From db03e5e63654d3c425917c3d9eb1a16d5cf99244 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Jeremy Kauffman Date: Thu, 28 Apr 2016 12:35:36 -0400 Subject: [PATCH] merge blog, merge essay, new /get, new /learn --- controller/Actions.class.php | 11 + controller/Controller.class.php | 2 + controller/action/BlogActions.class.php | 7 +- controller/action/DownloadActions.class.php | 50 ++- model/Post.class.php | 18 + view/{posts => }/37-art.md | 0 .../template/blog/{author.php => _author.php} | 4 +- view/template/blog/index.php | 7 +- view/template/blog/post.php | 78 ++-- view/template/download/_betaNotice.php | 5 +- view/template/download/_developers.php | 3 - view/template/download/_feedbackPrompt.php | 8 + view/template/download/_linux.php | 1 + view/template/download/_list.php | 17 +- view/template/download/_reward.php | 27 +- view/template/download/_social.php | 15 + view/template/download/_unavailable.php | 15 +- view/template/download/_videoIntro.php | 3 + view/template/download/feedback-prompt.php | 9 - view/template/download/get-no-os.php | 17 + view/template/download/get.php | 77 ++-- view/template/download/get2.php | 28 -- view/template/nav/header.php | 5 +- view/template/nav/learnFooter.php | 21 +- view/template/page/art.php | 235 ---------- view/template/page/docs.php | 65 +++ view/template/page/feedback.php | 5 +- view/template/page/home.php | 102 ++--- view/template/page/join-list.php | 3 +- view/template/page/learn-old.php | 70 +++ view/template/page/learn.php | 52 ++- view/template/page/slack.php | 10 + view/template/page/team.php | 1 + view/template/page/what-old.php | 99 +++++ view/template/page/what.php | 405 ++++++++++++++---- .../social/{sidebar.php => _list.php} | 7 +- view/template/social/_listDev.php | 11 + web/scss/_basic.scss | 4 +- web/scss/_blog.scss | 1 + web/scss/_content.scss | 14 +- web/scss/_cover.scss | 2 +- web/scss/_form.scss | 10 + web/scss/_global.scss | 10 +- web/scss/_grid.scss | 9 +- web/scss/_header.scss | 4 + web/scss/_icons.scss | 5 + 46 files changed, 961 insertions(+), 591 deletions(-) rename view/{posts => }/37-art.md (100%) rename view/template/blog/{author.php => _author.php} (67%) delete mode 100644 view/template/download/_developers.php create mode 100644 view/template/download/_feedbackPrompt.php create mode 100644 view/template/download/_social.php create mode 100644 view/template/download/_videoIntro.php delete mode 100644 view/template/download/feedback-prompt.php create mode 100644 view/template/download/get-no-os.php delete mode 100644 view/template/download/get2.php delete mode 100644 view/template/page/art.php create mode 100644 view/template/page/docs.php create mode 100644 view/template/page/learn-old.php create mode 100644 view/template/page/slack.php create mode 100644 view/template/page/what-old.php rename view/template/social/{sidebar.php => _list.php} (53%) create mode 100644 view/template/social/_listDev.php diff --git a/controller/Actions.class.php b/controller/Actions.class.php index e974d2cf..eb7146e1 100644 --- a/controller/Actions.class.php +++ b/controller/Actions.class.php @@ -20,4 +20,15 @@ class Actions Actions::returnError($error); } } + + protected static function isForRobot() + { + $bots = [ + 'bot', 'spider', 'crawler', 'siteexplorer', 'yahoo', 'slurp', 'dataaccessd', 'facebook', 'twitter', 'coccoc', + 'calendar', 'curl', 'wget', 'panopta', 'blogtrottr', 'zapier', 'newrelic', 'luasocket', + 'okhttp', 'python' + ]; + + return preg_match('/(' . join('|', $bots) . ')/i', $_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT']); + } } \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/controller/Controller.class.php b/controller/Controller.class.php index c763d3ac..f2753837 100644 --- a/controller/Controller.class.php +++ b/controller/Controller.class.php @@ -64,6 +64,8 @@ class Controller return static::redirect('https://s3.amazonaws.com/files.lbry.io/osx/lbry.0.2.2.dmg', 307); case '/lbry-linux-latest.deb': return static::redirect('https://s3.amazonaws.com/files.lbry.io/linux/lbry_0.2.2_amd64.deb', 307); + case '/art': + return static::redirect('/what'); default: $blogPattern = '#^/news(/|$)#'; if (preg_match($blogPattern, $uri)) diff --git a/controller/action/BlogActions.class.php b/controller/action/BlogActions.class.php index c52f59f2..792cae18 100644 --- a/controller/action/BlogActions.class.php +++ b/controller/action/BlogActions.class.php @@ -3,7 +3,7 @@ class BlogActions extends Actions { const URL_STEM = '/news'; - + public static function executeIndex() { $posts = Blog::getPosts(); @@ -28,12 +28,13 @@ class BlogActions extends Actions 'post' => $post ]]; } - - public static function prepareAuthor(array $vars) + + public static function prepareAuthorPartial(array $vars) { $post = $vars['post']; return [ 'authorName' => $post->getAuthorName(), + 'photoImgSrc' => $post->getAuthorPhoto(), 'authorBioHtml' => $post->getAuthorBioHtml() ]; } diff --git a/controller/action/DownloadActions.class.php b/controller/action/DownloadActions.class.php index 2cc2432f..798190ef 100644 --- a/controller/action/DownloadActions.class.php +++ b/controller/action/DownloadActions.class.php @@ -7,20 +7,20 @@ */ class DownloadActions extends Actions { - const OS_LINUX = 'linux', - OS_WINDOWS = 'windows', + const OS_ANDROID = 'android', + OS_IOS = 'ios', + OS_LINUX = 'linux', OS_OSX = 'osx', - OS_ANDROID = 'android', - OS_IOS = 'ios'; + OS_WINDOWS = 'windows'; public static function getOses() { return [ + static::OS_WINDOWS => ['/windows', 'Windows', 'icon-windows', '_windows'], + static::OS_OSX => ['/osx', 'OS X', 'icon-apple', '_osx'], static::OS_LINUX => ['/linux', 'Linux', 'icon-linux', '_linux'], static::OS_ANDROID => ['/android', 'Android', 'icon-android', '_android'], - static::OS_OSX => ['/osx', 'OS X', 'icon-apple', '_osx'], - static::OS_WINDOWS => ['/windows', 'Windows', 'icon-windows', '_windows'], - static::OS_IOS => ['/ios', 'iOS', 'icon-ios', '_ios'] + static::OS_IOS => ['/ios', 'iOS', 'icon-mobile', '_ios'] ]; } @@ -28,10 +28,11 @@ class DownloadActions extends Actions { $osChoices = static::getOses(); $os = static::guessOs(); - if (isset($osChoices[$os])) + + if ($os && isset($osChoices[$os])) { list($uri, $osTitle, $osIcon, $partial) = $osChoices[$os]; - return ['download/get2', [ + return ['download/get', [ 'os' => $os, 'osTitle' => $osTitle, 'osIcon' => $osIcon, @@ -40,11 +41,12 @@ class DownloadActions extends Actions false ]]; } - return ['download/get', [ + + return ['download/get-no-os', [ 'isSubscribed' => in_array(Mailchimp::LIST_GENERAL_ID, Session::get(Session::KEY_MAILCHIMP_LIST_IDS, [])) ]]; } - + public static function prepareListPartial(array $vars) { return $vars + ['osChoices' => isset($vars['excludeOs']) ? @@ -53,9 +55,9 @@ class DownloadActions extends Actions ]; } - //implement me! protected static function guessOs() { + //if exact OS is requested, use that $uri = strtok($_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'], '?'); foreach(static::getOses() as $os => $osChoice) { @@ -64,9 +66,27 @@ class DownloadActions extends Actions return $os; } } -// $oses = ['linux', 'windows', 'osx', 'ios', 'android']; - $oses = ['linux', 'windows', 'osx']; - return $oses[rand(0, count($oses) - 1)]; + + if (static::isForRobot()) + { + return null; + } + + //otherwise guess from UA + $ua = $_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT']; + if (stripos($ua, 'OS X') !== false) + { + return strpos($ua, 'iPhone') !== false || stripos($ua, 'iPad') !== false ? static::OS_IOS : static::OS_OSX; + } + if (stripos($ua, 'Linux') !== false || strpos($ua, 'X11') !== false) + { + return strpos($ua, 'Android') !== false ? static::OS_ANDROID : static::OS_LINUX; + } + if (stripos($ua, 'Windows') !== false) + { + return static::OS_WINDOWS; + } + return null; } // protected static function validateDownloadAccess() diff --git a/model/Post.class.php b/model/Post.class.php index 0ae94e25..b6f1fe24 100644 --- a/model/Post.class.php +++ b/model/Post.class.php @@ -81,6 +81,24 @@ class Post } } + public function getAuthorPhoto() + { + switch(strtolower($this->author)) + { + case 'jeremy': + return 'jeremy-644x450.jpg'; + case 'mike': + return 'mike-644x450.jpg'; + case 'jimmy': + return 'jimmy-644x450.jpg'; + case 'jack': + return 'jack-robison-644x450.jpg'; + case 'lbry': + default: + return 'spooner-644x450.jpg'; + } + } + public function getAuthorBioHtml() { switch(strtolower($this->author)) diff --git a/view/posts/37-art.md b/view/37-art.md similarity index 100% rename from view/posts/37-art.md rename to view/37-art.md diff --git a/view/template/blog/author.php b/view/template/blog/_author.php similarity index 67% rename from view/template/blog/author.php rename to view/template/blog/_author.php index c1eb24ae..e041b977 100644 --- a/view/template/blog/author.php +++ b/view/template/blog/_author.php @@ -1,7 +1,9 @@
-
(photo)
+
+ <?php echo __('Photo of %name%', ['%name%' => $authorName]) ?> +
Author

