Why don't we both work together, put down our swords, figure out how to
put bread in each other's mouths (yes, even hackers are having a harder time
than usual with that these days) and subvert the structure that has caused
this unnatural schizm between us?"
So what is the nature of this schism? It seems to be related to the fact that the captains of the entertainment industry have emphatically and to a man (I'm betting they're all men) declared an undying jihad against "wholesale copyright infringement", and are willing to, in John Gilmore's words, "... destroy the future of free expression and technological development, so they could sit in easy chairs at the top of the smoking ruins and light their cigars off 'em." Why is it that the media industry has such power that they can appear to dictate the very laws of nature if it is necessary to protect their interests? Do they really stand to lose so much money from file-sharing? (There's not much evidence of this yet...)
And why is it that the tail of entertainment is wagging the dog of commerce?
Because it's not about money, it's about control. Culture is the most important commodity because it's the one that sells all the others, not only overtly through advertising, but implicitly, by establishing "social norms", subtle biases, and hidden assumptions. As the content and ads, news and entertainment blend and become one, the public is immersed in a bland and shallow "reality" in which they pretty much go along with anything.
The internet gives independant culture a chance, however slim, to reach a large audience without having to go through the mediation of "the industry" - and this is the greatest terror of partisans of the neo-feudal "new world order". For similar reasons, 'anonymous cash' micropayment systems have been "fumbled" by those who should have been developing and promoting standards - ie. governments and banks - because they see it - quite rightly - as potentially sewing the seeds of their own demise.
An open-source micropayment system could provide a way for fans to pay artists directly, with no middle man.
Such a system would have to be established on a "web of trust" model, to avoid any possibility of control by dubious central "authorities". It would require the cooperation of many people, all over the world, to overcome the obvious chicken-and-egg problem, but the history of the net suggests that this may not be as unlikely as it appears. We propose to call this system a potlatch network, after the gift festivals of the northwest coast. Napster et al. is providing one half of a gift economy - we need to complete the circuit by providing a way for fans to support their favorite artists. The implicit contract is an informal version of Kelsey and Shneier's Street Performer Protocol, in which payments are effectively for future works - the carrot rather than the stick: "give us money and we'll release more art." Steven King's experiment was reported as a failure by the New York Times - but he made $600,000 dollars with virtually no expences. (read King's reply to the NYT.)
This not only can work, it is working. What Amazon's doing is an attempt to insinuate themselves into a central position as experiments in voluntary payments (micro- or otherwise) begin to mature. And we all know how much we can trust Amazon, right?
We're interested in any insight or assistance in specing out this proposed network, comments welcome - jim at potlatch dot net
or visit the url atop this msg for more info.
They really are serious. Now that GWB - or rather, his puppeteers - have their hands on the levers of power, you better believe this shit is coming at us. There's no time to lose, kiddies...
So what does it mean to have a society of abundance? In the part of the world where I accidentally happened to be born (the northwest coast of north america) native societies lived within a social framework in which everything necessary for survival was available in practically unlimited amounts. "Commodities" as we may understand them were essentially free - one only had to go get it, whatever it was - salmon, shellfish, cedar bark, etc.
This pre-columbian leisure society evolved an appropriate social form, which provided a framework for the equitable distribution of wealth, as well as an outlet for competition and sparring for social dominance. The core institution was the Potlatch, a gift festival in which one clan would fete and feast another, which was both an invitiation to enter into a close bond, and a challenge to try to surpass the generosity of the potlatch hosts, at a later time. These went on all winter long, and constituted "the solemn assembly of the tribe" (see Mauss,The Gift, 1950), during which what we would term public policies were debated and enacted.
This institution was particularly well developed in the native american societies from California to Alaska, but it is present in one form or another in every world society, and it is always the reciprocal nature of the gift which is central. This is present in the familiar idea that accepting a gift implies an obligation to return it - not in the literal sense of giving it back (that would be refusing to accept it - a grievous insult) or whipping out your wallet and paying for it (which would be an even greater affront.) And even in the cutthroat and "pragmatic" world of business it is ultimately a very careful balance of favors granted and owed that carries the day - "Godfather, do this small thing for me..." etc.
