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Comment by nxsynonym | Hacker News Reader

Thinking out loud here - but would this be a good use case for blockchain technology?

The problem with visible watermarks is it detracts from the image visibility. Nobody wants to look at photos or digital art pieces with huge ugly watermarks on them. Could blockchain tech help establish ownership in a way that would make watermarking obsolete?

edit: cool - downvotes for asking a question. Real nice guys.

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The visible watermarks primarily aim to deter unauthorized use rather than to prove copyright claims or help people locate a copyright holder. If you want to prove copyright claims, there is a centralized registration system that has existed for over a century

https://www.copyright.gov/registration/index.html

Locating copyright holders is a much thornier problem

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orphan_works

but it's not obvious that a decentralized database is more effective somehow than a centralized database.

cool - downvotes for asking a question. Real nice guys.

I didn't downvote you, but I suspect at this point people are a bit fed up of the constant suggestions of using the Blockchain for everything.

Ugh - if that's the case this place is less open to discussion than I thought. I was honestly curious if it could be a possible application for a technology that people constantly complain has no use.

Oh well, keep em coming. The downvotes only make me stronger ;)

But what's the actual implementation? Just suggesting a hot topic might have applications without specificying how isn't really starting a discussion. As other have said watermarks deter unauthorized use, they're not a proof of ownership.

Don't take downvotes so personally, they're more about weeding out bad ideas from good ones than a reflection of your worth to the community, this isn't reddit where we care about karma count. If you fix up your comment instead of complaining you might see those downvotes get reversed (I've had that a number of times).

Also, it's applied in completely the wrong way. You don't watermark to prove ownership, you watermark to prevent unpaid use.

Has anyone suggested using blockchains for comment voting?

Probably.

But if you're going to use blockchains for voting, you might as well use them for the whole thing. Every new comment, every edit, every deletion and vote. Consensus as moderation.

Probably not but I was thinking either ML or VR could help

You meant AI...

ML is a real thing, unlike AI.

No clue where the VR came from.

He's trying to synergize his core competencies to get an MVP using his AR/VR play.

>VR Yes, yes, possibly 3D printing as well.

Oh yeah, definitely. Just like blockchain technology should be used to remove the pot holes from the road near my house, or my computer battery dying.

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