diff --git a/view/template/blog/index.php b/view/template/blog/index.php index 93e00b76..699e519c 100644 --- a/view/template/blog/index.php +++ b/view/template/blog/index.php @@ -9,11 +9,14 @@
-
+

getTitle() ?>

-
getDate()->format('M j, Y') ?>
+
+ getDate()->format('M j, Y') ?> + getAuthorName() ?> +
> diff --git a/view/template/blog/post.php b/view/template/blog/post.php index 638b67bc..ef3bf8ee 100644 --- a/view/template/blog/post.php +++ b/view/template/blog/post.php @@ -1,47 +1,49 @@ getTitle()) ?>
-
-

getTitle()) ?>

-
-
-
getAuthorName() ?>
-
getDate()->format('M j') ?>
+
+
+

getTitle()) ?>

+
+
+
getAuthorName() ?>
+
getDate()->format('M j') ?>
+
-
-
- getContentHtml() ?> -
-
+
+ getContentHtml() ?> +
+
- + + - $post ]) ?> diff --git a/view/template/download/_betaNotice.php b/view/template/download/_betaNotice.php index 9b7cc5a4..7e9e4f9a 100644 --- a/view/template/download/_betaNotice.php +++ b/view/template/download/_betaNotice.php @@ -1,4 +1,5 @@ -
+
This is a pre-release, beta version of LBRY. - Something something something. + It may crash, work unreliably, or inadvertently put a curse on your family for generations (a common programming error). + Use at your own risk.
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/view/template/download/_developers.php b/view/template/download/_developers.php deleted file mode 100644 index cf52ac03..00000000 --- a/view/template/download/_developers.php +++ /dev/null @@ -1,3 +0,0 @@ -
-

Developers

-
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/view/template/download/_feedbackPrompt.php b/view/template/download/_feedbackPrompt.php new file mode 100644 index 00000000..270463b8 --- /dev/null +++ b/view/template/download/_feedbackPrompt.php @@ -0,0 +1,8 @@ + +

+ Earn * for completing the survey below after install. +

+
+ *What is this worth? Who knows! But it is the largest reward we will ever offer to early adopters. +
+ diff --git a/view/template/download/_linux.php b/view/template/download/_linux.php index 1b2eb359..5ac26155 100644 --- a/view/template/download/_linux.php +++ b/view/template/download/_linux.php @@ -5,6 +5,7 @@

Download .deb

+
Ubuntu, Debian, or any distro with apt or dpkg.

Masochists Professionals

diff --git a/view/template/download/_list.php b/view/template/download/_list.php index 5d22d460..cfb1da33 100644 --- a/view/template/download/_list.php +++ b/view/template/download/_list.php @@ -1,11 +1,22 @@ -
-

Other Systems

+ +
+

+ + + +

- +

+ + + +
+
', $bucketRow) ?>
+
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/view/template/download/_reward.php b/view/template/download/_reward.php index bf77f3b7..689a11ca 100644 --- a/view/template/download/_reward.php +++ b/view/template/download/_reward.php @@ -1,20 +1,15 @@ -
-

Test and Earn

- -

Test Your Install

-
    -
  1. Double click the app (LBRY will open in your browser)
  2. -
  3. Search and stream wonderfullife
  4. -
  5. Continue to play as you desire
  6. -
-

Feedback

-

- In addition to , your feedback will be personally read by the developers and help signal - interest in LBRY to investors. -

- Provide Your Feedback -
+

Test and Earn

+ +
    +
  1. Open LBRY.
  2. +
  3. Search and stream wonderfullife. Continue to play as you desire.
  4. +
  5. Provide Your Feedback
  6. +
+

+ In addition to , your feedback will be personally read by the developers and help signal + interest in LBRY to investors. +

diff --git a/view/template/download/_social.php b/view/template/download/_social.php new file mode 100644 index 00000000..a957a479 --- /dev/null +++ b/view/template/download/_social.php @@ -0,0 +1,15 @@ +
+

Build With Us

+
+
+

Humans

+

Let's create a freer, more creative world.

+ +
+
+

Wanna Be Robots

+

Make with us. All LBRY code is open source.

+ +
+
+
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/view/template/download/_unavailable.php b/view/template/download/_unavailable.php index 96b2c861..8813767f 100644 --- a/view/template/download/_unavailable.php +++ b/view/template/download/_unavailable.php @@ -1 +1,14 @@ -not avail \ No newline at end of file +
+

LBRY is coming out on your favorite platform soon. Join our list to know when.

+
+ 'Go', + 'returnUrl' => '/get', + 'meta' => true, + 'listId' => Mailchimp::LIST_GENERAL_ID, + 'mergeFields' => ['CLI' => 'No'], + ]) ?> +
+

Can't wait? View the source and compile instructions on + GitHub. +

diff --git a/view/template/download/_videoIntro.php b/view/template/download/_videoIntro.php new file mode 100644 index 00000000..9c0e5ce1 --- /dev/null +++ b/view/template/download/_videoIntro.php @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +
+ +
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/view/template/download/feedback-prompt.php b/view/template/download/feedback-prompt.php deleted file mode 100644 index 6bf8cc23..00000000 --- a/view/template/download/feedback-prompt.php +++ /dev/null @@ -1,9 +0,0 @@ - -

- Regardless of whether you got LBRY to run or not, your feedback is immensely valuable. - Everyone who made any effort to install and complete the survey below will receive *. -

-
- *What is this worth? Who knows! But it will be the largest reward we will ever offer to early adopters. -
- diff --git a/view/template/download/get-no-os.php b/view/template/download/get-no-os.php new file mode 100644 index 00000000..0d49f51b --- /dev/null +++ b/view/template/download/get-no-os.php @@ -0,0 +1,17 @@ + + + false]) ?> +
+
+ __('Select an OS') + ]) ?> +
+
+ + $socialCssClasses + ]) ?> +
+
+ diff --git a/view/template/download/get.php b/view/template/download/get.php index d552e026..36e9aef7 100644 --- a/view/template/download/get.php +++ b/view/template/download/get.php @@ -1,60 +1,31 @@ - - + $osTitle])) ?> + false]) ?> +
-
-
-
-
- -
-

-

Earn early adopter rewards for downloading our Alpha client.