Potlatch.net exists to promote, propagandize, and experiment with the theory and practice of the gift economy of the future, which is as Gillmore very forcefully suggests, the only way off of the runaway train of corporatism.
The gift economy has hitherto relied on face-to-face contacts, personal relationships. It will be necessary to devise a way to build upon this principle in the "billion channel universe" of the internet. My guess is that we need to develop a network of networks composed of groups of people who actually know one another, who can vouch for each other in meaningful ways. Groups of several hundred people would have an "aggregate reputation" that could be trusted to persist in time, even if a reasonable proportion of members turned out to be flakes.
We don't just need a boston tea party - we need a form of economic power that will allow us to operate from a position of strength and independance. The only practical way to do this will be to devise ways of withdrawing value and services from the current centralized financial system, and placing it in trust of future generations by extending the principles of copyleft and the free software movement into every area of society.
The only way to arrest the 'de-evolution' of our society -- in which what you are is reduced to what you have, and what you have is reduced to what you just think you have -- is to launch a counter-offensive of abundance, a potlatch to which the whole world is invited. A good first step is to take a look at the OpenContent licence for digital works, and start using it, extending it, and educating and encouraging others to use and extend it. A good next step would be to start building local groups in which resources and contributions are freely shared, a pot-luck approach to social organization - and to imagine ways for these local groups to "peer" with one another to allow gifts to be offered and accepted across regional boundaries.
to be continued - see http://www.potlatch.net
We're trying to define and develop just such a system as you are suggesting - and making damn sure it's totally de-centralized and un-controllable - we call it a potlatch network and it will require a widespread deployment and a massive education project. We're talking to some of the freenet folks, other partisans of voluntary payments, and members of the radical sonic underground about a "GPL for Culture" - perhaps based on the OpenContent license - http://www.opencontent.org/opl.shtml
"We're at a very early stage of deployment of a new revenue model for musicians, artists, and creators. We believe that culture in its essence is always a potlatch - a gift festival, in which those who are "gifted" with talent and vision offer these gifts to the world - and the world, in turn celebrates and supports them. The rise of the internet resembles a potlatch in this sense - both in the free software that provides much of its technical underpinnings, and in the free dissemination of cultural products that drives its growth and popularity."
the basic idea is very simple, but we'll need a lot of input on what people want, directions we may wish to go. More info on the site...
If the question was, will the artists get paid, you have summed up the situation nicely. short answer, no. If we re-phrase this to ask, how will artists get paid in the era of ubiquitous music-sharing, then this RIAA tax (which is all the BMG deal will amount to) is clearly no answer.
You're right of course about Napster taking it up the ass. But there was no other concievable outcome in this case. Napster has done us all a service by blowing the whole digital music scene wide open, but the fate of Napster is no longer relevant. Presumably they will find some smarmy MoR business model based on their "brand recognition"; the real action is moving elsewhere.
Check out the Tropus project: "napster with anonymity, by christmas 2000". This is intended to be a user-friendly front end for finding music on Freenet. There is already a proposal to integrate this with the MusicBrainz metadata system (conceived as a free and open replacement for the now-proprietary CDDB database.) We're also talking about a peer-based voluntary payment system so that fans can pay the artists directly - lots of info about this idea at Potlatch.net
We have to make sure that the RIAA parasites don't succeed in insinuating themselves between artists and audiences in the P2P space. Obviously they're going to continue to make obscene amounts of money either way, what they fear is a lack of control over what we choose to listen to and to support. So let's keep this freight train rolling - so long Napster, it was fun while it lasted...
Maybe the best outcome for all parties in the SDMI fiasco would be to just roll out a wide-open protocol, declare it secure, and concentrate on doing what they do best -- marketing and promotion of acts with mass appeal...
What the fairtunes guys are trying to achieve is extremely close to what we have been describing <a href="http://www.potlatch.net">here</a> as a potlatch network. A few comments:
<P>
1. Musicians desperately need this. Music-on-the-internet desperately needs this.
<P>
2. This has to be a system that nobody owns, but that everyone can agree is in their mutual interest to maintain and develop, <i>just like the internet.</i>
<P>
3. The system needs to reach a critical mass, and reach it in record time, if it is to take full advantage of the moment. Everything depends on simple, elegant methods: XML over HTTP is the key.
