At 03:25 AM 5/12/00 -0400, you wrote: >Recently I saw at comment on slashdot suggesting how to pay for MP3s. >Suppose you know 100,000 people like a particular artist. If they all >aggree to pay $1 upfront for the release of the next album then it is >released. If the artist does their job - and keeps turning out good albums >people will keep buying. Payment is based on reputation. It turns out that >there is a site set up to do stuff like that - loudvoices.com. >It looks like this could be used for any IP and most anything that >government does - and could essentially replace the tax system. Immagine >funding a space program this way ! Looks like someone has rediscovered Eric Hughes' Universal Piracy System funding method (later independently discovered by Bruce Schneier) and related to Robin Hanson's idea futures. Unfortunately, it also appears their methods will avoid controversial issues of the type raised by Jim Bell. They attempt to solve the trust issue by passing it off to one of the unaffiliated participants. It will interesting to see what, if anything, develops. --Steve
