How to deal with "stolen" content?
Regardless of you think about IP laws, they are a reality in many countries. Content providers like the music/movie industry are well-known for going after users of P2P networks for spreading their content.
Steem rewards users for providing valuable content. Obviously, this is an incentive to copy someone else's creations and post them to the steem network. Posting something to the steem network means having a transaction included in the blockchain. Now, anyone running a full node will automatically distribute these transactions upon request. Which means anyone running a full node is in constant danger of violating IP laws and thereby putting their money at risk.
Furthermore, (even in western countries) some content may be illegal in itself, which means node operators are not only putting their money at risk but their actual personal freedom.
How do you plan to tackle that problem? Downvoting copied content will not work, because steem users may not be aware of its origin and/or may find it actually valuable. Even if it works, downvoting content doesn't remove it from the chain. The danger remains.
Censoring content is impossible in a blockchain. Any ideas?
Please vote for my witness cyrano.witness . Thanks!
The content will remain in the Steem Chain regardless of IP ownership.
However, Steemit is a privately managed site .. IP owners can ask us to not show content .. they can ask the poster for retribution .. or better, they can start to post their own content directly :)
Thanks for your reply.
Yes, that is the problem. Have your considered this problem, or don't you think this is a problem at all?
My question was not about steemit.com - that's a different issue obviously. My question was about the risks that node operators are facing. Have you evaluated the possible legal risks? Don't you think lawsuits against steem node operators might be harmful to the network as a whole? I mean, every witness has to run a node, obviously.
I think this is really a weak point in steem. I'm sure there are solutions. Freenet for example has all of its content encrypted, which means that freenet node operators can always plausibly deny knowledge of the content they are serving. (https://freenetproject.org/documentation.html#understand)
The primary solution for this long-term is to "prune" the blockchain. The blockchain only really needs to store the hash of content and steemit.com can link it all back together.
The roadmap calls for most content to be referenced by hash in the future rather than having the full content like we do now.
Ah, thanks @dantheman. This has been one of my main questions since joining the platform. I was about to post the question myself but found this post and your comment first. So, off the cuff before I chase pointers to the roadmap...
I may find the answer from resources. But if you can shortcut the process so much the better. Cool.
A very interesting post for the whole community. Especially for new members.
Thanks for sharing such information. I would like very much if you could read some of my posts ... I really put a lot of love and effort into them. I only ask that vote for me if I deserve it, but you would make me incredibly happy if you at least read it!
Receiving your support is like a dream to me
You have my vote, and I stay attentive to your next publications!