<P>
4. Artists need to be able to create and maintain a registry of the music that they create, including detailed track and session information, along with an "account" that anyone is free to make deposits into. This registry needs to develop into a "world outline" that contains information about every piece of music ever recorded.
<P>
5. Artists need to be able to release "definitive versions" of digital files in various formats. These files can be digitally signed, but also MD5 checksums or other validation tests can be set up to allow fans to verify that any given file is what it is supposed to be, and to ensure that payment is going to the right place. This is where ideas like <a href="http://tipster.weblogs.com">tipster</a> fit in.
<P>
6. Payment must be voluntary, but must also be rewarded (voluntarily) in turn. The more people pay, the more time and money the artists can put into their art. Contributions should be logged and a system of incentives established to encourage participation.
<P>
7. From the point of view of the user/audience, participation needs to be both easy and cheap. And it needs to be fun...
This is pretty interesting, but the successful implementation of what I'm calling the potlatch protocol will succeed due to it's clone-ability; it's adaptability which equals its adoptability. In other words, it needs to exist now, not in December, and it needs to use the existing plumbing. It's likely that Freenet or something like it will define the future evolution of this new/old economic form, but we gotta be here now kiddies!
Here's something now: a programmable radio station, built with PHP, MySQL and icecast (source code included): spinsystem lets you vote for the next song.
I'll be folding this feature into the next rev. of radio potlatch, but right now I'm at a cabin up the coast, watching the tide come in over the oyster beds and I think I need to go read a book in the sun now...
"The service has an innovative feature that rewards users for uploading and distributing files: payment in a form of digital currency called "Mojo." (from the Wired article lined above)
"My suggestion is to use an aggregate payment system tied in to a database which allows registered members to exchange credits or points on the system - In other words, you charge up your account... and can then distribute "points" to anyone else on the system." (From this thread at Hack the Planet)
Confirmation once again that like causes produce like effects, and that all events are products of their times. And what times? An historical inflection point, year zero of a new phase in human society. These ideas are everywhere now, "in everyone's heads". A crucial point: systems like this can only work if they are built on open and non-proprietary foundations, (ie. "platforms without the platform vendors" ie. nobody owns it) So all of these similar initiaves need to become interoperable.
In Canada the dangers of cigarette smoking have led to the legislation of very large and extremist 'warnings' covering roughly one-third of a cigarette package - perhaps what is required is a similar gov't-mandated warning on all shrinkwrap and clickwrap copies of M$ software: "Warning: Using this software makes you vulnerable to 17,000 different security holes, trojans, macro viruses, etc, etc. Use at your peril!"
because it has not been possible to do so.
on
At The Crossroads
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· Score: 1
Laws are still laws - and unjust laws are still unjust laws. But the more pertinent point that Katz is making is that technical capabilities will be used, and popular demands and desires will be met. Trying to outlaw file sharing is like trying to repeal the law of gravity - it won't work.
And as for your statement that "...humans don't give up stuff for free. This is a many thousand year old tradition," there is a far older tradition of cultures based on gift exchange (aka potlatch on the northwest coast of N.Am.) This type of economy is appropriate to a society of abundance, which is the 'natural' state of a digital economy, and one toward which it inevitably must tend,
The fact is, as far as the average person is concerned, this is a security problem with email and the internet in general. They don't know what a vbs attachment is, and they certainly don't know that it is a brain-dead-obvious problem with M$ products and nothing else on this planet. They don't know this because nobody is telling them. I've read dozens of articles in the mainstream (esp. the lowbrow, tabloid type) press lately and this fact is never mentioned.
Call me paranoid, but it reminds me of the old "red scare" tactics, and I'm worried that an effort is being made to prepare the populace for some new, highly restrictive and repressive laws dealing with software and the internet. And lets face it, software and the internet is one of the few areas in our society in which freedom has been increasing of late. Keeping the public ignorant of the real situation will be critical to the success of any effort to reverse this trend.
If you have doubts about this, take a look at <a href="http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=00/05/17 /1411239&threshold=0&commentsort=0&mode= thread&cid=237">this post</a>, dealing with the congressional hearings last week on the 'Love Bug'. Especially disturbing is the exchange between the congresswoman, who clearly understands that it is a M$-specific problem, and the so-called 'technology expert' who is doing his best to obfuscate the point.
