Distributed Digital Rights Management: True Autonomy for the Creator
SUMMARY
DDRM, or distributed digital rights management, is a unique cryptographic approach developed by RAIR Technologies which is a significant leap in development compared to current intellectual property protection methods.
It secures digital autonomy for the creators of goods and services by:
Establishing real provenance (proof of ownership)
Providing hybrid custody (options for storing assets of various types)
Providing customizable royalties per various market factors
Allowing creators to mint, distribute and control access to their content
Protecting licensable data and identity through selective permissions
In the next few years, the real economy will be attached to NFTs supported by powerful distributed digital rights management.
Hard to believe?
Think about all the underserved markets out there — from writers who can’t get their books published in the ways they want, to independent journalists who are forced to beg for donations, to musicians who can’t get their music distributed without middlemen, to artists who are shunned from galleries for not playing political games, to gamers who don’t want to be tethered to crowded networks, to programmers who don’t want their code to be misdirected on open source repositories, to filmmakers who just want their creations to be seen by audiences with whom they can build real relationships.
The Internet opened up the doors for gatekeeping consumer transactions, which eventually left creators of content with fewer and fewer options.
The blockchain is busting those gates down.
DDRM is giving the gates back to creators who want control over their own work and its distribution across digital channels.
INTRODUCTION
Common digital rights management (DRM) is a function that encrypts data or digital media, such as books, music, movies, software, videos, raw data, and other copyrighted content.
Primarily used on web and mobile applications, it ensures that only users with the appropriate key can access the content, while restricting what actions users can take with the digital media being consumed or shared. Two-factor authentication is a common example of DRM, in which assets are gated without the use of a blockchain. While encrypted keys are used to access specific information, the user does not actually own those keys.
The systems which offer these keys are entirely centralized and governed by big tech (FAANGs — Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, Google, et al).
In this scenario, passwords can be stolen, users can get validated with fake identities, and access to content and other types of data can be duplicated, stolen or manipulated by third parties as well as independent hackers.
More recently, deep fakes have been taking over the webverse, flying in the face of authentication methods, and adversely affecting the ways creators can preserve the integrity of their work.
It’s hard to imagine that works of art, for example, would maintain the integrity of an original piece and its value going forward without the proper consent in place. Yet it’s happening, and it’s calling into question what value means for the producers of compelling works, when the scarcity along a “free stolen Internet” is no longer preserved.
Conversely, when works of art are priced based on unclear variables and over-speculation, they can price themselves out of the market, or degrade the trust in quality within a marketplace. Beeple’s $69 million sale is a shining example of how art speculators end up scratching their heads over the value of works that might otherwise fetch much smaller sums in more controlled auction environments.
Artists, of course, have the freedom to change or modify their works as they please. Owners of these works may also wish to modify the originals. The point is that those options should be secured in an agreement made in a smart contract on a blockchain.
Nevertheless, artistic forms of expression are ever-evolving along with the technologies that enhance their impact, awe and curiosity. Whatever artists and consumers of art choose to do, a market for creative development is only as good as the economics that support it.
Where the medium has become the message, art has become the form in which it is delivered. The lines are blurring, along with the economics behind them.
RAIRtech has developed a unique cryptographic key system that gates user content (in the previous context, content being art), while giving users the ability to self-manage their ownership rights. This allows them to distribute content with programmatic logic they can customize in a smart contract, and for royalty streams they control.
This provides protection from large ISPs (internet service providers) and Internet middlemen cutting off access to intellectual property or unfairly cutting into user profits. Ultimately, this enables a distributed marketplace for creators of all types who wish to monetize their work for the scarce value they deserve, all in a secure and responsible way.
Never before has the Internet and its Web3 application ecosystem seen such a challenge and opportunity space explode. With NFTs (non-fungible tokens) running hot, cryptocurrency adoption remaining steady, and distrust of traditional digital service providers increasing, innovating towards a stable and more equitable technology infrastructure is where platforms now succeed.
A BRIEF HISTORY OF DRM
Digital rights management has been around in various forms since mobile technologies proliferated in the mid-1990s.
1998 marked the year that DRM became somewhat of a household function in the United States with the passing of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, or DMCA, into law.
The DMCA implemented two 1996 treaties passed by the World Intellectual Property Association, thereby increasing the penalties for Internet piracy and also making it illegal to circumvent DRM, even if no actual copyright infringement occurs.