-
- 'Go', - 'listId' => Mailchimp::LIST_GENERAL_ID, - 'mergeFields' => ['CLI' => 'Yes'], - 'fbEvent' => 'Alpha', - 'returnUrl' => '/get?email=1', - 'btnClass' => 'btn-alt' - ]) ?> -
- -
- Already signed up or really hate sharing your email? Click here. -
- -
- -
- -
+
+
+

LBRY for

+ + + + + + + + +
-
-
-
-
- -
-

-

LBRY is coming out on your favorite platform soon. Join our list to know when.

- 'Go', - 'returnUrl' => '/get', - 'listId' => Mailchimp::LIST_GENERAL_ID, - 'mergeFields' => ['CLI' => 'No'], - ]) ?> -
-
+
+ $os + ]) ?> + + $socialCssClasses + ]) ?>
+ diff --git a/view/template/download/get2.php b/view/template/download/get2.php deleted file mode 100644 index aea522b0..00000000 --- a/view/template/download/get2.php +++ /dev/null @@ -1,28 +0,0 @@ - $osTitle])) ?> - - false]) ?> - -
-
-
-

LBRY for

- - - - - - -
- - - -
-
- $os - ]) ?> - -
-
- - diff --git a/view/template/nav/header.php b/view/template/nav/header.php index 7be56544..1a10b49c 100644 --- a/view/template/nav/header.php +++ b/view/template/nav/header.php @@ -1,9 +1,10 @@ false + 'isDark' => false, + 'isAbsolute' => false ], EXTR_SKIP) ?> -
+ diff --git a/view/template/page/art.php b/view/template/page/art.php deleted file mode 100644 index 244b1b91..00000000 --- a/view/template/page/art.php +++ /dev/null @@ -1,235 +0,0 @@ -
-
-

Art in the Internet Age

-
- by Jeremy Kauffman, Michael Zargham, and Jack Robison -
-
-
-
-

Introduction

-

In 34,000 B.C., there were cave paintings. And that’s it. When you came home from a sweltering August day of foraging along the Vézère river, the only form of non-live art or entertainment available was something like the above buffalo.

- -

Today, we live in a world of near infinite choices. This is true not just for art but for all kinds of things (like potato chips). Since the era of cave art, humanity has incessantly and progressively trended towards interconnected, more efficient, and increasingly transparent markets. This undercurrent of connectedness and openness has affected everything human beings produce.

- -

Nerds like us like to speculate about the end-game of this trend with others on the internet. What will society be like when we have a "Star Trek"-like capacity to instantly and freely replicate anything that exists? The term for this society is post-scarcity1.

- -

Generally, post-scarcity is regarded as fantastical; something that will never happen in our lifetimes. Except for one area: digital goods.

- -

Art in the internet age is infinitely reproducible and easily shared. This is a sea change from any prior time in history. Previously, vinyl records captured audio in physical grooves; tapes captured data on magnetic strips; compact disks held digital files read by lasers—in each of these cases physical, medium-specific hardware is required to both produce and recover the bits of data that made up the digital content.

- -

Today art is just data, a string of 1s and 0s, a number, and we no longer need any specialized hardware to decode and enjoy digital content. We use the same technological methods to access a personal photograph a single time as we do to watch a blockbuster on Netflix.

- -

This is a big step forward from the past. As production costs fall to zero, choices go up. Digital distributors provide virtually every song, film, photo or book for purchase and download to any internet enabled device. Technology has decreased the cost of production, too -- it has never been easier for aspirant artists to achieve a following through self-publishing.

- -

The digitization of art has added a lot of value to both content creators and consumers, reducing costs and increasing choice. This transition is still in its infancy. With LBRY, we’re going to make it a little more mature.

-
1 Note that post-scarcity does not eliminate the need to create new goods, it just eliminates or reduces the costs of duplicating goods to nothing. As long as people desire goods that did not previously exist, there will always be a market demand for creation, even in a post-scarcity world.
-
-
-

A People’s Marketplace

-

LBRY is the first digital marketplace to be controlled by the market’s participants rather than a corporation or other 3rd-party. It is the most open, fair, and efficient marketplace for digital goods ever created, with an incentive design encouraging it to become the most complete.

-

At the highest level, LBRY does something extraordinarily simple. LBRY creates an association between a unique name and a piece of digital content, such as a movie, book, or game. This is similar to the domain name system that you are most likely using to access this very post.

- -
- -
- A user searches and prepares to stream and the film It’s a Wonderful Life, located at lbry://wonderfullife, via a completely decentralized network. Try it out for yourself at lbry.io/get. -
-
- -

However, LBRY does this not through a proprietary service or network, but as a protocol, or a method of doing things, much like HTTP, DNS and other specifications that make up the internet itself. Just as many different domains owned by many different companies all speak a shared language, so too can any person or company speak LBRY. No special access or permission is needed.

- -

LBRY differs from the status quo in three big ways:

- -
    -
  1. Coupled payment and access. If desired, the person who publishes to lbry://wonderfullife can charge a fee to users that view the content.
  2. -
  3. Decentralized and distributed. Content published to LBRY is not specific to one computer or network. No one party, including us, can unilaterally remove or block content on the LBRY network. - - (If it worries you that LBRY could facilitate unsavory content, this is discussed in its own section.)
  4. - -
  5. Domain names are controlled via ongoing auction. This facilitates names being controlled by the publishers that value them most. These transactions take place via an electronic currency called LBRY credits, or LBC. This is covered in more detail, below.
  6. -
- -

While creating a protocol that we ourselves cannot control sounds chaotic, it is actually about establishing trust. Every other publishing system requires trusting an intermediary that can unilaterally change the rules on you. What happens when you build your business on YouTube or Amazon and they change fees? Or Apple drops your content because the Premier of China thought your comedy went to far?

- -

Only LBRY consists of a known, promised set of rules that no one can unilaterally change. LBRY provides this by doing something unique: leaving the users in control rather than demanding that control for itself.

-
-
-

A Sample Use

-

Let’s look at a sample use of LBRY, Ernest releasing a film on LBRY that is later purchased and viewed by Hilary.

- -
    -
  1. Ernest wants to release his comedy-horror film, Ernie Goes To Guantanamo Bay.
  2. -
  3. The content is encrypted and sliced into many pieces. These pieces are stored by hosts.
  4. -
  5. Ernest reserves lbry://erniebythebay, a name pointing to his content.
  6. -
  7. When Ernest reserves the location, he also submits metadata, such as a description and thumbnail.
  8. -
  9. Hillary, a user, browses the LBRY network and decides she wants to watch the film.
  10. -
  11. Hillary issues a payment to Ernest for the decryption key, allowing her to watch the film.
  12. -
  13. Hillary’s LBRY client collects the pieces from the hosts and reassembles them, using the key to decrypt the pieces (if necessary). This is transparent to Hillary, the film streams within a few seconds after purchase.
  14. -
- -

This is a lot like an interaction that can happen on many different sites on the web, except that this one happens via a network that is completely decentralized. The data and technology that makes the entire interaction possible is not reliant on nor controlled by any single entity (as it would be via YouTube, Amazon, etc.).

-

The LBRY Network

-

To understand precisely what LBRY is and why it matters, one must understand both LBRY as a protocol and the services the protocol enables. HTTP is the protocol that makes web browsing possible, but it would be of little interest without the service of a web browser!

- -

To understand LBRY, think of LBRY in terms of two layers: protocol and service. The protocol provides a fundamental, underlying technological capability. The service layer utilizes the protocol to do something that a human being would actually find useful.

