One thing that is potentially going to be interesting with the changes in the incoming the EU copyright directive is that it is going to bring into question the process of copyright as a whole as even now, there is a lot of ambiguity over who owns the rights to what. This is of course going to create a massive usecase for Blockchain as it will be immutably provable for at least the digital version where and when a new piece of content first appeared.
I haven't looked into or thought to much about this all yet but I would assume that while this is going to cause massive dramas for some people and content creators, the ones who are actually creating their own material entirely are likely to benefit from this. Does that mean that many Steem users are going to be leveragable on other platforms as they start filtering out copyrighted material?
It is going to potentially speed the tokenization of material also as it will provide not only a usecase to timestamp the first version, blockchains can be used to track instances of appearance also. What is going to be interesting is that currently the centralized platforms are using "impressions" as a marketing tool to sell advertising and gamify their platforms, that same metric that they have supported as an indicator of usage will essentially be used against them as a way to make claims on copyrighted material. If copyright content goes viral, the platform is liable to pay something as they didn't filter it out?
This is going to create some very messy discussions but in the end, the only foreseeable way that any platform is going to be able to track all of the copyrights and filter accordingly is if all copyrighted material is appropriately tagged and, the only way to effectively do that is likely going to be through blockchains with each piece of material carrying a unique ID, like a location on a blockchain. What this would mean is that rather than filtering out copyrighted material, they would only have to let in material that has been approved for usage through the tag. Anything else is effectively removed.
What this could mean is that content creators would be able to upload the first version to a blockchain and then allocate "permissions of usage" to it that can be adjusted on the fly. The blockchain they upload to is of course a very specific location in time on that blockchain and that means that the location is the thing that gets shared, not the content itself. What this could also effectively do is cut down on the masses of duplication and instances that need to travel across the networks as it effectively becomes content on demand without it needing to reside in multiple locations, other than the hosting services that serve it for speed and convenience.
Because permissions could be applied in a smart contract to the first version, those permissions would be applied to all instances as they would all be viewing the same location on a specific blockchain. This also means that content could be updated across all points simultaneously with a new version by linking the new version to the original. Of course, because a blockchain can be immutable, the original can still be found but an interface need not show it or could be blocked from showing it publicly under certain conditions.
The other obvious usage is going to be the tracking of content across multiple platforms that can leverage micro-payments, something that Steem is well suited for considering that it has no transaction costs to move Steem. This would also work well with SMTs as a platform could reward in their native platform currency and be paying for copyrighted ccontent. If they are a popular website, that currency could hold some very real value and it may end up being more compelling for a contributor to get paid in crypto than in fiat that comes with a host of other fees and conditions that make it expensive to move globally.
While the decision of the EU directive might not be what freedom of speech advocates might want right now, what it could lead to is a reduction in sharing and aggregation use and explosion in uncopyrighted but blockchain verified content from real creators. This could also lead to an increase in freedom of speech as the centralized platforms are going to have to adjust their entire business models that are advertiser driven to accommodate and that will provide new opportunities for users, just as Steem has done.
People are often pretty down on Steem but in the last 3 years of its existence it has paid out tens of millions to people who would be unlikely to get traction on any of the major platforms. Real people. While it has its problems, I find Steem a much more compelling experience than any of the centralized platforms as it is far less engineered and tailored for usage and people are more people are willing to engage in interesting ways. The entire concept is very sticky and in time will hopefully raise questions in the mainstream user's minds as to just what they are getting from the other platforms are then, treated like cows.
From a technical standpoint, the capabilities might not be ready but the possibility definitely is and in time, the stream of viral nonsense of today will be replaced by a stream of viral nonsense of tomorrow that is verified, contracted and tokenized across blockchains. This would not only mainstream the entire industry very fast, it will give users globally many more options in how they serve and consume content, which is the point of decentralization and ownership of coin and content.
This is the internet evolving as it always has, through unforseen loopholes. I would predict that most of the law makers who have passed these laws have close to zero knowledge about blockchain potentials and have no idea how powerful a simple ledger can be. They have been thinking about the internet as it is today, not what it is continually becoming;
Decentralized.
Every movement takes time.
Taraz
[ a Steem original ]