I don't understand why the justice department, supposedly scouring the earth looking for evidence of harm done to consumers due to M$'s monopoly position, is not picking up this one. Surely this is a smoking gun, with fingerprints, and a pile of dead bodies for their case. The only plausible explanation is that there is a larger strategic imperative at work, in which the power of the general populace is deemed more pernicious than that of monopolistic corporations.
This discussion needs to spread beyond the confines of technology forums such as this, and into the mainstream consciousness, before it's too late.
so who's counting how many CD's have been purchased after first "previewing" by downloading from napster/gnutella/hotline/etc? Speaking for myself, several dozen in the last six months. Music I would not have heard otherwise. Of course in the case of Metallica I suppose the reverse may be true, and lots of people have decided not to buy because it's crap...
... a phrase used by then-British PM Lloyd George, referring to his agreement with Hitler that the Nazis would only take Austria and the Sudetenland, and then they'd be satisfied. It was called Appeasement and it didn't work.
Slashdot Mirror
strike out madly in every direction - kill more innocent people (and maybe one or two guilty ones) - and this will somehow make the situation *better*??
and then get ready to bend over and accept anal probes round the clock, and total police surviellance so that we can protect ourselves from terrorism?
neither of these approaches will have the slightest effect on the real causes of all this horror.
americans need to stop and take a good look at how much they are hated for supporting terrorism all over the world for decades. read noam chomsky for christ's sake - or ask the east timorese, or the guatemalans, chileans, etc. etc. whose children and grandparents and lovers have been blown to bits or tortured by people trained, managed, and fucking paid for by the complacent taxpayers of the USA.
the question is, how can we restore the world to balance?
If our response is just about revenge, then we're in for a great bloodbath, to make the wars of the 20th century look a parlor game - but haven't we already explored this option? can't we move on to something a little more mature?
like for starters, can we back off on driving 9-10ths of the world into poverty to meet the draconian demands of bankers - didn't jesus warn us about those creeps?
this is a wake-up call - the last chance to ask ourselves why the world is in such turmoil. is it all really just about money? religion? what is the big fucking problem that we can't work out people?
NO - we haven't "been through this" - we don't have micropayments yet, remember. It's all just smoke-blowing and hand-waving until we do. I think you're referring to Clay Shirky's "case against micropayments" (it's up on the O'reilly site somewhere) which makes this point. Which, despite my respect for some of his other ideas, seems singularly mistaken. Do you feel anxious about going into a produce market and picking your own apples out of the barrel, or do you need to have your groceries chosen for you? The point is that some things are appropriate for "all-you-can-eat" aggregation, and other things aren't. My big fear for the network system you suggest is that we'll end up with the same dubious interests deciding who has access to this network, and how the "subscription fees" are distributed. (try a google search on "music industry dubious accounting")
Of course they're also in the business of promoting music, stimulating popularity by bombarding the public with a tiny subset of the music being made at any given time. Popular taste is largely circular - something is popular because it's familiar, and familiar because it's popular.
How to break this cycle? Even though the billboard 100 may represent the aggregate tastes of the population, it doesn't represent individual tastes very well. Charts like that don't mean much to me, I want to see a chart in which only the opinions of people whose tastes resemble mine are taken into consideration. This could be achieved by a rating or "voting" system in which individuals are encouraged to promote their favorites - as long as all of this data remains publicly available, it may be cross-referenced to create personalized pop charts, in which one's own favorites are ranked together with material which may be unfamiliar, yet rated highly by individuals with similar tastes.
One problem to be overcome is the privacy implications of such a public rating system. We suggest that we apply the principle of the secret ballot to this system, in effect creating a democratic "info-commons" in which opinions are published without being "linkable" to real identities.
Another problem is the difficulty of ensuring that these charts are not susceptible to spamming or other forms of manipulation or abuse. A simple means to discourage frivolous or malicious "voting" would be to associate a small, but real cost to the process. We propose a micropayment of 1 penny per vote, to be split evenly between the "ratee" (ie. the creator of the book, song, movie being rated) and the *previous raters*. In this way we provide anti-spam "friction" on the abuse of the system, which at the same time providing an economic "traction" that encourages and rewards creators and grassroots promoters alike.