- -

For a user using LBRY at the service level, the magic of what the LBRY protocol does will be largely transparent, much as a typical internet user sees nothing of how HTTP works. Via a LBRY application, a user will be able to open a familiar interface to quickly and easily discover and purchase a piece of digital content published by anyone in the world.

- -

However, such an application would not be possible without the LBRY the underlying layer, the LBRY protocol.

-

Layer 1: Protocol

-

While the protocol is one comprehensive set of rules, it is easier to understand as two parts.

-

Part A: The LBRY Blockchain

-

A blockchain, or distributed ledger is the key innovation behind the Bitcoin network. Blockchains solved the very complicated technological problem of having a bunch of distributed, disparate entities all agree on a rivalrous state of affairs (like how much money they owe each other).

- -

Like Bitcoin, the LBRY blockchain maintain balances -- in this case, balances of LBC, LBRY’s unit of credit. More importantly, the LBRY blockchain also provides a decentralized lookup and metadata storage system. The LBRY blockchain supports a specific set of commands that allows anyone to bid (in LBC) to control a LBRY name, which is a lot like a domain name. Whoever controls a name gets to describe what it contains, what it costs to access, who to pay, and where to find it. These names are sold in a continuous running auction. We will talk more about this system a little later on.

- -

If you’re a programmer, you might recognize the LBRY blockchain as a key-value store. Each key, or name, corresponds to a value, or a metadata entry. Whichever party or parties bid the most LBC gets to control the metadata returned by a key lookup.

- -

Here is a sample key-value entry in the LBRY blockchain. Here, wonderfullife is the key, and the rest of the description is the value.

-
-
-    wonderfullife : {
-      title: "It’s a Wonderful Life",
-      description: "An angel helps a compassionate but despairingly frustrated businessman by showing what life would have been like if he never existed.",
-      thumbnail: "http://i.imgur.com/MW45x88.jpg",
-      license: "public domain",
-      price: 0, //free!
-      publisher: "A Fan Of George Bailey", //simplification
-      sources: { //extensible, variable list
-        lbry_hash : <unique id>,
-        url : <url>
-      }
-    }
-
-

A slightly simplified sample entry of metadata in the LBRY blockchain. Whichever party or parties bid the most in an ongoing auction control what a name returns.

- -

Other than the usage of the LBRY blockchain to store names and metadata, there are only minor differences between the blockchains of LBRY and Bitcoin, and the changes are generally consensus improvements. We’ve buffed the hashing algorithm, smoothed the block reward function, increased the block size, increased the total number of credits, and prepared for offchain settlement.

- -

The LBRY blockchain simply maintains LBC balances and a content namespace/catalogue. The next part, LBRYnet, specifies what to do with this data. To compare to the existing web, the blockchain is like the domain system (it maintains a listing of what is available), while the next piece makes it possible to actually fetch and pay for content.

-
If you’re a Bitcoiner wondering why we don’t use the Bitcoin blockchain, you can read a detailed answer to that question here.
- -

Part B: The Data Network (LBRYNet)

-

LBRYNet is the layer that makes the LBRY blockchain useful beyond a simple payment system. It says what to do with the information available in the LBRY blockchain, how to issue payments, how to look up a content identifier, and so on.

- -

To use the LBRY network, a user’s computer needs the capacity to speak LBRY. That layer is LBRYNet. Just as your computer has a library that enables it to understand HTTP, DNS, and other languages and protocols, LBRYNet is the piece of software that allows your computer to understand how to interact with the LBRY network.

- -

To understand what role LBRYNet plays, let’s drill a little more into a sample user interaction. Once a user has affirmed access and purchase, such as in step 5 of our Sample Use above, the following happens:

- -
    -
  1. LBRYNet issues a lookup for the name associated with the content. If the client does not have a local copy of the blockchain, this lookup is broadcast to miners or to a service provider. This lookup acquires the metadata associated with the name.
  2. -
  3. LBRYNet issues any required payments, as instructed by metadata entries. -
      -
    1. If the content is set to free, nothing happens here.
    2. -
    3. If the content is set to have a price in LBC, the client must issue a payment in LBC to the specified address. If the content is published encrypted, LBRYNet will not allow access until this payment has been issued.
    4. -
    5. If the content is set to have another payment method, the seller must run or use a service that provides a private server enforcing payment and provisioning accessing keys.
    6. -
    -
  4. -
  5. Simultaneous to #2, LBRYNet uses the metadata to download the content itself. -
      -
    1. The metadata allows chunks to be discovered and assembled in a BitTorrent-like fashion. However, unlike BitTorrent, chunks do not individually identify themselves as part of a greater whole. Chunks are just arbitrary pieces of data.
    2. -
    3. If LBRYNet cannot find nodes offering chunks for free, it will offer payments for chunks to other hosts with those chunks.
    4. -
    5. This payment is not done via proof-of-bandwidth, or third-party escrow. Instead, LBRYNet uses reputation, trust, and small initial payments to ensure reliable hosts.
    6. -
    7. If content is not published directly to LBRY, the metadata can instruct other access methods, such as a Netflix URL. This allows us to catalogue content not yet available on LBRY as well as offer legacy and extensibility purposes.
    8. -
    -
  6. -
-

Layer 2: Services

-

Services are what actually make the LBRY protocol useful. While the LBRY protocol determines what is possible, it is the services that actually do things.

- -

While the protocol is determined, open, and fixed, the service layer is much more flexible. It is far easier to redesign a website than it is to revise the HTTP protocol itself. The same is true here.

- -

Additionally, just as in the early days of the internet the later direction of web would have been unfathomable, so too may the best uses of LBRY’s namespace or technology be undiscovered. However, here are some clear uses.

-

Applications and Devices

-

A LBRY application is how a user would actually have meaningful interactions with the LBRY network. A LBRY client packages the power of the LBRY protocol into a simple application that allows the user to simply search for content, pay for it when necessary, download and enjoy.

- -

Additionally, a LBRY client can allow users to passively participate in the network, allowing them to automatically earn rewards in exchange for contributing bandwidth, disk space, or processing power to the overall network.

- -

Applications beyond a traditional computer based browser are possible as well. A LBRY television dongle, a LBRY radio, and any number of existing content access mechanisms can be implemented via an analogous LBRY device.

-

Content Discovery

-

Although the namespace provided by the LBRY protocol is helpful towards discovery, much as the web would be much less useful without search engines or aggregators, LBRY needs it’s own discovery mechanisms.

- -

Search features can be constructed from the catalogue of metadata provided in the blockchain as well as the content transaction history available in the blockchain or observed on the network. All of this data, along with user history, allows for the creation of content recommendation engines and advanced search features.

- -

Discovery on LBRY can also take the form of featured content. Clients can utilize featured content to provide additional visibility for new content that consumers might not otherwise be looking for.

-

Content Distribution

-

Digital content distributors with server-client models are subject to the whims of internet service providers and hostile foreign governments. Traffic from the host servers can be throttled or halted altogether if the owners of cables and routers so choose. However, in case of the LBRY protocol content comes from anywhere and everywhere, and is therefore not so easily stifled.

- -

Additionally, the market mechanisms of LBRY create a strong incentive for efficient distribution, which will save the costs of producers and ISPs alike. These properties, along with LBRY’s infringement disincentivizing properties, make LBRY an appealing technology for large existing data or content distributors.

-

Transaction Settlement

-

While payments can be issued directly on the LBRY blockchain, the LBRY protocol encourages a volume of transactions that will not scale without usage of offchain settlement.

- -

Essentially, rather than issue a transaction to the core blockchain, transactions are issued to a 3rd-party provider. These providers have a substantial number of coins which are used to maintain balances internally and settle a smaller number of transactions to the core chain. In exchange, these providers earn a small fee, less than the fee required to issue the transaction directly to the blockchain.

-

LBRY Credits

-

LBRY Credits, or LBC, are the unit of account for LBRY. Eventually 1,000,000,000 LBC will exist, according to a defined schedule over 20 years. The schedule decays exponentially, with around 100,000,000 in the first year.

