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Comment by gremlinsinc | Hacker News Reader

Wonder if we could create a git in the blockchain... where DMCA just can't exist/happen since there's no central authority to ask to take stuff down...

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Copyright law doesn't care what technology you use to store and distribute material. If you have a blockchain that contains unauthorized copyrighted material, any host participating in that network would be legally subject to DMCA requests by the copyright holder. What would the defense look like in court, anyway? "We can't stop illegally distributing the plaintiff's content because that would break the chain?" In effect it would just be a spectacularly inefficient distributed storage system.

You are overlooking the fact that there is no actual DMCA violation in this case. The problem is that companies being bullied with frivolous DMCA threats will comply because it is easier than fighting it. Using a blockchain removes this as an option (and also makes the bullying pointless in the first place).

And when your DMCA-proof storage system receives a valid DMCA notice for an actual case of infringement, what's the plan?

they will need contact each node..i.e. device that has the blockchain and file a dmca directly w/ each one... maybe? lol

How would that work though? DMCA only applies to the US, so with a global network how would the DMCA be effective? Even if every node in the network in the US removes it, all you might achieve is break the chain. The content will still be there.

The same is true of any other distributed storage system. Adding a blockchain doesn't change the situation in any way, other than making complying with the law far less convenient.

Though I should add that while the DMCA is indeed a US law, and notification and enforcement mechanisms vary by jurisdiction, other countries also have copyright law. It's illegal to publish copyrighted material without permission in any country with a copyright system. That's what copyright is.

It's possible and a proof of concept does exist but it's no more than that currently: http://blog.printf.net/articles/2015/05/29/announcing-gittor...

Make a quick ICO. You will raise 200 million in 1 hour. /sarcasm

This is half decent idea though actually.

damn if not for the /sarcasm tag I might've actually done it...actually might still could use a couple $mill.

I think IPFS would be a better bet than block chain for this.

You might be interested to note the IPFS DMCA policy:

https://discuss.ipfs.io/tos#8

This is irrelevant because ipfs.io may act as a proxy but content is stored somewhere on the network and accessible via IPFS.

Still need some proxy for it to be accessible from the internet right?

No, you don't need one: you are supposed to run your own IPFS node. There are even browsers that supports IPFS out-of-the-box.

If by "internet" you mean your browser/over HTTP, then yes. But the IPFS client provides exactly that, on your local machine, without any restrictions. If you offer it to the public, you can choose your own policy on copyrighted etc. content.

I mean it's unusable to the general public since IPFS network is not accessible via the browser without a proxy.

In other words, one would first have to integrate an IPFS client into all major browsers.

Perhaps Dat would be better than IPFS? https://datproject.org

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