I’ve never been convinced that we really need web3.
You know, web3: Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, smart contracts, NFTs and all that.
These blockchain technologies are all pretty nifty, but do we really need them?
Isn’t the blockchain just a seriously slow, extremely expensive, disastrously distributed database?
Well, something weird just happened to me that helped convince me that we do need web3.
It’s going to sound absurd, but bear with me.
There’s a point to all this, I promise.
The Ballad of the Disputed Mayonnaise
I bought a jar of my favourite brand of mayonnaise at my local supermarket.
I handed over my money, the supermarket gave me a receipt, and I walked out of the store with the mayonnaise.
Back home, I made a cheese and spinach sandwich, and spooned on the mayonnaise. Yes, you heard me right, I spooned it on. I’ve heard that there are people who spread mayonnaise with a knife, but those people just don’t know how to live.
I was about to take my first bite when there was a knock at the door.
It was the police.
They told me that they’d received notice, from a mysterious entity known as VUULTURE, acting on behalf of my local supermarket, that I’d stolen the jar of mayonnaise. They’d have to repossess the mayonnaise, as well as the sandwich I’d put it in, and hand it over to VUULTURE.
I tried to tell the police that I hadn’t stolen the mayonnaise, I’d purchased it at my local supermarket. But they wouldn’t listen. That wasn’t their concern, they said. Whenever they received a claim from an entity like VUULTURE, they simply assumed that it was valid and repossessed the stolen goods, in this case, my jar of mayonnaise, as well as any unstolen goods it had come into contact with, in this case, my cheese and spinach sandwich.
I tried to show the police the receipt that proved that I’d purchased the mayonnaise. But they wouldn’t look. They didn’t have time, they said, to adjudicate disputes. If VUULTURE claimed that the mayonnaise had been stolen, then, as far as they were concerned, the mayonnaise had been stolen.
My only recourse, the police said, was to beg VUULTURE to withdraw their claim. But be warned, they said: if VUULTURE refused to withdraw the claim, then my sandwich belonged to them.
Eat your heart out, Franz Kafka
The word Kafkaesque doesn’t do justice to the absurdity of this chain of events.
But it happened.
Well, something very similar happened.
I admit, I changed a few of the details.
It wasn’t mayonnaise, it was music.
It wasn’t a sandwich, it was a podcast.
And I changed the names, too, to protect the guilty.
So let me out them: the supermarket was Pond5; the brand was comamusic; the police were Google; the mysterious entity known as VUULTURE was, well, a mysterious entity known as HAAWK.
No, seriously, I’m not making this up.
Let me tell it again, this time without changing the names or the details.
The Ballad of the Disputed Music
I needed some intro music for one of my podcasts, so I went to the media marketplace Pond5 and bought a licence to a track created by comamusic.
I handed over my money and Pond5 gave me a proof of purchase. The licence explicity permitted me to use the track in YouTube videos.
I recorded a podcast using the track as the intro music, and uploaded it to YouTube.
I was about to put it live when Google informed me that they’d received notice from a mysterious entity known as HAAWK, acting on behalf of comamusic, that I’d stolen the track. They’d have to repossess the music, as well as the YouTube video I’d put it in, and hand it over to HAAWK.
I tried to tell Google that I hadn’t stolen the music, I’d purchased it through Pond5. But they wouldn’t listen. That wasn’t their concern, they said. Whenever they received a copyright claim from an entity like HAAWK, they simply assumed that it was valid and reassigned rights to the YouTube video it was in to HAAWK.
I tried to show Google the receipt that proved that I’d purchased a licence to the music. But they wouldn’t look. They didn’t have time, they said, to adjudicate disputes. If HAAWK claimed that the track had been stolen, then, as far as they were concerned, the track had been stolen.
My only recourse, Google said, was to beg HAAWK to withdraw their claim. But be warned, they said: if HAAWK refused to withdraw the claim, then the rights to my YouTube video belonged to them.
I did beg HAAWK to withdraw their claim, and thankfully they obliged. If they hadn’t, it would have cost me countless hours searching for new intro music and re-editing several episodes of my podcast. And, of course, I’d have lost the money I paid for the licence to the track.
Unreal
That made-up story I told – the one where the police knocked at my door and confiscated the jar of mayonnaise I’d bought, along with the cheese and spinach sandwich I’d made with it – it sounded absurd, right?
But it’s no more absurd than the true story, the one where Google confiscated the rights to the music I’d bought, along with the podcast I’d made with it.
The only difference is that the true story was about rights to digital property, whereas the made-up story was about rights to physical property.
If you think that the digital is any less real, these days, than the physical, you need to get real.
Failing fast
Tech giants like Google are failing us.
They simply have no incentive to protect individuals’ legal rights.
The courts, too, are failing us.
They’re intended to protect individuals’ legal rights, but it would be crazy for me to take Pond5, comamusic, Google and the mysterious entity known as HAAWK to court.
As long as digital rights are mediated through messy licences written in messy language, enforceable only through a seriously slow, extremely expensive, disastrously distributed legal system, these institutions will always fail us.
If only we could enforce contracts in a way that bypasses these failing institutions...
Hang on a minute...
Suddenly web3 makes a whole lot more sense to me.
If my licence to use that music in my podcast were a smart contract, written indelibly and indisputably onto a blockchain, I wouldn’t need to rely on Google or the courts to exercise my legal rights.
Sure, the blockchain is seriously slow, extremely expensive and disastrously distributed.
But it’s not as seriously slow, extremely expensive and disastrously distributed as the legal system.
Digital ownership is broken. We need web3 to fix it.