- -

Additionally, some credits are awarded on a fixed basis. The total break down looks like this:

- -
    -
  • 10% are used to peg LBC to Bitcoin, likely via a sidechain. This will allow LBRY to leverage the security of the Bitcoin blockchain, and incentive adoption from Bitcoin users.
  • -
  • 10% for organizations, charities, and other strategic partners. Organizations the EFF, ACLU, and others that have fought for digital rights and the security and freedom of the internet.
  • -
  • 10% for adoption programs. We’ll be giving out lots of bonus credits, especially in the early days of LBRY, in order to encourage participation. We will also look to award credits broadly, ensuring the marketplace is egalitarian.
  • -
  • 10% for us. For operational costs as well as profit.
  • -
  • 60% earned by LBRY users, via mining the LBRY cryptocurrency.
  • -
-
-
-

More on Naming

-

LBRY names are one of the most unique aspects of LBRY and one that we believe will play a big role in helping it succeed.

- -

Control of a LBRY name is awarded via a continuous running auction in LBC. Bids are entered into a trustless escrow, marking the credits as unspendable, but leaving them intact. When a user looks up a name, the name resolves to the largest bid made by a party or parties. The ability for any number of people to have a say in where a name resolves is part of what makes LBRY a system controlled by its users. As the credits are distributed primarily among users and producers, it is community itself that has ultimate controls over the catalogue of what is available.

- -

Additionally, bids can also be retracted at any time, even if you’re the current winning bidder. To prevent a name from rapidly switching between multiple resolutions, the parties that have existing control of a name have a reasonable period of time to respond to counter bids before a name’s resolution switches.

- -

It’s possible this system sounds like chaos to you, but we’re betting on a Nobel-prize winning result that predicts the opposite. Economist Ronald Coase theorized that in a system with low transaction cost and clear rules, property will be held by those who value it the most. Since LBRY names are the equivalent to content storefronts, we believe that LBRY names will hold the most value to rightsholders who produce content associated with a given name.

- -

As names in demand on LBRY will be more expensive, the names themselves will also serve as a signal of reputation, legitimacy, and quality. If a user searches LBRY for Spider Man and sees one at lbry://spiderman and one at lbry://spiderman_russhaxor, there will be little doubt that the latter is less legitimate.

- -

It is also worth noting that in the event that LBRY received notice that either name contained an illegitimate copy of Spider Man, LBRY would dutifully and quickly put that content id on a blacklist, blocking discovery or purchase via any legal services. LBRY and users of LBRY are still subject to the DMCA and other relevant laws of their respective countries.

-

Combatting The Ugly

-

As neither naïfs nor knaves, we acknowledge that LBRY can be used for bad ends. Technology is frequently this way. Encryption protects our privacy -- as well as that of terrorists. Cars allow us to travel marvelous distances -- and kill millions per year.

- -

The downside to LBRY is that it can be used to exchange illegal content. However, several factors of LBRY make illicit usage less likely than it may seem at first consideration. On the whole, as with the car and encryption, the benefits of LBRY clearly outway nefarious uses.

- -

To evaluate a technology’s effect, we must consider where it moves us from the current state of affairs, not judge against a Platonic ideal or past eta. In assessing LBRY, we must compare it to a world in which BitTorrent already exists and is quite popular, not the 1950s. LBRY is an improvement over BitTorrent in combatting unsavory content in at least five ways:

- -
  1. More records. LBRY contains a public ledger of transactions recording name purchases and content publishings. As many purchases make it onto the ledger as well, this means infringing actions are frequently recorded forever, or are at a minimum widely observable.
  2. - -
  3. Unilateral removal. The LBRY naming system allows for quick, unilateral acquisition of infringing URIs. Once a BitTorrent magnet hash is in the wild, there is no mechanism to update or alter its resolution whatsoever. If a LBRY name is pointing to infringing content, it can be seized according to clear rules.
  4. - -
  5. Blacklists. LBRY will publish and maintain a blacklist of infringing names. All clients we release and all legal clients will have to follow our blacklist, or one like it, or face substantial penalties. Especially because…
  6. - -
  7. Stiffer penalties. Penalties for profiting off of infringement are far stronger and involve can involve jail time, while infringement without profit only results in statutory damages. This serves as a far stronger deterrent for all infringing uses than BitTorrent provides.
  8. - -
  9. Expensive or impossible. Offchain settlement will be a requirement for efficient purchases at any significant network size. Settlement providers, ourselves included, will be able to block purchases for infringing content. At significant traffic volume, if infringing content can’t be outright removed or blocked, transaction fees will make it prohibitively expensive.
  10. -
-

And of course, let’s not forget that LBRY users are still subject to the DMCA and other laws governing intellectual property. Users who publishing infringing content are still subject to penalties for doing so in exactly the same way they would be via BitTorrent. LBRY only adds to the suite of options available. This makes LBRY a strict improvement over BitTorrent with regards to illegal usages, which provides none of the mechanisms listed.

-
-
-

Our Values

-

We want to be the first digital content marketplace to:

- -
    -
  1. Treat users like adults LBRY doesn’t play nanny. It encourages individual people to express their own preferences, rather than force our own onto them. We enable consumers to make their own choices about where and who they want to purchase digital content from.
  2. - -
  3. Operate openly, inclusively, and transparently Anyone can publish or interact with the LBRY network. No one needs permission from us or anyone else. LBRY encourages all parties to participate in the network, rather than the creation of walled gardens. LBRY is a completely open specification and all code is open source.
  4. - -
  5. Prove decentralization doesn’t mean infringement Existing decentralized publishing protocols offer no way for rightsholders to combat or capture profits from illegally shared content. LBRY’s service layer, blacklisting mechanisms, and naming system all improve the status quo.
  6. -
  7. Acknowledge modern digital realities and ethical norms Prohibition has failed at every turn and in every iteration. Regulating human behavior only works when it aligns with moral norms that are shared by the majority of the population. - - If it is impossible to keep drugs out of prisons, it will never be possible to enforce copyright via analogous tactics on the infinitely less-controlled internet. Instead, focus on enticement. While legal compliance is paramount, concentrate as much as possible on making a system that relies more on giving people no excuse to do the wrong thing.
  8. - -
  9. Collect no rent. Whatever an artist or creator charges for their work should go to them. Distributing bits is exceedingly simple. There’s no need to give 45% to YouTube or 30% to Apple. Collecting no rent isn’t just a promise, it’s hard coded. The nature of LBRY means this could never be done -- by us or anyone else.
  10. -
-
-
-

TL;DR

-

Digital art is one of the first goods to evolve beyond scarcity. This evolution is changing the way content is discovered, publicized, paid for and delivered. Heretofore, the lack of transparency and monetization mechanisms in peer-to-peer sharing networks has largely enabled piracy. By equipping a peer-to-peer protocol with a digital currency and transparent decentralized ledger, the LBRY protocol opens the door to a new era of digital content distribution making peer-to-peer content distribution suitable for major publishing housing, self-publishers and everyone in between.

- -

If LBRY succeeds, we will enter a world that is even more creative, connected, and conservatory. We will waste less and we make more. We will create a world where a teenager in Kenya and a reality star in Los Angeles use the same tool to search the same network and have access to the same results -- a world where information, knowledge, and imagination know no borders.

- -

Build our dream with us. Download LBRY at lbry.io/get.

-
-
-
- diff --git a/view/template/page/docs.php b/view/template/page/docs.php new file mode 100644 index 00000000..e2b632d0 --- /dev/null +++ b/view/template/page/docs.php @@ -0,0 +1,65 @@ + + false]) ?> +
+
+

Docs

+

Layer 1: Protocol

+

While the protocol is one comprehensive set of rules, it is easier to understand as two parts.

+

Part A: The LBRY Blockchain

+

A blockchain, or distributed ledger is the key innovation behind the Bitcoin network. Blockchains solved the very complicated technological problem of having a bunch of distributed, disparate entities all agree on a rivalrous state of affairs (like how much money they owe each other).