Spawning a wave of anti-infringement fury after Napster’s famous takedown, early business cases of DRM failures can be found in Limewire’s peer-to-peer file sharing network which incurred $105M in copyright infringement fees, Sony’s CDS Rootkit malware fiasco, EA’s SimCity piracy ring, and Keurig’s 3rd party coffee machine cup debacle.
This is also where encryption began to play a much more focused role in copyright protection and what eventually became a market power play for rights ownership across a rapidly expanding consumer Internet.
With peer-to-peer entrants such as BitTorrent, Tixati, and Filecoin forcing the hand of open-sourced, cryptographic alternatives, traditional DRM has taken somewhat of a backseat to a new wave of distributed ledger and blockchain technologies. Yet overall, this distributed infrastructure is still nascent and quite underdeveloped when compared to legacy systems.
As of today, DMCA enforcement of digital rights management is of little effect or consequence since digital actors have myriad ways to access content, and steal it for profit. Meanwhile, no actionable legal recourse can stop piracy, establish privacy or prevent censorship and tampering from occurring at accelerated scale.
DRM functionalities such as two-factor and multi-factor authentication, secure server paywalls and VPNs (virtual private networks) provide some refuge for consumer protections, but the overall public sentiment around DRM is that it protects corporate profits far more than it does everyday consumers.
At the same time, blockchain technologies are advancing at breakneck speed. While this is a largely positive movement towards decentralized financial structures, relatively little has been thought about or developed for true digital rights management.
DIGITAL RIGHTS MANAGEMENT ACROSS TODAY’S WEB
It cannot be presumed that just because we can transact pseudo-anonymously on a blockchain, that we can distribute our own digital goods securely, or that our rights to ownership of those goods will be protected in an ongoing manner.
As one example, you might purchase a book with Bitcoin, but you cannot redistribute that book or resell it using that same Bitcoin.
Reality is, there is no such thing as intellectual property protection without digital rights management.
This begs a fundamental question: If there is in fact a critical need for digital rights management, what are the costs, and how do they factor in ways that do not repeat the mistakes of the past?
In a recent Zoom call, RAIR CTO Garrett Minks asked Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin what he thought about a new way to encrypt digital rights for distribution via smart contracts, which are what make blockchains immutable and relatively unhackable in their functions.
Vitalik responded by saying that he found the concept interesting and categorized it as an a real need for blockchain users in the short term, but had concerns about what a new form of DRM would do to decentralized market participants going forward, especially as we transition away from old ways of doing business or conducting transactions that are meant to remove middlemen altogether.
In other words, the traditional concept of DRM is antithetical to the notion of decentralized blockchains.
Vitalik’s concerns are justified and logical, that is, without seeing what a viable alternative looks like.
Truth is, there is no “one size fits all solution” to decentralizing the web. The whole point of decentralization is to remove the command-and-control functions of centralized gatekeepers, while providing various options for people to protect their digital identities, their digital creations, and their revenue streams.
Enter the phenomenon of digital autonomy.
DIGITAL AUTONOMY
The great promise of blockchain technologies has always been a decentralized approach to owning, sharing and monetizing digital goods and services.
In Bitcoin, we have a medium to exchange goods and services. In Ethereum, we have another medium to build infrastructure for the exchange of those goods and services.
Utilizing a proof-of-work or proof-of-stake mechanism notwithstanding, permanent ownership that can be distributed indefinitely to any number of people is the name of the autonomous game.
Utilizing a proof-of-work or proof-of-stake mechanism notwithstanding, permanent ownership that can be distributed indefinitely to any number of people is the name of the autonomous game.
With underlying blockchains, we have options to decentralize away from legacy systems, and to develop autonomous forms of economic activity, whether we distribute videos, sell books, share data, or solidify legal agreements.
As we free ourselves from old legacy systems, we are also more vulnerable to attack and subversion. When predominant market players such as Amazon, Google, PayPal or Apple decide that their profit margins are affected by new market entrants, those disruptors suddenly become the targets of increased scrutiny.
In this sense, these monolithic companies have used DRM as a means to protect corporations through uninformed consumer consent and direct control over creators.
