Digital Rights Management Modification: Let Players Transfer "Creator" Title on "Master Constructs"

[Olmeca_Gold]

Idea: 

 

As a small addition to the changes proposed in the Intellectual Property Devblog, players or organizations can now transfer "creator" titles over "master constructs" to others, solving problems and opening up further possibilities.

 

Why:  

 

The new intellectual property management system will solve some problems. Namely, individual ship sellers can sell ships without giving the buyer the ability to infinitely copy it. Also there will be organizational IP ownership. However, it would be way better if the system was also deployed with the above modification for following reasons.

 

Firstly, the proposed system is still too focused on dynamic-construct trading. Dynamic constructs projects are typically short term. People wrap them up, begin selling their ships. Static constructs, such as factories, are ever-evolving projects with several players getting involved. Since the beta launch we are tending to our factory. We plan to do modifications for years. As such, people come and go, the projects change hands. One issue my own organization faces right now is how one of the currently inactive legates dropped the cores of our factories. This legate realized perhaps 30% of the current progress, was voluntarily demoted, and went inactive. Since the factory is not in his ownership, he couldn't make an RDMS policy for us to be able to keep blueprinting the new iterations of the factory. And now we are in a situation which we worked on this factory hundreds of hours, but are unable to blueprint it, copy it, and so on. To prevent such situations and ensure continuity in long-term projects, we need a system which allows us to fully transfer IP just like how there is such a possibility in real-life. Yes, the new system will let organizations own these long-term projects. But then one might not want to yield all legates the same IP power over the construct. The game would be better off with further granularity, and letting players hand over the creator titles over master constructs.

 

Secondly, the proposed system is still too individual-focused. Yes we have ship designers selling ships in DU. But we could go one step further, and we could have shipyards employing ship designers. Yes, organizational 'creator' title will be possible. But this creates three limitations. (1) Designers will need to be legates in the organization. (2) They will need to deploy the cores in the organization's name. (3) Every legate in the organization will have access to master blueprints. There are many scenarios in which this won't be enough. Running a shipyard like this would have many trust-barriers; giving all designers access to each other's IP, giving all designers modification rights of the RDMS and assets of the organization. Again, in real-world, we need a capability to fully transfer IP from one agent to another. Then the system would let people manage their IP relationships however they want.

 

Technical Clarification: 

 

The server doesn't have to continually track creators of constructs for changes in the "creator". Once a copy is made, the creator title can stick to it. And the new creator can only apply to new copies.

[NQ-Naunet]

?

[Kirth Gersen]

That whole DRM thing is just a big waste that will hurt more the game than anything else.

 

When Apple send the IPhone blueprint to Foxconn there is no DRM involved. These documents are kept secrets and between them. period.

When someone buy an IPhone he cannot modify it using 'b' or generate a blueprint from it. Period. it's a 'sealed' construct.

You can't modify it. period. you can't generate a blueprint from it. period. You can't edit & view the lua inside. period.

But you can eventually  'erase & reformat' a seat/PBs and then the lua for that seat/PB become editable.

If the sealed lua is bugged or whatnot then next time don't buy from that guy or erase & paste a fresh lua from an open source repo (open source code is better anyway).

Anyway copyrighted/closed source lua code makes no sense in a future where humanity tries to survive and rebuild.

 

Eventually add 'salvaging" to destroy the construct and get some materials back from it.

 

The game doesn't need every cores to be modifiable by their new owner.

 

When you buy a construct it's sealed or not. period. if not sealed you can do whatever you want with it , create a blueprint, copy the voxels and see & edit the lua in all the seats and PBs.

if sealed no one can modify it anymore even the 'creator'. There is no need for creator information. What we need is salvaging.

There is no need to have DRM complexity on blueprints.

It's up to designers and manufacturers to trust each other when their blueprints change hands.

 

The blueprint itself has no value and shouldn't because it's just 'papers'/build instructions. It's simpler like that and lead to much more interactions between players. We don't need people to sell blueprints. Go find trusted manufacturers if you want to make money from just design or be a manufacturer too.

 

designers --> BP & trust --> manufacturers -> sealed cores & tokenisation --> vendors --> final user --> use/repair/change lua/resale or salvage

 

Keep the magic "one time use" BP & compactification for small cores and allow these to be sold in the markets and allow a 'one time only' compactification for all xs cores.

For bigger constructs,  add "tokenize for selling". set a price.  In that state the construct can't move and anyone with enough money can right-click 'buy' directly on it (like a dispenser). put your constructs to sale on your parking somewhere , add some fancy ads on screens and whatnot and you're good to go.