Not Your Keys, Not Your Content: Ownership In A Digital Age

Amazon has updated its purchasing presumption for Kindle e-books successful the United States to clarify that customers are acquiring a licence to the content, not ownership. The caller connection reads: “By placing your order, you’re purchasing a licence to the contented and hold to the Kindle Store Terms of Use.” This update is circumstantial to U.S. customers; planetary users proceed to spot the erstwhile wording, but the connection is the same: You don’t ain it; we are lone letting you usage it.

Starting February 26, 2025, Amazon volition discontinue the “Download & Transfer via USB” diagnostic for Kindle devices. This means users tin nary longer download Kindle books straight to their computers for manual transfer, arsenic the entree to purchased contented volition present beryllium wholly connected Amazon’s unreality infrastructure. This alteration points retired a subtle information astir ownership and reinforces a elemental fact: It isn’t yours if idiosyncratic other tin instrumentality it away.

This is not conscionable an Amazon contented but applies to each contented and materials successful our existent integer era. Your favourite songs and albums connected your streaming app cannot beryllium accessed without an net connection. They bounds the fig of devices you tin perceive from, and they insert ads unless you wage them a monthly fee. Gone are the days of records, tapes, and CDs having the state to perceive nevertheless you want, resell, oregon adjacent springiness it distant to a friend.

What does it mean to ain something? Ownership is typically understood arsenic the enactment oregon authorities of possessing something. In this case, we intelligibly person the content, but it tin beryllium altered oregon taken distant from america astatine immoderate time. That is not existent ownership. Oxford states ownership is defined arsenic “The exclusive close to use, possess, and dispose of property”. So exclusivity is required successful ownership. 

What astir different intangible integer items specified arsenic wealth oregon identity? You person your sanction oregon grip connected societal media oregon email. That is you, it is your online likeness, persona, and contented that you created. You cannot person 2 radical with the aforesaid sanction oregon handle, and that exclusivity is enforced by a password connected the account, but that relationship tin beryllium locked, banned, oregon deleted astatine immoderate clip by the decisions of Facebook oregon X. What astir that wealth successful your slope account? You person it, and you person ineligible rights to it, but banks frost accounts, and governments prehend funds each the time. That is not existent ownership. 

So I inquire again: What does it mean to ain something? It is not capable to person it; having exclusivity oregon adjacent ineligible rights is not enough. To genuinely ain something, you unsocial indispensable beryllium capable to enforce that possession and exclusivity. In the carnal world, enforcement mostly comes down to coercion and the menace oregon existent usage of violence. The eviction announcement from the sheriff’s department, the equipped guards successful beforehand of a vault, the redrawing of borders aft a war. In the integer domain, encryption serves this intent and, astatine the aforesaid time, removes the request for unit by making unit ineffective. It creates ownership that cannot beryllium overridden by violence. No magnitude of carnal unit tin interruption beardown cryptography. A authorities tin prehend a server, and a institution tin unopen down an account, but if information is encrypted and the cardinal is private, the accusation remains inaccessible. The lone mode to entree encrypted assets is done consent.

Encryption doesn’t conscionable support integer ownership; it changes the precise quality of power. It removes unit from the equation. That’s wherefore it’s truthful disruptive.

Digital signing successful encrypted systems is however you beryllium ownership and power successful the integer world. PGP lets you motion messages and files, proving they came from you and haven’t been altered. Nostr, a decentralized societal media protocol, works the aforesaid way. Your posts and individuality are tied to your private key, not a institution that tin prohibition oregon delete you. Bitcoin exemplifies this principle. Controlling your backstage keys means lone you tin entree and negociate your funds. When you motion a Bitcoin transaction, lone you tin entree and determination your money. No slope tin frost it, nary authorities tin prehend it without your key. True ownership is astir having the powerfulness to enforce that ownership. 

The Bitcoin axiom “Not your keys, not your coins” comes to mind. “Not your keys, not your coins” means if you don’t power the private keys to your Bitcoin, you don’t ain it. When you support Bitcoin connected an exchange, the speech holds the keys, not you. They tin frost your account, bounds withdrawals, oregon adjacent suffer your funds. Brokerage accounts and status accounts with Bitcoin ETFs tin beryllium frozen oregon seized the aforesaid arsenic immoderate slope account. True ownership means holding your keys due to the fact that lone past bash you person afloat power implicit your money, identity, and property. 

The displacement from carnal to integer has made entree easier but ownership murky. Whether it’s books, music, identity, oregon money, conscionable having possession is an illusion of ownership. Companies tin revoke access, governments tin prehend funds, and platforms tin erase identities, but encryption changes that. Ownership becomes enforceable, not by laws, a corporation, oregon an institution, but by math. If you privation existent integer ownership, the regularisation is simple: power your keys, oregon idiosyncratic other is the existent owner. 

This is simply a impermanent station by Will Jager. Opinions expressed are wholly their ain and bash not needfully bespeak those of BTC Inc oregon Bitcoin Magazine.