The "potlatch protocol" itself is an attempt to establish an open-source aggregated micropayment system which will facilitate this process. Basically it goes like this: in order for one's votes to "count" in some meaningful way, one must make a contribution to the system to "back them up." For eg. after making 1000 votes (possibly by listening to 1000 tracks on a music player with "potlatch mode" enabled) one would have to make a $10.00 payment into the system. The initial "0.1" draft protocol (http://potlatch.net/protocol.01.html) presumed that third-party aggregators would be necessary to mediate such transactions. However, it clearly doesn't matter who I pay, as long as it can be verified that I've paid *somebody* who has it coming. For eg. if I'm $10 down, I need to pay someone, anyone, who is $10 up and wants to cash out. In fact, it doesn't need to be cash - if I find someone who wants something that I've got and is willing to say it's worth $10 (eg. a book, cd, etc) then that would work too, in other words barter systems could be built on this. The key here is the ability to independently verify that a payment has been made, which involves a bit of fancy crypto footwork that will need to be worked out in more detail.
The point is to establish a peer-to-peer payment and promotion system that is free, open, and publicly owned, in perpetuity. Without something like this, the corporate stranglehold on popular culture will only continue to get stronger, more concentrated, and more corrupt. Anyone out there want to help us build this thing? comments welcome: dinsdale(at)potlatch(dot)net
what's to prevent Nike or Coca Cola from taking your music and sell their brand with it?
that's a double-plus barf-out in my books. enought to kill the idea dead. In fact, the first time this happens, it will. oh well, back to the old drawing board...
this is what the potlatch protocol is trying to do - create a means for artists and creators to be rewarded - and honored - for releasing their gifts to the world.
well actually most bands get most of their money from signing bonuses and advances. And perhaps merchandise, if they were lucky enough to retain those rights. The chance of actually seeing any money beyond this is slight - even for big stars. Witness Courtney Love's lawsuit, TLC's bankruptcy, etc. (and it's been going on for a long time - listen to Moneygoround by the Kinks, which should be the marching song for those folks trying to start a musicians union.)
The only way forward for music as an art form and as a cultural force (other than as a purely commercial product) is to give control of music back to the musicians. The EFF licence is well-intentioned, but it concentrates on the perspective of the audience, and we need to establish a creative partnership between artists and audiences and eliminate the need for any other parties in the equation.
The bottom line is, musicians need to support homes and families - and their audiences totally understand this - "open sourcing" music only makes sense within a framework in which voluntary payments are brainlessly easy, and socially encouraged. Putting an (o) beside your track should be the same as saying - here's some music we made - give us money and we'll keep making this crazy shit. The street performer protocol is somewhat misnamed , because street perfomers don't withhold music until they are paid, the give it away, and keep doing it as long as enough folks are paying.
So here's the pitch - we're working on an open source business process for musicians - see potlatch.net - the projects kinda been on hiatus for a month or so, but we need it now more than ever. There's a mailing list set up to discuss and develop a 'potlatch protocol' which aims to provide a basic transport layer for voluntary payments.
Everybody needs this - It's now or fucking never -
umm - except that this is also called "recoupable", which means the band, if they ever earn any money, will have to pay for it.
The standard record deal is a basically a loan-shark operation. :-(
They got the gold mine, he got the shaft...
dude! please clarify! ever hear the phrase "pay the bearer on demand..."
as for "won't work" - you're not giving us much to go on there either :P
btw, steven king made a cool half million this way, and what's more, he still owns his work. I guess if the NY Times says it's a failure it must be true - they wouldn't have any reason to make us think artists can find an audience without the help of large corporate publishing consortiums, would they?
abstract: A potlatch is a gift festival and an economic system based on abundance, gift, and reputation. The potlatch protocol describes a decentralized peer-to-peer micropayment system based on digitally signed XML promissory notes, aggregated for settlement on an open market. It provides an economic framework that builds upon the "infinite supply" of digital products rather than opposing it, and argues that such a framework is both appropriate and necessary.
