Not really. I could introduce an encrypted VoD event type, that all major studios support. I split my videos into sections and refuse to give up the key till 30 seconds after you download an ad. Granted you could then make a Nostr client that downloads the ads ahead of time and skips them. Then I make sure not to send the ad until the correct time has elapsed.

Next you cache the content but then I DMCA you. Next I have signed clients that promise not to let you copy the content and we are right back where we started.

People will download the signed clients because they don't care about anything other than whether they can watch Lonely Wives of Svalbard or not.

Embrace, extend, extinguish still works.

The only way to prevent that is to make it unnecessary and inconvenient. If creators have a way to monetize content in a protected way they won't be inclined to sign on to some anti-priacy racket.

I don't actually have a good answer to this. I hate ads, subscriptions, and paywalls. My opinion might change if we really do solve the micro transaction problem via crypto.

Reply to this note

Please Login to reply.

Discussion

Thanks for this breakdown!

This is from the perspective of 1 user though.

Once someone payed and has access to that video, they can upload it on Nostr anonymously and no one can take it down. You can block it on your client but not on others.

Even if you somehow add an ID every time you send out the video to someone, they can still record it or remove that ID.

Major studios don't matter and if they focus on paywalling they will not be major for that long. The cost of protecting copyrights on an open protocol is too high.

DRM is a stupid, invasive business anyway, i refuse to run it because on firefox browser it blocks screencap of the region of my browser even when the visual part of the media is not currently being painted on screen - the DRM in chrome is selective and only interferes where the painting is going on

but just because i can streamcap from a streaming service (think like youtube or spotify) that doesn't diminish the utility of being able to access their entire catalog freely, nor the possibility of paying for higher bandwidth or even flac/alac downloads of tracks they host

you completely miss the point of what a "streaming media service" is all about if you think it's not profitable in the absence of copyright

i will fight you on this forever, i've been anti copyright and anti DRM since i knew what either of those things were, and they don't exclude profitable streaming or content delivery services on subscriptions

GOG is still around, so is HumbleBundle, and Steam's dial home DRM has the ability to capture things and many bypasses to enable playing content without using their service... yet they are still viable too

Please do, helps my thinking a lot 🙏

I agree that a "streaming media service" can still be very profitable without copyrights!

Especially with a focus on high quality and speed.

It's the subscription part I'm questioning.

Why wouldn't prepaid credits be superior in a free market?

pay per use versus pay per time?

the ol' micropayment cognitive burden thing, it's just more complicated to keep track of and the deployment of it that is user friendly is also more complicated, like, how do you get around having to show the user their balance somewhere visibly all the time? green dot that turns orange maybe?

simply getting a DM warning that your sub is about due to pay is much simpler

No, I mean: Paying for 21 movie credits vs Paying for a monthly Netflix subscription

it's just the need to make the remaining credit visible in the interface and all the pipes needed for that

people prefer a schedule over an allowance, it's easier to budget for, the downside is the provider must do a bit of actuarial calculation to allow a wide variance of actual usage

but i would use a service that has a credits remaining display in the interface, i like the principle of the simplified accounting

With Nostr and Ecash that interface can be universal (without giving in on privacy) and the UX can be superb.

Imagine buying a pack of 21 Zapflix movie tokens (that you self custody).

You can see and manage these tokens in any app you give access, along with all your other tokens (by category etc).

You can sell these tokens to anyone,at any time, at any price.

it's just waiting for a client and accounting system to happen, basically

Even vendors probably prefer this. Unleashed Chat would never go for subs, for a reason.