Friday, December 12, 2014

Much Ado About Bit Torrent

1. The key to making bit torrent irrelevant is to make the counterfeits that they "mint" less-useful.
2.  Unlike a counterfeit dollar bill, which is a physical thing, with a digital item you can NEVER tell which is counterfeit and which is real. They are identical.  This is why DRM never works ... at least not for long.
3. There is no need to interfere with Bit Torrent, which does in fact have legitimate uses.  Stopping people through legal action is messy anyway.  What we should do with a problem like Bit Torrent is what we've always done: obviate the problem through innovation and cooperation among those negatively affected.
4.  What is needed, then, is an invention of some kind that deals with the digital file on the redemption end of the business: i.e. when you go to use it for its intended purpose (i.e. watch, listen, read, play).
5. This type of invention is not likely to come from the tech industry, or from the entertainment industry. This type of invention is likely to come from people who already have experience dealing with fungible digital commodities and the problems they cause.
6. The people who have experience dealing with fungible digital commodities and the problems they cause, are mostly found in the securities industry, which has the most at stake (dollar-wise) from allowing counterfeits to be redeemed.
7. The Digital Content Exchange is an invention created, prototyped and implemented  (Beta: thedce.com) by former securities industry experts in the Design of Exchanges.

(The Digital Content Exchange in Seven Steps.)