Amazon jumping into this space is clearly a direct attack on paypal's dominance in "what-passes-for-micropayments-nowadays", which is in turn a validation of what paypal is doing. The two biggest problems with the first generation of micropayment systems was
- ease of use (not)
- proprietary and patented "standards"
Among on-line payment systems, paypal has done the best job so far of making it easy to send and recieve money - which isn't saying much. As for standards - who knows what patent horrors await us? Presumably one or another of these titans will begin some massive strategic litigation and try to clear, or at least clog up, the field. But while dinosaurs fight, there's some mammals somewhere eating their eggs.The open source community and the independant music scene needs to join forces. Here's a quote from a recent post to the Pho list:
So what is the nature of this schism? It seems to be related to the fact that the captains of the entertainment industry have emphatically and to a man (I'm betting they're all men) declared an undying jihad against "wholesale copyright infringement", and are willing to, in John Gilmore's words, "... destroy the future of free expression and technological development, so they could sit in easy chairs at the top of the smoking ruins and light their cigars off 'em." Why is it that the media industry has such power that they can appear to dictate the very laws of nature if it is necessary to protect their interests? Do they really stand to lose so much money from file-sharing? (There's not much evidence of this yet...) And why is it that the tail of entertainment is wagging the dog of commerce?Because it's not about money, it's about control. Culture is the most important commodity because it's the one that sells all the others, not only overtly through advertising, but implicitly, by establishing "social norms", subtle biases, and hidden assumptions. As the content and ads, news and entertainment blend and become one, the public is immersed in a bland and shallow "reality" in which they pretty much go along with anything.
The internet gives independant culture a chance, however slim, to reach a large audience without having to go through the mediation of "the industry" - and this is the greatest terror of partisans of the neo-feudal "new world order". For similar reasons, 'anonymous cash' micropayment systems have been "fumbled" by those who should have been developing and promoting standards - ie. governments and banks - because they see it - quite rightly - as potentially sewing the seeds of their own demise.
An open-source micropayment system could provide a way for fans to pay artists directly, with no middle man. Such a system would have to be established on a "web of trust" model, to avoid any possibility of control by dubious central "authorities". It would require the cooperation of many people, all over the world, to overcome the obvious chicken-and-egg problem, but the history of the net suggests that this may not be as unlikely as it appears. We propose to call this system a potlatch network, after the gift festivals of the northwest coast. Napster et al. is providing one half of a gift economy - we need to complete the circuit by providing a way for fans to support their favorite artists. The implicit contract is an informal version of Kelsey and Shneier's Street Performer Protocol, in which payments are effectively for future works - the carrot rather than the stick: "give us money and we'll release more art." Steven King's experiment was reported as a failure by the New York Times - but he made $600,000 dollars with virtually no expences. (read King's reply to the NYT.)
This not only can work, it is working. What Amazon's doing is an attempt to insinuate themselves into a central position as experiments in voluntary payments (micro- or otherwise) begin to mature. And we all know how much we can trust Amazon, right? We're interested in any insight or assistance in specing out this proposed network, comments welcome - jim at potlatch dot net or visit the url atop this msg for more info.
So what does it mean to have a society of abundance? In the part of the world where I accidentally happened to be born (the northwest coast of north america) native societies lived within a social framework in which everything necessary for survival was available in practically unlimited amounts. "Commodities" as we may understand them were essentially free - one only had to go get it, whatever it was - salmon, shellfish, cedar bark, etc.
This pre-columbian leisure society evolved an appropriate social form, which provided a framework for the equitable distribution of wealth, as well as an outlet for competition and sparring for social dominance. The core institution was the Potlatch, a gift festival in which one clan would fete and feast another, which was both an invitiation to enter into a close bond, and a challenge to try to surpass the generosity of the potlatch hosts, at a later time. These went on all winter long, and constituted "the solemn assembly of the tribe" (see Mauss, The Gift, 1950), during which what we would term public policies were debated and enacted.
This institution was particularly well developed in the native american societies from California to Alaska, but it is present in one form or another in every world society, and it is always the reciprocal nature of the gift which is central. This is present in the familiar idea that accepting a gift implies an obligation to return it - not in the literal sense of giving it back (that would be refusing to accept it - a grievous insult) or whipping out your wallet and paying for it (which would be an even greater affront.) And even in the cutthroat and "pragmatic" world of business it is ultimately a very careful balance of favors granted and owed that carries the day - "Godfather, do this small thing for me..." etc.