And herein lies the rub: A monopoly like Amazon can provide all the bells and whistles for consumer activity, along with its own blockchain, but it does not profit unless it controls everything that consumers want to purchase.
Creators of long-tail content, no matter what their intentions and orientations may be, are subject to Amazon’s rules for privacy, and more critically, their own community guidelines which can arbitrarily shut down user accounts and remove content such as books for sale, at any given time.
As it is not in Amazon’s best interest to give creators full autonomy over their work, it is also the case that Amazon subverts the independent markets and independent DIY (do-it-yourself) movements which give consumers creative alternatives with which to discover various new forms of artistic expression.
Contrary to conventional wisdom, this also translates to a far less democratic landscape for people to develop economic independence through their creations.
Enter the emergence of NFTs to establish greater digital autonomy.
THE NFT FACTOR
NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, have been around for several years, not long after the blockchain made a splash in the digital world. NFTs are thought to be the antidote for centralized eCommerce and a catalyst for decentralized finance (DeFi) applications, and rightfully so.
An NFT on its own is simply a serial number. When someone mints an NFT, that person generates a cryptographic key comprised of 1s and 0s which is meant to establish that person’s ownership of a digital asset such as a work of art, a piece of music, a video or a book. That key is also meant to manage the access, and therefore the rights, to the ongoing use of that asset.
Not all NFTs function the same way, nor can they protect ownership of digital assets in the ways that DRM platforms were originally designed to do.
Meanwhile, NFTs have generated over $2.47 billion in sales in the first half of 2021, and NFT applications are slated to be integrated with every platform on the web within the next three to five years.
A formidable challenge with NFTs is with intellectual property bottlenecks. The most basic issue is that many minting platforms don’t actually secure the underlying asset (like a work of art or a music download) in that a potential purchaser can extract it on their own once it’s on a web page.
In other cases, the NFT itself redirects to a centralized server like AWS (Amazon Web Services), which means you don’t actually own the asset, and therefore you can’t protect the intellectual property rights.
Virtually no one in the blockchain space and within cryptocurrency circles has thought about the digital rights management of encrypted assets mainly because it is commonly presumed that blockchains inherently do this.
In the case of NFTs, the general line of thinking is that as long as you can mint your own tokens, you can monetize your own creations.
In the case of NFTs, the general line of thinking is that as long as you can mint your own tokens, you can monetize your own creations.
But what if Amazon decides to pull your content or your assets off of its servers?
What if your encrypted keys aren’t properly custodied and go missing?
What if someone can steal your assets from one NFT platform and sell them on another?
These are questions that have yet to be answered by major platforms and NFT marketplaces that are running abuzz with lots of capital and impressive revenues.
It’s also the case that NFT creators can’t manage gas fees effectively. This is an issue that Vitalik and various groups are working out through the Ethereum network. We’re involved in these discussions. We’ve reverse engineered some of the smart contract logic to help this along.
Overall, the problems with NFTs aren’t so much in their design, but in how they are used. The cryptographic handshake that is the NFT still remains the boon in the digital asset ownership equation.
And with the right technology stack that merges the NFT with DDRM, the creator has access to an operating system that is agnostic and compatible with any blockchain like never before. This is what RAIR provides: A way for digital asset creators to have complete autonomy over their work, using NFTs.
Smart contracting ensures provenance (ownership) over the asset, while easy minting and encrypted streaming does not incur high fees or Internet bottlenecks. It’s a revolutionary way to control access to data or content that only the owner can see.
THE NODE IS YOUR NEW NETWORK
Regardless of where and how NFT development goes, RAIR envisages a scenario in which the transition to a truly decentralized web happens at the node level.
In traditional technology development terms, nodes are connecting points between servers in a network. In cryptographic terms, nodes are the networks.
As operators of nodes can have ultimate autonomy over their creations, they distribute their work into networks of their choosing.
Due to the proliferation of blockchains and distributed ledgers, nodes are replacing legacy servers outright (namely ISPs or Internet Service Providers), maximizing programming efficiencies, seamlessly integrating Web3 protocols, optimizing compute costs, and providing storage that requires a fraction of the processing power.
With nodes, you can do a lot more on your own with a lot less.
In the case of the RAIRnode, a user has an entire operating system which acts as a cloud, a bank and a library of searchable assets. A RAIR token unlocks access to this operating system, and at once gives a user the ability to create their own marketplace in just a few clicks.