+ +

Like Bitcoin, the LBRY blockchain maintain balances -- in this case, balances of LBC, LBRY’s unit of credit. More importantly, the LBRY blockchain also provides a decentralized lookup and metadata storage system. The LBRY blockchain supports a specific set of commands that allows anyone to bid (in LBC) to control a LBRY name, which is a lot like a domain name. Whoever controls a name gets to describe what it contains, what it costs to access, who to pay, and where to find it. These names are sold in a continuous running auction. We will talk more about this system a little later on.

+ +

If you’re a programmer, you might recognize the LBRY blockchain as a key-value store. Each key, or name, corresponds to a value, or a metadata entry. Whichever party or parties bid the most LBC gets to control the metadata returned by a key lookup.

+ +

Here is a sample key-value entry in the LBRY blockchain. Here, wonderfullife is the key, and the rest of the description is the value.

+
+
+    wonderfullife : {
+      title: "It’s a Wonderful Life",
+      description: "An angel helps a compassionate but despairingly frustrated businessman by showing what life would have been like if he never existed.",
+      thumbnail: "http://i.imgur.com/MW45x88.jpg",
+      license: "public domain",
+      price: 0, //free!
+      publisher: "A Fan Of George Bailey", //simplification
+      sources: { //extensible, variable list
+        lbry_hash : <unique id>,
+        url : <url>
+      }
+    }
+
+

A slightly simplified sample entry of metadata in the LBRY blockchain. Whichever party or parties bid the most in an ongoing auction control what a name returns.

+ +

Other than the usage of the LBRY blockchain to store names and metadata, there are only minor differences between the blockchains of LBRY and Bitcoin, and the changes are generally consensus improvements. We’ve buffed the hashing algorithm, smoothed the block reward function, increased the block size, increased the total number of credits, and prepared for offchain settlement.

+ +

The LBRY blockchain simply maintains LBC balances and a content namespace/catalogue. The next part, LBRYnet, specifies what to do with this data. To compare to the existing web, the blockchain is like the domain system (it maintains a listing of what is available), while the next piece makes it possible to actually fetch and pay for content.

+
If you’re a Bitcoiner wondering why we don’t use the Bitcoin blockchain, you can read a detailed answer to that question here.
+ +

Part B: The Data Network (LBRYNet)

+

LBRYNet is the layer that makes the LBRY blockchain useful beyond a simple payment system. It says what to do with the information available in the LBRY blockchain, how to issue payments, how to look up a content identifier, and so on.

+ +

To use the LBRY network, a user’s computer needs the capacity to speak LBRY. That layer is LBRYNet. Just as your computer has a library that enables it to understand HTTP, DNS, and other languages and protocols, LBRYNet is the piece of software that allows your computer to understand how to interact with the LBRY network.

+ +

To understand what role LBRYNet plays, let’s drill a little more into a sample user interaction. Once a user has affirmed access and purchase, such as in step 5 of our Sample Use above, the following happens:

+ +
    +
  1. LBRYNet issues a lookup for the name associated with the content. If the client does not have a local copy of the blockchain, this lookup is broadcast to miners or to a service provider. This lookup acquires the metadata associated with the name.
  2. +
  3. LBRYNet issues any required payments, as instructed by metadata entries. +
      +
    1. If the content is set to free, nothing happens here.
    2. +
    3. If the content is set to have a price in LBC, the client must issue a payment in LBC to the specified address. If the content is published encrypted, LBRYNet will not allow access until this payment has been issued.
    4. +
    5. If the content is set to have another payment method, the seller must run or use a service that provides a private server enforcing payment and provisioning accessing keys.
    6. +
    +
  4. +
  5. Simultaneous to #2, LBRYNet uses the metadata to download the content itself. +
      +
    1. The metadata allows chunks to be discovered and assembled in a BitTorrent-like fashion. However, unlike BitTorrent, chunks do not individually identify themselves as part of a greater whole. Chunks are just arbitrary pieces of data.
    2. +
    3. If LBRYNet cannot find nodes offering chunks for free, it will offer payments for chunks to other hosts with those chunks.
    4. +
    5. This payment is not done via proof-of-bandwidth, or third-party escrow. Instead, LBRYNet uses reputation, trust, and small initial payments to ensure reliable hosts.
    6. +
    7. If content is not published directly to LBRY, the metadata can instruct other access methods, such as a Netflix URL. This allows us to catalogue content not yet available on LBRY as well as offer legacy and extensibility purposes.
    8. +
    +
  6. +
+
+
+ \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/view/template/page/feedback.php b/view/template/page/feedback.php index 89df4907..50b9d21c 100644 --- a/view/template/page/feedback.php +++ b/view/template/page/feedback.php @@ -7,12 +7,13 @@

- +
- +

+
diff --git a/view/template/page/home.php b/view/template/page/home.php index 0cec27a4..a2c4e50f 100644 --- a/view/template/page/home.php +++ b/view/template/page/home.php @@ -2,64 +2,70 @@ true]) ?> -
-
+
+
-

Stream, Share, Earn.

+

Stream, Share, Earn.

- - -
- - - others in + +
+
+
+
+
+ + +
+ + + others in ', $labels) ?> +
+
+ -
-
- Get LBRY -
- +
+
+
+
+
+
+

+ 'Go', + 'listId' => Mailchimp::LIST_GENERAL_ID, + 'mergeFields' => ['CLI' => 'No'], + 'meta' => true, + 'returnUrl' => '/', + 'btnClass' => 'btn-alt' + ]) ?> +
+
+
+
-
- -
-
-
-

- 'Go', - 'listId' => Mailchimp::LIST_GENERAL_ID, - 'mergeFields' => ['CLI' => 'No'], - 'meta' => true, - 'returnUrl' => '/', - 'btnClass' => 'btn-alt' - ]) ?> -
-
-
- -
-
- +
diff --git a/view/template/page/join-list.php b/view/template/page/join-list.php index 903471dc..f74403ba 100644 --- a/view/template/page/join-list.php +++ b/view/template/page/join-list.php @@ -17,7 +17,8 @@ ]) ?>
- +

+
diff --git a/view/template/page/learn-old.php b/view/template/page/learn-old.php new file mode 100644 index 00000000..6f05a6aa --- /dev/null +++ b/view/template/page/learn-old.php @@ -0,0 +1,70 @@ + + + false]) ?> +
+
+
+
+

+
+
+ + Screenshot of a LBRY browser + +
+

Puts on jargon hat.

+

+ LBRY is a decentralized, censorship-resistant, open-source, peer-to-peer information marketplace and discovery protocol. +

+

Removes jargon hat.

+

+ LBRY is a new way for people to publish and share content with each other. +

+

+ Our goal is to provide a single box that allows anyone anywhere to find and purchase digital content from anyone else. +

+
+ +
+
+
+
+
+
+

+
+

+

+

+

+

+
+
+ +
+
+ +
+
+ Credit SMBC. +
+
+
+
+
+
+
+

+
+

+

+
+
+ +
+ <?php echo __('LBRY Founders') ?> +
+
+
+
+ \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/view/template/page/learn.php b/view/template/page/learn.php index 6f05a6aa..c9b867e7 100644 --- a/view/template/page/learn.php +++ b/view/template/page/learn.php @@ -1,6 +1,45 @@ - + false]) ?> + +
+
+
+

LBRY in 60 Seconds

+ +
+
+
+
+

Art in the Internet Age

+

Learn how LBRY will forever improve how
we create and share with one another.

+ +
+
+
+
+
+

+

+
+ +
+

Talk With Us

+ +
+
+
+
+
+
+

Nerd With Us

+

LBRY is a completely open source protocol that provides a decentralized digital marketplace.