Potlatch.net exists to promote, propagandize, and experiment with the theory and practice of the gift economy of the future, which is as Gillmore very forcefully suggests, the only way off of the runaway train of corporatism.
The gift economy has hitherto relied on face-to-face contacts, personal relationships. It will be necessary to devise a way to build upon this principle in the "billion channel universe" of the internet. My guess is that we need to develop a network of networks composed of groups of people who actually know one another, who can vouch for each other in meaningful ways. Groups of several hundred people would have an "aggregate reputation" that could be trusted to persist in time, even if a reasonable proportion of members turned out to be flakes.
We don't just need a boston tea party - we need a form of economic power that will allow us to operate from a position of strength and independance. The only practical way to do this will be to devise ways of withdrawing value and services from the current centralized financial system, and placing it in trust of future generations by extending the principles of copyleft and the free software movement into every area of society.
The only way to arrest the 'de-evolution' of our society -- in which what you are is reduced to what you have, and what you have is reduced to what you just think you have -- is to launch a counter-offensive of abundance, a potlatch to which the whole world is invited. A good first step is to take a look at the OpenContent licence for digital works, and start using it, extending it, and educating and encouraging others to use and extend it. A good next step would be to start building local groups in which resources and contributions are freely shared, a pot-luck approach to social organization - and to imagine ways for these local groups to "peer" with one another to allow gifts to be offered and accepted across regional boundaries. to be continued - see http://www.potlatch.net
"We're at a very early stage of deployment of a new revenue model for musicians, artists, and creators. We believe that culture in its essence is always a potlatch - a gift festival, in which those who are "gifted" with talent and vision offer these gifts to the world - and the world, in turn celebrates and supports them. The rise of the internet resembles a potlatch in this sense - both in the free software that provides much of its technical underpinnings, and in the free dissemination of cultural products that drives its growth and popularity."
the basic idea is very simple, but we'll need a lot of input on what people want, directions we may wish to go. More info on the site...
You're right of course about Napster taking it up the ass. But there was no other concievable outcome in this case. Napster has done us all a service by blowing the whole digital music scene wide open, but the fate of Napster is no longer relevant. Presumably they will find some smarmy MoR business model based on their "brand recognition"; the real action is moving elsewhere.
Check out the Tropus project: "napster with anonymity, by christmas 2000". This is intended to be a user-friendly front end for finding music on Freenet. There is already a proposal to integrate this with the MusicBrainz metadata system (conceived as a free and open replacement for the now-proprietary CDDB database.) We're also talking about a peer-based voluntary payment system so that fans can pay the artists directly - lots of info about this idea at Potlatch.net
We have to make sure that the RIAA parasites don't succeed in insinuating themselves between artists and audiences in the P2P space. Obviously they're going to continue to make obscene amounts of money either way, what they fear is a lack of control over what we choose to listen to and to support. So let's keep this freight train rolling - so long Napster, it was fun while it lasted...
you forgot the most important one: litigation!
What the fairtunes guys are trying to achieve is extremely close to what we have been describing <a href="http://www.potlatch.net">here</a> as a potlatch network. A few comments:
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1. Musicians desperately need this. Music-on-the-internet desperately needs this.
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2. This has to be a system that nobody owns, but that everyone can agree is in their mutual interest to maintain and develop, <i>just like the internet.</i>
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3. The system needs to reach a critical mass, and reach it in record time, if it is to take full advantage of the moment. Everything depends on simple, elegant methods: XML over HTTP is the key.
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4. Artists need to be able to create and maintain a registry of the music that they create, including detailed track and session information, along with an "account" that anyone is free to make deposits into. This registry needs to develop into a "world outline" that contains information about every piece of music ever recorded.
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5. Artists need to be able to release "definitive versions" of digital files in various formats. These files can be digitally signed, but also MD5 checksums or other validation tests can be set up to allow fans to verify that any given file is what it is supposed to be, and to ensure that payment is going to the right place. This is where ideas like <a href="http://tipster.weblogs.com">tipster</a> fit in.
