There was lots of nice #v4v discussion I had at HCPP. A common theme came up however that I had not considered.
A few people were curious if the idea of splits could be expanded.
For example, say you write a software library. That gets folded into an apple product let's say. What if a percentage of the iPhone gets split down to this app developer.
Another example was say you make a beat. This sample gets mixer into another song, then another etc... the split info just keeps rolling up to the higher work.
I don't know if this is possible today. Podcasting 2.0 will only do this on a complete work and obviously doesn't work on the software example. So I joked and said maybe this is podcasting 3.0.
Has anyone thought about this more? Or are there projects trying to do this at this granular level?
Replies (11)
I think all of this is possible, it's the enforcement that's difficult. Not necessarily saying this should be something that's regulated by a entity, more that it would be challenging to codify and automate these kinds of payment splits that accounted for the ancestry of the source material/contributors.
And then, of course, after a certain point, doesn't an idea enter the public domain?
Well so one of the conversations that stemmed back to Cory Doctorow was this. Imagine if when you sign up for Facebook, your personal data has this Tag or Metadata. Then when it was used, you get paid.
So this is a very different use case, but it's the same abstract idea.
And in this case, not that I'm calling for it, but in these conversations the idea was suggested that perhaps Facebook etc... be forced to adopt this via regulation.
So yeah, that's tricky I think. But the there is something to perhaps a Metadata like a split that can ride with the "work."
Yeah that makes sense. I think the problem is it's easy for anyone to go "out of band" with the data with a clone or copy of it that ends up having no link to the digital source it references. In that case you'd need some kind of monitoring or detection to identify these replicas and tag them in some way -- not actually that different from how something like YouTube identifies copyrighted material today.
I think a system like this has to be opt-in and part of a community's m.o., otherwise it gets too bureaucratic. The big question for me is whether a community like this (or many) could eclipse what exists today.
Yeah exactly. One way to go out of band is to just shift it to analog and then this Metadata is lost.
This had come up in enough conversations that I thought it warranted a bit more reflection.
I also think about the oppressive nature of copyright. Not in all cases, but in some where the owner ends up exerting way too much influence and power over any use or interpretation of their IP. I could see a highly technical system of royalty management and payment streams reach a tipping point where it becomes a burden to creativity and new ideas.
There's a good read on this called "Copyrights and Copywrongs" that traces the history of copyright law in the US over the past couple centuries, and its relationship with creative output. It's interesting how perspectives on this have changed over time (and depending on where you sit along the royalty chain)
That's what nostrocket does
I will check it out! But it looks like only for software projects? And only on nostr?
Just trying to understand, not judging.
Not necessarily, it's just highly dependent on me right now and that's what I know.
I talked to Jack about it after my Riga talk and he was saying it's exactly what the music industry needs, so been looking into that.
I believe there was discussion of legacy splits on the Ablekraft podcast a few years back, but my memory is fuzzy.
For media, this is definitely already possible via RSS and the Podcasting 2.0 protocol but only IF the creator of later works WANTS to honor the OGs...and if the OGs included the info for them to copy!
You can see the person tags with credited roles in many self-hosted music albums, so if a sample or beat gets pulled, their value tag(s) could be copied over and given a split. However, this of course falls under v4v and the honor system...but in my opinion, that's the way it should be.
I'd love to see splits adopted into all mediums. Nice to know where your value flows.
Yeah this is perhaps a nice way of looking at it, simply making it easier for those who care to give you credit and pull in your work.
Those that don't, would bother anyway like you are saying.
