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09-15-2013, 05:24 PM | #1 |
Join Date: Jul 2009
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Nanofabricators, DRM and Forced Scarcity
So, I've decided to pause a TL10-11 sci-fi campaign that I was GM-ing; it had been written long ago, without player input or any real goal, so now when we dusted it off and tried to populate it with PCs, it didn't hold up. Namely, it was difficult to envision who the characters could be, what they had access to, and what the relationships between the factions were; every planet/habitat seemed to be floating in a separate reality from the rest, and it was difficult to derive any tension when the world felt decentralized and tenuously connected. I'm currently rewriting it to be less broad and hodge-podge.
A particularly problematic element were nanofabricators, which were introduced due to pure cool-factor (and because biotech/nanotech were supposed to be TL11 while everything else was TL10), which kinda reduced all space trade to automated bulk shipping of raw materials. I didn't consider this a problem at the time, since I thought that information, ideas, media, and art becoming the only valuable commodities might make for an interesting setting. But the players decided to play a crew of space pirates. I told them that, if we didn't change technological assumptions, their space piracy operation would look more like "bank robbers/art thieves/kidnappers that also happen to have a ship," and they seemed fine with it. But now that the setting is getting a full rewrite, I asked them how we could build it from the ground-up with space piracy in mind (without slipping into retro-space-opera). One player suggested nightmarish digital rights management: most things can be fabricated in one's home, but large companies (or a single consortium) control all blueprints and artificially inflate prices. Blueprints are licensed, heavily encrypted, cannot be copied, are limited to a number of uses, tied to a device or an account, and regularly check with home office to make sure the user isn't up to anything funny. Maybe they aren't ever really downloaded - they either go to a dedicated terminal on the nanofab, or delete themselves after fabrication is done. (I think you can guess what recent piece of tech the player was inspired by.) So space pirates would be of the copyright-infringing variety this time. They'd use ships to intercept tight-beam data transfers, copy blueprints, programs, music, invids, slinks or whatever, get the data to a kind of Port Royal for cracking, and resell it as "hassle-free" data (or give it away for free if they get their funding from some kind of infosocialist government). So, how many holes can you people poke through this? Is such a system sustainable? Are there easier ways of doing it (both stealing and protecting data)? What kind of adventures would you give to such a party? What would the ramifications be on society? I'd greatly appreciate any help I can get. |
09-15-2013, 07:13 PM | #2 |
Join Date: Aug 2013
Location: Irving, TX
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Re: Nanofabricators, DRM and Forced Scarcity
Safe tech and older items (10+yrs or more) can be printed at anytime. However, they are well, plain and basic. This is your household goods, most furniture/electronics and items you would find in a dorm room or person's first apartment. If you want the latest items ranging from weapons to fashions you need to steal it. Some companies may pay you to steal the latest designs from a competitors. Then the infosocialists want to look for the upgrades to the infrastructure. Plus on the frontier the latest music, videos and slinklys can be used to gain support from the locals.
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09-15-2013, 11:43 PM | #3 | |
Join Date: Mar 2013
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Re: Nanofabricators, DRM and Forced Scarcity
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One thing I know is that anything that is on a computer can be stolen. One just needs an unlocked version of the fabricator, probably available a few weeks after the locked version. I can't picture ships being useful in intercepting tight beam communication. At best they can be used to move stolen info from system to system. Or to steal new items so they can be reverse engineered. Also I could picture open source hardware being a big selling point so that if the company goes bankrupt you can still build repair parts. I really think that DRM will be the plaything of totalitarian regimes. Most people seem quite willing to pay a reasonable price for what they want. With open source hardware I could picture research costs being lower because most complex devices could be made of low-level components that are freely available. Open source object oriented hardware!
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09-17-2013, 07:47 PM | #4 | |
Join Date: May 2008
Location: CA
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Re: Nanofabricators, DRM and Forced Scarcity
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09-18-2013, 05:22 AM | #5 | |
Join Date: Jul 2007
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Re: Nanofabricators, DRM and Forced Scarcity
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The rationalizations for this can be various, but the real reason is that the government says so. Probably because IP producers don't want the competition. And a nanofab that will accept any plan that hasn't been properly tagged is itself extremely illegal. Possible rationalizations: Liability: Open source stuff has not been properly checked for safety, and when you are crippled by your toaster, who is going to pay your medical bills? Open Source is something those evil baby-eating infosocialists who want to kill us all believe in! The public domain does not exist, or rather the government owns anything not specifically owned by someone else. How else will they pay for all their vital services without all those toaster royalties? Open source plans could actually be for bioweapons or illegal hacking gear or other Bad Stuff. Only properly cleared and tagged stuff can be trusted. And the process of getting cleared is so onerous and expensive that no one can afford to do it if they don't charge for the final product. |
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09-18-2013, 06:14 AM | #6 | |
GURPS FAQ Keeper
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Kyïv, Ukraine
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Re: Nanofabricators, DRM and Forced Scarcity
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09-18-2013, 06:34 AM | #7 | ||
Join Date: Jul 2009
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Re: Nanofabricators, DRM and Forced Scarcity
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I don't think tertiary and quaternary sectors would be all that affected by a nanofab economy. Politics, software engineering, filmmaking, journalism, consultancy, law, and many other professions can't really be automated (though they might employ less people). I'm not even sure which blue-collar professions would survive besides maybe "AI supervisor." People who would do menial tasks in our world would be on the dole... |
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09-17-2013, 03:17 AM | #8 | ||||||
Join Date: Jul 2009
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Re: Nanofabricators, DRM and Forced Scarcity
Sorry for the thread-orphaning, it's been a busy couple of days.
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To reinforce the core premise of the setting, any upstart blueprint/media IP holder will run into two problems - most "plain, generic" stuff exists in public domain, and if they undercut the main IP holder with cheap trendy designs, they'll be bought and dissolved by the monopoly. The setting would have to be really connected (or really tiny) for the "trendiness" to be so urgent and profitable. Might also come across slightly comical - "We're live. We need to sell a million copies in the next 2 hours before the price drops. If any pirates crack our system before then, our profit margin is ruined!" My initial idea is was to have one big triple-star system (colonized slower-than-light quite a while ago), but the players requested something bigger and interstellar. To take advantage of that, I thought I'd make use a few other reviled corporate practice: regional locks and forced exclusivity! Different systems, or even different parts of a single system, would get their latest IP at different times and at different costs, maybe even modified and tuned just for the audience in that system (possibly in concert with the local authorities). Quote:
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The fourth party member is an art connoisseur (yes, they insisted on being space pirates, and then made their characters ponces and celebrities), so I fully expect them to oceanseleven their way into a few museums. |
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09-17-2013, 08:31 AM | #9 | ||||||
GURPS FAQ Keeper
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Kyïv, Ukraine
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Re: Nanofabricators, DRM and Forced Scarcity
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09-17-2013, 09:05 AM | #10 |
Join Date: Jul 2008
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Re: Nanofabricators, DRM and Forced Scarcity
Have you read Neptune's Brood by Charles Stross? I bring it up because it is a book with pretty hard science, plentiful nanofabricators...and space pirates.
While getting into all their schemes would be telling a bit too much, their major interests in boarding ships appear to be inspecting them and their cargoes, partly for insurance reasons (they are technically an insurance agency branch office) and partly so that they can engage in commodity futures trading using inside information about any cargo that hasn't been publicly disclosed. (Actually physically stealing bulk cargos would be a waste.)
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Tags |
drm, nanofabricator, scarcity, sci-fi, spaceships |
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