Using the Blockchain to Document Intellectual Property Rights

JackH

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Quote from: Equality 7-2521 on December 30, 2014, 08:13:01 AM

Quote from: JackH on December 25, 2014, 02:50:15 PM

I find this way more interesting to be used for storing third party data that can later be verified.

What I still dont get from this post is if the data stored and timestamped can be "big".

For example, if I wanted to store 10000 sessions per second, would it even be possible via the blockchain hash? For the sake of the conversation, lets say these are orders on a very large web store, and I want to store the price + time of the order of an item.

In your terminology, yes, the data can be "big". As "big" as you want. From your example, I think you'd be interested in what Factom are doing - http://factom.org/.

From a quick glance I cant gather if they utilize sending a Bitcoin dust payment to an address or not. Do you know? If they do, it wouldn be good as the dust can quickly run into billions.

EDIT: Nevermind, they use a local merkle tree and gather multiple values in one batch and hash that. I guess we either get sidechains or we keep getting these "solutions" to data storage.

Equality 7-2521

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A difference which makes a difference

Quote from: JackH on December 25, 2014, 02:50:15 PM

I find this way more interesting to be used for storing third party data that can later be verified.

What I still dont get from this post is if the data stored and timestamped can be "big".

For example, if I wanted to store 10000 sessions per second, would it even be possible via the blockchain hash? For the sake of the conversation, lets say these are orders on a very large web store, and I want to store the price + time of the order of an item.

In your terminology, yes, the data can be "big". As "big" as you want. From your example, I think you'd be interested in what Factom are doing - http://factom.org/.

JackH

sr. member

Activity: 381

Merit: 255

I find this way more interesting to be used for storing third party data that can later be verified.

What I still dont get from this post is if the data stored and timestamped can be "big".

For example, if I wanted to store 10000 sessions per second, would it even be possible via the blockchain hash? For the sake of the conversation, lets say these are orders on a very large web store, and I want to store the price + time of the order of an item.

uzbznww7em2muts

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Quote from: gmaxwell on December 15, 2014, 06:33:44 PM

(e.g. require a transaction per commitment, when technically no transactions are required _at all_ to get timestamps),

What exactly do you mean with this?

gmaxwell

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This does a lot less than what most people think it does...

Quote

I must prove that I was the first person to come up with an idea.

Quote

so long as I can show that I published the content first

And yet what the poster goes on to describe does not actually accomplish that. (and, technically, as an aside being first it not really as relevant for copyright, since independent creation is possible and permitted)

Say you invent something. Now I can go timestamp it. And claim to have invented it.

Say you invent something and timestamp it. I can say "I invented it first, he just timestamped a copy of my idea."

We can both timestamp the same thing (or substantially the same thing) and interdependently go show our timestamps to third parties who will never be aware of the other claim.

These ideas are not new... people were commuting to things back in 2010. These ideas reoccur ever couple of months when people don't bother to do any research and see it's all been done before... people just lose interest in it because its limited enough that the value isn't so great.

Worse, most of the reoccurring proposals are highly inefficient (e.g. require a transaction per commitment, when technically no transactions are required _at all_ to get timestamps), or even outright insecure. (Competent folks have mostly given up reviewing ideas from people who don't spend even a moment doing research.)

CountCristo

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Very unique way of copyrighting intellectual property. From my experience and what I learned about copyrights, is that a copyright claim doesn't need to be filed with any particular government entity, and so long as you can prove that "YOU" published the work in question, by default you are the owner of the copyright. So, for example; if I publish a time stamped news article and then someone copies it, and I take them to court for copyright infringement, so long as I can show that I published the content first, then I am the true holder of the copyright. Integrating copyright material into the blockchain is a very good way of doing this, since the blockchain can not be altered nor the time stamp can be changed. Great stuff.

Raystonn

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Quote from: milindsmart on October 16, 2014, 07:18:23 AM

I had to chime in here, I thought of this idea too!!! Great minds think alike eh?