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6. Payment must be voluntary, but must also be rewarded (voluntarily) in turn. The more people pay, the more time and money the artists can put into their art. Contributions should be logged and a system of incentives established to encourage participation.
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7. From the point of view of the user/audience, participation needs to be both easy and cheap. And it needs to be fun...
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This is pretty interesting, but the successful implementation of what I'm calling the potlatch protocol will succeed due to it's clone-ability; it's adaptability which equals its adoptability. In other words, it needs to exist now, not in December, and it needs to use the existing plumbing. It's likely that Freenet or something like it will define the future evolution of this new/old economic form, but we gotta be here now kiddies!
Here's something now: a programmable radio station, built with PHP, MySQL and icecast (source code included): spinsystem lets you vote for the next song.
I'll be folding this feature into the next rev. of radio potlatch, but right now I'm at a cabin up the coast, watching the tide come in over the oyster beds and I think I need to go read a book in the sun now...
"My suggestion is to use an aggregate payment system tied in to a database which allows registered members to exchange credits or points on the system - In other words, you charge up your account ... and can then distribute "points" to anyone else on the system." (From this thread at Hack the Planet)
Confirmation once again that like causes produce like effects, and that all events are products of their times. And what times? An historical inflection point, year zero of a new phase in human society. These ideas are everywhere now, "in everyone's heads". A crucial point: systems like this can only work if they are built on open and non-proprietary foundations, (ie. "platforms without the platform vendors" ie. nobody owns it) So all of these similar initiaves need to become interoperable.
In Canada the dangers of cigarette smoking have led to the legislation of very large and extremist 'warnings' covering roughly one-third of a cigarette package - perhaps what is required is a similar gov't-mandated warning on all shrinkwrap and clickwrap copies of M$ software: "Warning: Using this software makes you vulnerable to 17,000 different security holes, trojans, macro viruses, etc, etc. Use at your peril!"
And as for your statement that "...humans don't give up stuff for free. This is a many thousand year old tradition," there is a far older tradition of cultures based on gift exchange (aka potlatch on the northwest coast of N.Am.) This type of economy is appropriate to a society of abundance, which is the 'natural' state of a digital economy, and one toward which it inevitably must tend,
The fact is, as far as the average person is concerned, this is a security problem with email and the internet in general. They don't know what a vbs attachment is, and they certainly don't know that it is a brain-dead-obvious problem with M$ products and nothing else on this planet. They don't know this because nobody is telling them. I've read dozens of articles in the mainstream (esp. the lowbrow, tabloid type) press lately and this fact is never mentioned.
7 /1411239&threshold=0&commentsort=0&mode= thread&cid=237">this post</a>, dealing with the congressional hearings last week on the 'Love Bug'. Especially disturbing is the exchange between the congresswoman, who clearly understands that it is a M$-specific problem, and the so-called 'technology expert' who is doing his best to obfuscate the point.
Call me paranoid, but it reminds me of the old "red scare" tactics, and I'm worried that an effort is being made to prepare the populace for some new, highly restrictive and repressive laws dealing with software and the internet. And lets face it, software and the internet is one of the few areas in our society in which freedom has been increasing of late. Keeping the public ignorant of the real situation will be critical to the success of any effort to reverse this trend.
If you have doubts about this, take a look at <a href="http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=00/05/1
I don't understand why the justice department, supposedly scouring the earth looking for evidence of harm done to consumers due to M$'s monopoly position, is not picking up this one. Surely this is a smoking gun, with fingerprints, and a pile of dead bodies for their case. The only plausible explanation is that there is a larger strategic imperative at work, in which the power of the general populace is deemed more pernicious than that of monopolistic corporations.
This discussion needs to spread beyond the confines of technology forums such as this, and into the mainstream consciousness, before it's too late.
so who's counting how many CD's have been purchased after first "previewing" by downloading from napster/gnutella/hotline/etc?
Speaking for myself, several dozen in the last six months. Music I would not have heard otherwise. Of course in the case of Metallica I suppose the reverse may be true, and lots of people have decided not to buy because it's crap...
oh yeah - him too!
... a phrase used by then-British PM Lloyd George, referring to his agreement with Hitler that the Nazis would only take Austria and the Sudetenland, and then they'd be satisfied. It was called Appeasement and it didn't work.
The best defense remains a good offence...