RAIRtech NFT ECOSYSTEM
- Customized and scalable minting
- Fully encoded, encrypted streaming
- Custom royalty logic and programmatic resale economics
- Integration with other marketplaces
- Hybrid custody extensible with any blockchain
- Advanced user and network analytics
- Low gas fees and low environmental footprint
DEVELOPING USE CASES
As a marketplace NFT engine for businesses and groups that have valuable digital assets, RAIR has been working on several exciting projects. We are developing these projects under non-disclosure agreements, but we can share the spirit and the scope of a few of them.
Making royalties a grassroots imperative within an
independent music ecosystemThis project is intended to give a strong independent network of popular rap artists the power to manage their own catalogs and royalty streams, while also giving them the ability to test new tracks safely and securely with their dedicated fan base.
Giving young filmmakers the opportunity to become their own distributors through a major independent film festival
This project focuses on empowering filmmakers with a detailed education on using NFTs to connect with audiences, test screeners on the RAIRnode, and get critical feedback on their work without sacrificing the integrity of their development to outside or competing interests.
Turning NFTs into the ultimate donations vehicle for a renowned international ocean conservation non-profit foundation
This project uses the RAIRnode and RAIR token to drive donations through the power of compelling photographic and video content. The foundation is led by an Academy — and Emmy-Award-winning documentary filmmaker whose work has had a huge impact on environmental awareness around the world.
Developing a hybrid solution for one of the biggest digital asset custody providers in the world
This project focuses on using the RAIRnode to advance custody capabilities and protections for large digital asset holders, including some of the world’s biggest cryptocurrency exchanges and DeFi investment funds.
Making code secure and monetizable for programmers all
over the worldThis project puts the power back into the hands of independent programmers and open source developers by giving them advanced encryption capability and options to monetize their work across networks.
CONCEPT INTERFACE
FINAL THOUGHTS
In a landscape where economics is shifting from a coincidence of wants to a coincidence of needs, the case for cryptographic innovation is quite compelling.
People need their work put out into the market safely and securely, so they can create their own opportunities. As such, blockchain innovations continue to evolve in backing these needs.
Ethermint will proliferate on NFTs, along with other Web3 protocols.
Sidechains will operate at greater efficiency using NFTs.
Interactive content is being fractionalized using NFTs.
Data will be autonomously managed and redistributed using NFTs.
NFTs, with underlying digital or physical assets attached to them, will become stable instruments with DDRM functionality supporting them.
The list of emerging asset classes is vast. And it extends well beyond the digital world, into areas such as alternative medicine, real estate, regenerative agriculture, and renewable energy.
Anything that can be valued by a producer of an asset, can be protected, shared and resold as originated by that producer with that underlying asset.
That is the real potential, and the real power, of an NFT.
We’ve designed our NFT system to address various critical parts of the market, allowing participants to quickly deploy and integrate their creative assets into revenue-generating opportunities.
While there are many participants in the market developing NFT solutions, few are licensing them to 2nd and 3rd parties.
RAIR focuses on providing the tools necessary for complete NFT deployment.
NFT PLATFORM COMPARISON
ABOUT RAIRTECH TECHNOLOGIES
RAIRtech is a blockchain-based distributed digital rights management platform that uses NFTs to gate access to streaming content.
We power the NFT marketplace with infrastructure that allows for quick deployment and integration. Our solution set makes it easy for communities, businesses and creators to leverage their markets using non-fungible tokens. The platform is available as an end-to-end solution or incrementally through our API.
Our team represents 27 years of proven emerging technology innovation, 17 years of experience in enterprise encryption, operations behind 10 disruptive startups, and hands-on work with dozens of companies in designing blockchain and distributed ledger technology solutions that span media, agriculture, energy, real estate, finance and healthcare.
RAIR’s founders are digital pioneers, whose accomplishments include the co-development of the world’s first Bitcoin point-of-sale platform (Coin of Sale), and the creation of the world’s first online bond trading platform (tradebonds.com).
We are also impassioned writers, artists, musicians and filmmakers, with a deep commitment to liberating and protecting the digital rights of creators all over the world.
For more information on our development, our team, our advisors and our featured press, please visit us at https://rair.tech/
Written by: Gunther Sonnenfeld