I almost cannot see any downside with this : It's definitely better than the current way of investigation... For someone to dispute the claim, they'd have to say that the person pretty much held him to hostage and took the content and then hashed and "registered the existence"...

Coming to think of it, why a blockchain? Why not just a distributed database of hashes that is verified? The blockchain per se may not be necessary right?

Verified by whom? The blockchain provides the verification.

milindsmart

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I had to chime in here, I thought of this idea too!!! Great minds think alike eh?

I almost cannot see any downside with this : It's definitely better than the current way of investigation... For someone to dispute the claim, they'd have to say that the person pretty much held him to hostage and took the content and then hashed and "registered the existence"...

Coming to think of it, why a blockchain? Why not just a distributed database of hashes that is verified? The blockchain per se may not be necessary right?

Razick

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Quote from: hashman on August 21, 2014, 07:20:38 AM

"Intellectual Property"? What is this the dark ages?

Guess what if you put some information in the block chain I can read it and do whatever I like with that information.

You don't have to put the information in the blockchain, you have to put the SIGNATURE of the information in the blockchain.

I'm not going to argue about IP, if you don't believe that musicians own their music and authors own their books, that's your problem, but I do.

EDIT: True, calling it proof of IP might be a little misleading, but as I explained it could be used to prove that (for example) the Bitcoin name was in use by someone other than Mt.Gox. before it was trademarked.

luv2drnkbr

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https://pay.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1zyvdt/dorians_lament/

hashman

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Quote from: deepceleron on August 21, 2014, 11:40:14 PM

Quote from: hashman on August 21, 2014, 07:20:38 AM

"Intellectual Property"? What is this the dark ages?

Guess what if you put some information in the block chain I can read it and do whatever I like with that information.

Good for you, go ahead and read it, that's the whole idea. I doubt you would though; you didn't read anything else in this topic.

I guess you're right, looks like I didn't read enough sorry. Actually putting a bitcoin address in a paper and putting a digest of the paper on the block chain is really a great idea. I think calling it intellectual property is a bit misleading though; who "thought of something first" is not a matter or property. It is a matter of academic, historic, and trivial import and isn't always provable. All I know for sure in your example that somebody during the block time submitted a signed statement from the key you have now that cars could be not-red.

deepceleron

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Quote from: hashman on August 21, 2014, 07:20:38 AM

"Intellectual Property"? What is this the dark ages?

Guess what if you put some information in the block chain I can read it and do whatever I like with that information.

Good for you, go ahead and read it, that's the whole idea. I doubt you would though; you didn't read anything else in this topic.

hashman

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"Intellectual Property"? What is this the dark ages?

Guess what if you put some information in the block chain I can read it and do whatever I like with that information.

uzbznww7em2muts

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Quote from: deepceleron on August 17, 2014, 02:49:37 PM

About the only thing quirky with Namecoin is that you have to pre-order your name 12 blocks ahead of actually registering the name with data. This little delay makes for some quirks:
- If you have an IP idea now, you can't publish your proof until after ~2 hrs (unless you planned ahead).

Well, based on my experience, timing is not that much of an issue with IP.
Further, putting an IP signature in a blockchain should be considered just an additional benefit or security if a claim arose.
Something in the lines of 'I am the first to publish it and a proof can be found in TX XZY on the bitcoin blockchain', which of course does not automatically mean you really have the IP rights or ownership.
Especially in the 'music industry' proof of ownership and IP can be quite a tricky topic and a simple hash signature in a blockchain would not mean anything by itself.

deepceleron

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You don't have to do anything so convoluted. Namecoin allows arbitrary strings to be included in its blockchain, retrievable by methods currently available in the client and through blockchain explorer tools on the web.