+ +
+
+
+
+
@@ -54,17 +93,10 @@
-

-
-

-

-
-
- -
+ <?php echo __('LBRY Founders') ?>
-
+
*/ ?> \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/view/template/page/slack.php b/view/template/page/slack.php new file mode 100644 index 00000000..8ec3c158 --- /dev/null +++ b/view/template/page/slack.php @@ -0,0 +1,10 @@ + + false]) ?> +
+
+

Chat With Us

+

Oops. You caught us. We haven't automated Slack invites yet. Please email Josh.

+

He answers email approximately as fast as a robot.

+
+
+ \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/view/template/page/team.php b/view/template/page/team.php index 10100b8b..1e381e4a 100644 --- a/view/template/page/team.php +++ b/view/template/page/team.php @@ -5,6 +5,7 @@

The Team

+

LBRY is made possible by more people than we could ever list here. The founding team is listed below.

diff --git a/view/template/page/what-old.php b/view/template/page/what-old.php new file mode 100644 index 00000000..53467ec4 --- /dev/null +++ b/view/template/page/what-old.php @@ -0,0 +1,99 @@ + + + false]) ?> +
+
+
+

A revolution in accessing and publishing information.

+
+
+
+ +
+

+ Hosts earn credits for providing bandwidth and disk space. +

+
+
+
+ +
+

+ Miners earn credits for securing balances and metadata. +

+
+
+
+ +
+

+ Patrons spend credits to access content without gatekeepers. +

+
+
+
+
+
+

What is LBRY?

+
+

LBRY allows anyone to publish content to a location like this:

+

lbry://wonderfullife

+

Others can access this resource, either for free or for credits. Let's look at an example:

+
    +
  1. Ernest wants to release his comedy-horror film, "Ernie Goes To Guantanamo Bay".
  2. +
  3. The content is encrypted and sliced into many pieces. These pieces are stored by hosts.
  4. +
  5. Ernest reserves lbry://erniebythebay, a shortname pointing to his content.
  6. +
  7. When Ernest reserves the location, he also submits metadata, such as a description and thumbnail. This information is stored by miners in the LBRY blockchain.
  8. +
  9. Hilary, a patron, browses the LBRY network and wants to watch the movie. + Her LBRY client collects the pieces from the hosts and reassembles them.
  10. +
  11. Hilary pays Ernest for the decryption key, allowing her to watch the film.
  12. +
+
+
+
+
+

If BitTorrent + BitCoin Had a Baby

+
+
+ +

Decentralized Metadata

+

Information about content is embedded in a blockchain, eliminating centralized failure points. Metadata and data are completely decoupled so that hosts never see metadata and miners never see data.

+
+
+ +

Marketized Data-Transfer

+

Patrons request content for free or offer credits for faster speeds or access. Hosts share or sell surplus bandwidth and disk space.

+
+
+ +

Memorable URIs

+

+ Publishers can choose friendly resource indicators like lbry://wonderfullife instead of ugly BitTorrent magnet URIs. + URIs are reserved rather than owned, creating strong incentive for rights holders to use LBRY. +

+
+
+
+
+ +

Payments to Publishers

+

Publishers may embed an address to receive payment for data. Publishers can also create assurance contracts? for new content.

+
+
+ +

Improved Privacy

+

LBRY uses novel techniques to protect publishers, providers, and consumers. + Hosts only have small portions of an encrypted file with no information of the contents. +

+
+
+ +

Designed for Developers

+

LBRY is designed to allow others to create applications powered by it’s distributed, robust data store.

+
+
+
+
+ +
+ diff --git a/view/template/page/what.php b/view/template/page/what.php index 53467ec4..6aec3e25 100644 --- a/view/template/page/what.php +++ b/view/template/page/what.php @@ -1,99 +1,330 @@ - false]) ?> + true, 'isAbsolute' => true]) ?>
-
-
-

A revolution in accessing and publishing information.

-
-
-
- -
-

- Hosts earn credits for providing bandwidth and disk space. -

-
-
-
- -
-

- Miners earn credits for securing balances and metadata. -

-
-
-
- -
-

- Patrons spend credits to access content without gatekeepers. -

-
-
+
+

Art in the Internet Age

+
+ An introduction to LBRY.
-
-

What is LBRY?

-
-

LBRY allows anyone to publish content to a location like this:

-

lbry://wonderfullife

-

Others can access this resource, either for free or for credits. Let's look at an example:

+
+
+

Introduction

+

In 34,000 B.C., there were cave paintings. And that’s it. When you came home from a sweltering August day of foraging along the Vézère river, the only form of non-live art or entertainment available was something like the above buffalo.

+ +

Today, we live in a world of near infinite choices. This is true not just for art but for all kinds of things (like potato chips). Since the era of cave art, humanity has incessantly and progressively trended towards interconnected, more efficient, and increasingly transparent markets. This undercurrent of connectedness and openness has affected everything human beings produce.

+ +

Nerds like us like to speculate about the end-game of this trend with others on the internet. What will society be like when we have a "Star Trek"-like capacity to instantly and freely replicate anything that exists? The term for this society is post-scarcity1.

+ +

Generally, post-scarcity is regarded as fantastical; something that will never happen in our lifetimes. Except for one area: digital goods.

+ +

Art in the internet age is infinitely reproducible and easily shared. This is a sea change from any prior time in history. Previously, vinyl records captured audio in physical grooves; tapes captured data on magnetic strips; compact disks held digital files read by lasers—in each of these cases physical, medium-specific hardware is required to both produce and recover the bits of data that made up the digital content.

+ +

Today art is just data, a string of 1s and 0s, a number, and we no longer need any specialized hardware to decode and enjoy digital content. We use the same technological methods to access a personal photograph a single time as we do to watch a blockbuster on Netflix.

+ +

This is a big step forward from the past. As production costs fall to zero, choices go up. Digital distributors provide virtually every song, film, photo or book for purchase and download to any internet enabled device. Technology has decreased the cost of production, too -- it has never been easier for aspirant artists to achieve a following through self-publishing.

+ +

The digitization of art has added a lot of value to both content creators and consumers, reducing costs and increasing choice. This transition is still in its infancy. With LBRY, we’re going to make it a little more mature.

+
1 Note that post-scarcity does not eliminate the need to create new goods, it just eliminates or reduces the costs of duplicating goods to nothing. As long as people desire goods that did not previously exist, there will always be a market demand for creation, even in a post-scarcity world.
+
+
+

A People’s Marketplace

+

LBRY is the first digital marketplace to be controlled by the market’s participants rather than a corporation or other 3rd-party. It is the most open, fair, and efficient marketplace for digital goods ever created, with an incentive design encouraging it to become the most complete.

+

At the highest level, LBRY does something extraordinarily simple. LBRY creates an association between a unique name and a piece of digital content, such as a movie, book, or game. This is similar to the domain name system that you are most likely using to access this very post.

+ +
+ +
+ A user searches and prepares to stream and the film It’s a Wonderful Life, located at lbry://wonderfullife, via a completely decentralized network. Try it out for yourself at lbry.io/get. +
+
+ +

However, LBRY does this not through a proprietary service or network, but as a protocol, or a method of doing things, much like HTTP, DNS and other specifications that make up the internet itself. Just as many different domains owned by many different companies all speak a shared language, so too can any person or company speak LBRY. No special access or permission is needed.

