| HN Mirror

How will you use a blockchain to do either of those things. DRM is only truly useful for interactive media anyway, so even if you have some kind of decentralized encrypted data decrypted on sufficient transaction, that data flows out of something into pixels and sound waves at some point. No real advantage to be gained over just doing the same in an ordinary W3 online storefront. Copyright management is very doable with stuff like NFTs, but that's management as a separate thing from enforcement. A blockchain cannot automatically detect misuse of copyrighted material or do anything about it even if something on the blockchain knew. It just doesn't seem reasonable to do these things.

On the other hand, the main advantage we should consider with blockchain is decentralised computation. Decentralised computation can possibly be managed and regulated by a cryptocurrency which itself is tied to the value of decentralised computation and as such does not exist as some imaginary token of value from artificial scarcity. The ability for a system to exist all over the world and to communicate and compute everywhere can be important to many applications. Communication, fintech, serverless services, license management, ownership management, the very idea of smart contracts etc.

That's where the real meat of the system lies, and not in online artificial scarcity tokens distributing a soulless, valueless illustration procedurally generated like millions like it based off a bunch of templates drawn in paint over about an hour.