I could register a name ip/dc-invents-fire, and give the name the JSON:
{"ipdocument-hash":"f196673ab59624b00c77c7f8e1764aa77665de6d44686d07d46650c9a61b4d1c"}

Elsewhere I could state that my message is "I discovered fire", and the SHA256 of that message is in block 123456 of Namecoin, proving that I invented on or before that block (which is timestamped +/- 2 hrs of actual time, outside of my control).

About the only thing quirky with Namecoin is that you have to pre-order your name 12 blocks ahead of actually registering the name with data. This little delay makes for some quirks:
- If you have an IP idea now, you can't publish your proof until after ~2 hrs (unless you planned ahead).
- Only the final registration can be considered the time proof, as someone could pre-order and have the pre-order waiting for the later "invention" or "discovery".

Name registration procedures, if you need a refresher:
https://wiki.namecoin.info/index.php?title=Register_and_Configure_.bit_Domains#2._Pre-order_a_domain_name

Looking up an example name with a block explorer website:
https://dotbit.me/block_explorer/name/id/deepceleron

railzand

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Lux e tenebris

This is not really very bitcoiny.

http://log.bitcoin-assets.com/?date=17-08-2014#799060 Against Intellectual Property

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/goalcoin-695146 I am opposed to all intellectual property

wrongpassword

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Quote from: kjj on August 14, 2014, 07:07:48 AM

Oddly enough, I registered a domain for this service in April 2012. I even implemented a proof of concept and hid a few timestamps in the blockchain. Demand for the service was zero though, so I never bothered to polish it up for a public release.

There are, I should point out, a variety of ways to implement the idea. Using blockchain.info is on the, erm, less good end of the spectrum.

If you don't feel like searching for it, I'll summarize my method: User submits hash or file and metadata. Metadata and hash get stuffed into a text file with info from other documents. Hash of text file is used as a private key. Some random transaction is spent to the corresponding address. Proof transaction output is swept by system. Once sweep accumulates 6 confirmations, text file is published.

(Notice the lack of external dependencies and UTXO pollution)

Cool.

kjj

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Oddly enough, I registered a domain for this service in April 2012. I even implemented a proof of concept and hid a few timestamps in the blockchain. Demand for the service was zero though, so I never bothered to polish it up for a public release.

There are, I should point out, a variety of ways to implement the idea. Using blockchain.info is on the, erm, less good end of the spectrum.

If you don't feel like searching for it, I'll summarize my method: User submits hash or file and metadata. Metadata and hash get stuffed into a text file with info from other documents. Hash of text file is used as a private key. Some random transaction is spent to the corresponding address. Proof transaction output is swept by system. Once sweep accumulates 6 confirmations, text file is published.

(Notice the lack of external dependencies and UTXO pollution)

Razick

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Quote from: Relnarien on August 13, 2014, 02:40:07 AM

I like this idea, but I wouldn't recommend using it as a primary safeguard of IP ownership. All it would take to invalidate your claim of ownership via this method is to lose control of your private key. You might argue that that's not a very common scenario, but the endless stream of people losing their keys everyday would beg to argue. Mailing yourself a legally verifiable timestamped envelope containing evidence of your ownership is still better, and definitely much simpler to execute. While I do plan on using this method myself one of these days, I would do so only as a matter of redundancy and not as a replacement for much more verifiable methods.

I would print out the information on a piece of paper and file it away. I do see your point though.

Relnarien

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I like this idea, but I wouldn't recommend using it as a primary safeguard of IP ownership. All it would take to invalidate your claim of ownership via this method is to lose control of your private key. You might argue that that's not a very common scenario, but the endless stream of people losing their keys everyday would beg to argue. Mailing yourself a legally verifiable timestamped envelope containing evidence of your ownership is still better, and definitely much simpler to execute. While I do plan on using this method myself one of these days, I would do so only as a matter of redundancy and not as a replacement for much more verifiable methods.

Topic: Using the Blockchain to Document Intellectual Property Rights (Read 6928 times)