DRM technology and policy

[John Kelsey]

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 at ix.netcom.com
PGP: FA48 3237 9AD5 30AC EEDD  BBC8 2A80 6948 4CAA F259



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