I understand what this does (basically, decentralized verification of the ownership), but I'm not sure what is the real-world compelling reason for using it.
I mean this solves an issue of verifying the legitimacy of the ownership, correct? For the initial (creator -> 1st customer) transfers, the only party interested in this is the original creator, but I don't see how this is better than keeping a simple list of transfers in whatever form the creator wants. I guess the customer may also find it useful for audit purposes or something, but again, this doesn't seem that much more useful than a conventional papertrail.
Secondly, it looks like this can be used to enable the resale of the rights. But then it means that you have a situation with a party that is willing to pay for the work, but this money is guaranteed NOT to go to the creator. So it's not in creator's best interest to have their work "ascribed".
Unless I am missing something, what's the reason for a creator to participate in this?
Say Gottfried and Isaac are disputing over the creation of a mathematical method to solve problems.
Now if Isaac writes a cryptic paper that non one understands (but Gottfried) and doesn't publish these finds on a 'well known Journal' it's very hard for him to take credit for his work. If however, if publish his paper in the blockchain, then there is a proof that he actually FOUND at THAT point in time what he claims to.
The good thing is that, it's there for all to see and cannot be tampered. That's all Isaac will need in court to win his case over Gottfried.
I think the intended application is for digital art, which is where I think this shines. If you're a photographer, for example, printing X originals and destroying the negative is already dead simple.
In the past, I think paying for digital work was more about resolution. Here's a preview, now pay me for the full resolution. But I think if there's some consensus among collectors, maybe this will work.
What you're saying about future transactions benefiting the creator, that might be interesting to explore. I thought I heard some galleries have terms that limit who you can sell the art to in the future. Returning some percentage of future transactions back to the artist (or gallery) would be cool, but that could always be added as a feature later, right?
As far as keeping a list, I was never able to do that. I have paintings all over the US and 99% of them I have no idea where they are and who owns them. I lose touch with people. And often the transactions are with complete strangers, do you really want to keep in touch with all these random people? Even if I have somebody's email, I don't want to bug them about my artwork. I gave a couple of paintings to my university and I never had access to the room they were displayed, they could be in a landfill by now, no idea.
To me, this kind of usage of blockchain technology shows its true potential. I'm not sure about the future of actual cryptocurrencies per se, but the underlying concept of a distributed public ledger of "transactions" is unstoppable. I think we're going to see countless use cases of blockchain-like tech beyond cryptocurrency, and this kind of thing is just the beginning.
What prevents a malicious actor from scraping the Flickr new photos feed (for example) of someone else, and registering & selling that other person's copyrighted work?
Or a malicious actor posting their own photo to Flickr, then registering it on ascribe, selling it through ascribe, and then repudiating the transaction, claiming they weren't the ascribe user?
Unless ascribe.io is the first place something is ever published, or they have some way to verify initial ownership (not just possession), I don't see how this works.
Interesting, I like the idea. I'd find it tedious, though, to manually upload a file in a browser each time I have something digital I'd like to register. Do you happen to have an API? Or are you planning to build one?
[+] [-] abcd_f|11 years ago|reply
I mean this solves an issue of verifying the legitimacy of the ownership, correct? For the initial (creator -> 1st customer) transfers, the only party interested in this is the original creator, but I don't see how this is better than keeping a simple list of transfers in whatever form the creator wants. I guess the customer may also find it useful for audit purposes or something, but again, this doesn't seem that much more useful than a conventional papertrail.
Secondly, it looks like this can be used to enable the resale of the rights. But then it means that you have a situation with a party that is willing to pay for the work, but this money is guaranteed NOT to go to the creator. So it's not in creator's best interest to have their work "ascribed".
Unless I am missing something, what's the reason for a creator to participate in this?
[+] [-] atmosx|11 years ago|reply
Now if Isaac writes a cryptic paper that non one understands (but Gottfried) and doesn't publish these finds on a 'well known Journal' it's very hard for him to take credit for his work. If however, if publish his paper in the blockchain, then there is a proof that he actually FOUND at THAT point in time what he claims to.
The good thing is that, it's there for all to see and cannot be tampered. That's all Isaac will need in court to win his case over Gottfried.
[+] [-] pjbrunet|11 years ago|reply
In the past, I think paying for digital work was more about resolution. Here's a preview, now pay me for the full resolution. But I think if there's some consensus among collectors, maybe this will work.
What you're saying about future transactions benefiting the creator, that might be interesting to explore. I thought I heard some galleries have terms that limit who you can sell the art to in the future. Returning some percentage of future transactions back to the artist (or gallery) would be cool, but that could always be added as a feature later, right?
As far as keeping a list, I was never able to do that. I have paintings all over the US and 99% of them I have no idea where they are and who owns them. I lose touch with people. And often the transactions are with complete strangers, do you really want to keep in touch with all these random people? Even if I have somebody's email, I don't want to bug them about my artwork. I gave a couple of paintings to my university and I never had access to the room they were displayed, they could be in a landfill by now, no idea.
[+] [-] imron|11 years ago|reply
So you mean exactly like normal things e.g. If a buy and then sell a car, the car manufacturer doesn't get any of that resale either.
[+] [-] unknown|11 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] unknown|11 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] iliketosleep|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] e28eta|11 years ago|reply
Or a malicious actor posting their own photo to Flickr, then registering it on ascribe, selling it through ascribe, and then repudiating the transaction, claiming they weren't the ascribe user?
Unless ascribe.io is the first place something is ever published, or they have some way to verify initial ownership (not just possession), I don't see how this works.
[+] [-] terhechte|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bpon|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nissimk|11 years ago|reply
This has a lot of potential.
[+] [-] dshankar|11 years ago|reply
Do you plan to add escrow functionality?
[+] [-] Maken|11 years ago|reply