I work in Hollywood as a writer, director and producer, and although I have my problems with how Intellectual property laws have been formulated and dislike the cronyism between the State and Hollywood, I do not condone plagiarism or theft of IP. Intellectual property - and the laws that surround it - are important pieces of a complex, economic puzzle that have been erected to not only protect the big players in the business, but also the little ones.
As a small producer, if I were to create something that could not be protected in some small way from the parasites that would profit off of my work without compensation, then it would be incredibly difficult to not only profit from an original work, but also prove that I was the one who created it. The blockchain solves the latter problem, but it has expanded the problem Torrent gave producers over a decade ago... distributed theft.
ENTER DTUBE:
DTube is awesome and View.ly will probably be just as awesome, but the distributed nature of these technologies has the power to amplify the copying and theft of other people's work. Presenting someone else's work as your own, or copying a piece of work to profit off of it is a deceitful and slimy business and I've noticed that as soon as DTube was made live to the public, full films started showing up on the platform.
I've found The Matrix trilogy, Ghost in the Shell, The Big Lebowski, Game of Thrones and others! Some people will hide behind the subterfuge of revolutionary language that they're fighting the State or corporations or greed that justifies their parasitism and behavior that will turn Steem into an ecosystem that will quickly be painted as a place for criminality. All that these people are doing are ruining Steem and profiting off the backs of other people's work without compensation. Where I'm from that's called either theft or slavery.
I don't want DTube, View.ly, Steemit, Busy or the Steem itself to be considered by corporations and the State, as places where people come to steal intellectual property.
Sharing is allowed between friends, but as soon as it becomes a public venue where commerce is taking place, the law is very clear, you're committing IP theft... PIRACY.
THE PUBLIC LEDGER:
Steem is a public ledger. That means that all the information that is stored on the blockchain can be accessed by third party websites! That's the point of it as a social network. That means that anytime anyone accesses a copyrighted film or downloads it or comments on it can be seen! You might as well mail a letter to the Federal government that you're committing piracy, whether you're a viewer or an uploader.
From the Wiki:
While steemit.com is the first and reference front-end website interface for the blockchain content of Steem, the network's open and permissionless nature allows third-party websites and apps to connect and interact with the Steem database. Several have been created by third parties. These offer alternative interface designs or features such as Instagram-style image posting. Busy.org is a Steem-interacting website with an alternative user interface. eSteem is a Steem-interacting Android and iOS app. A forum-style application called chainBB is also available.
CALL TO ACTION:
I'm calling on people who want to support creators - even greedy corporations - to flag any and all full films that are protected by copyright on Steemit where it's blatantly obvious. The films mentioned above should provide a good litmus test if you are wondering what I mean by blatantly obvious.
If you have oodles of Steem Power - I'M LOOKING AT YOU WHALES - you have the capacity to shutter those accounts and make the films far less visible. I would go so far as to say that people who want to keep Steem clean for everyone in this regard should band together to tackle this problem. We should not only support creators by giving, but we should support them by making sure Steemit and DTube and View.ly do not condone piracy, so that the world can look upon these communities and trust them.
WE'RE ONLY AS GOOD AS OUR REPUTATION:
This is a problem that will only grow, and when the US Government takes notice, and it will, Steem and its users will have a serious problem on their hands.
Those who commit piracy on Steem platforms should be reported to Steemit and their accounts should be deleted without warning.
Theft is wrong, even on the blockchain.
Phil