+ +

LBRY differs from the status quo in three big ways:

+
    -
  1. Ernest wants to release his comedy-horror film, "Ernie Goes To Guantanamo Bay".
  2. -
  3. The content is encrypted and sliced into many pieces. These pieces are stored by hosts.
  4. -
  5. Ernest reserves lbry://erniebythebay, a shortname pointing to his content.
  6. -
  7. When Ernest reserves the location, he also submits metadata, such as a description and thumbnail. This information is stored by miners in the LBRY blockchain.
  8. -
  9. Hilary, a patron, browses the LBRY network and wants to watch the movie. - Her LBRY client collects the pieces from the hosts and reassembles them.
  10. -
  11. Hilary pays Ernest for the decryption key, allowing her to watch the film.
  12. +
  13. Coupled payment and access. If desired, the person who publishes to lbry://wonderfullife can charge a fee to users that view the content.
  14. +
  15. Decentralized and distributed. Content published to LBRY is not specific to one computer or network. No one party, including us, can unilaterally remove or block content on the LBRY network.2
  16. +
  17. Domain names are controlled via ongoing auction. This facilitates names being controlled by the publishers that value them most. These transactions take place via an electronic currency called LBRY credits, or LBC. This is covered in more detail, below.
-
-
-
-
-

If BitTorrent + BitCoin Had a Baby

-
-
- -

Decentralized Metadata

-

Information about content is embedded in a blockchain, eliminating centralized failure points. Metadata and data are completely decoupled so that hosts never see metadata and miners never see data.

-
-
- -

Marketized Data-Transfer

-

Patrons request content for free or offer credits for faster speeds or access. Hosts share or sell surplus bandwidth and disk space.

-
-
- -

Memorable URIs

-

- Publishers can choose friendly resource indicators like lbry://wonderfullife instead of ugly BitTorrent magnet URIs. - URIs are reserved rather than owned, creating strong incentive for rights holders to use LBRY. -

-
+ +

While creating a protocol that we ourselves cannot control sounds chaotic, it is actually about establishing trust. Every other publishing system requires trusting an intermediary that can unilaterally change the rules on you. What happens when you build your business on YouTube or Amazon and they change fees? Or Apple drops your content because the Premier of China thought your comedy went to far?

+ +

Only LBRY consists of a known, promised set of rules that no one can unilaterally change. LBRY provides this by doing something unique: leaving the users in control rather than demanding that control for itself.

+
2If it worries you that LBRY's decentralized nature facilitates infringing or unsavory content, this is addressed in Combatting the Ugly.
+
+
+

A Sample Use

+

Let’s look at a sample use of LBRY, Ernest releasing a film on LBRY that is later purchased and viewed by Hillary.

+ +
    +
  1. Ernest wants to release his comedy-horror film, Ernie Runs For President.
  2. +
  3. The content is encrypted and sliced into many pieces. These pieces are stored by hosts.
  4. +
  5. Ernest reserves lbry://ernieruns, a name pointing to his content.
  6. +
  7. When Ernest reserves the location, he also submits metadata, such as a description and thumbnail.
  8. +
  9. Hillary, a user, opens her browser, searches the LBRY network, and decides she wants to watch the film.
  10. +
  11. Hillary issues a payment to Ernest for the decryption key, allowing her to watch the film.
  12. +
  13. Hillary’s LBRY client collects the pieces from the hosts and reassembles them, using the key to decrypt the pieces (if necessary). This is transparent to Hillary, the film streams within a few seconds after purchase.
  14. +
+ +

From a user's perspective, interaction is extremely similar to those that happen on hundreds of different sites, similar to YouTube, Amazon and Netflix. + The key different is that this one happens via a network that is completely decentralized. + The data and technology that makes the entire interaction possible is not reliant on nor controlled by any single entity.

+
+
+

The LBRY Network

+

To understand precisely what LBRY is and why it matters, one must understand both LBRY as a protocol and the services the protocol enables. HTTP is the protocol that makes web browsing possible, but it would be of little interest without the service of a web browser!

+ +

To understand LBRY, think of LBRY in terms of two layers: protocol and service. The protocol provides a fundamental, underlying technological capability. The service layer utilizes the protocol to do something that a human being would actually find useful.

+ +

For a user using LBRY at the service level, the magic of what the LBRY protocol does will be largely transparent, much as a typical internet user sees nothing of how HTTP works. Via a LBRY application, a user will be able to open a familiar interface to quickly and easily discover and purchase a piece of digital content published by anyone in the world.

+ +

However, such an application would not be possible without the LBRY the underlying layer, the LBRY protocol.

+ + +

Layer 1: Protocol

+

While the protocol is one comprehensive set of rules, it is easier to understand as two parts.

+

Part A: The LBRY Blockchain

+

A blockchain, or distributed ledger is the key innovation behind the Bitcoin network. Blockchains solved the very complicated technological problem of having a bunch of distributed, disparate entities all agree on a rivalrous state of affairs (like how much money they owe each other).

+ +

Like Bitcoin, the LBRY blockchain maintain balances -- in this case, balances of LBC, LBRY’s unit of credit. More importantly, the LBRY blockchain also provides a decentralized lookup and metadata storage system. The LBRY blockchain supports a specific set of commands that allows anyone to bid (in LBC) to control a LBRY name, which is a lot like a domain name. Whoever controls a name gets to describe what it contains, what it costs to access, who to pay, and where to find it. These names are sold in a continuous running auction. We will talk more about this system a little later on.

+ +

If you’re a programmer, you might recognize the LBRY blockchain as a key-value store. Each key, or name, corresponds to a value, or a metadata entry. Whichever party or parties bid the most LBC gets to control the metadata returned by a key lookup.

+ +

Here is a sample key-value entry in the LBRY blockchain. Here, wonderfullife is the key, and the rest of the description is the value.

+
+
+    wonderfullife : {
+      title: "It’s a Wonderful Life",
+      description: "An angel helps a compassionate but despairingly frustrated businessman by showing what life would have been like if he never existed.",
+      thumbnail: "http://i.imgur.com/MW45x88.jpg",
+      license: "public domain",
+      price: 0, //free!
+      publisher: "A Fan Of George Bailey", //simplification
+      sources: { //extensible, variable list
+        lbry_hash : <unique id>,
+        url : <url>
+      }
+    }
-
-
- -

Payments to Publishers

-

Publishers may embed an address to receive payment for data. Publishers can also create assurance contracts? for new content.

-
-
- -

Improved Privacy

-

LBRY uses novel techniques to protect publishers, providers, and consumers. - Hosts only have small portions of an encrypted file with no information of the contents. -

-
-
- -

Designed for Developers

-

LBRY is designed to allow others to create applications powered by it’s distributed, robust data store.

-
-
- +

A slightly simplified sample entry of metadata in the LBRY blockchain. Whichever party or parties bid the most in an ongoing auction control what a name returns.

+ +

Other than the usage of the LBRY blockchain to store names and metadata, there are only minor differences between the blockchains of LBRY and Bitcoin, and the changes are generally consensus improvements. We’ve buffed the hashing algorithm, smoothed the block reward function, increased the block size, increased the total number of credits, and prepared for offchain settlement.

+ +

The LBRY blockchain simply maintains LBC balances and a content namespace/catalogue. The next part, LBRYnet, specifies what to do with this data. To compare to the existing web, the blockchain is like the domain system (it maintains a listing of what is available), while the next piece makes it possible to actually fetch and pay for content.

+
If you’re a Bitcoiner wondering why we don’t use the Bitcoin blockchain, you can read a detailed answer to that question here.
+ +

Part B: The Data Network (LBRYNet)

+

LBRYNet is the layer that makes the LBRY blockchain useful beyond a simple payment system. It says what to do with the information available in the LBRY blockchain, how to issue payments, how to look up a content identifier, and so on.

+ +

To use the LBRY network, a user’s computer needs the capacity to speak LBRY. That layer is LBRYNet. Just as your computer has a library that enables it to understand HTTP, DNS, and other languages and protocols, LBRYNet is the piece of software that allows your computer to understand how to interact with the LBRY network.

+ +

To understand what role LBRYNet plays, let’s drill a little more into a sample user interaction. Once a user has affirmed access and purchase, such as in step 5 of our Sample Use above, the following happens:

+ +
    +
  1. LBRYNet issues a lookup for the name associated with the content. If the client does not have a local copy of the blockchain, this lookup is broadcast to miners or to a service provider. This lookup acquires the metadata associated with the name.
  2. +
  3. LBRYNet issues any required payments, as instructed by metadata entries. +
      +
    1. If the content is set to free, nothing happens here.
    2. +
    3. If the content is set to have a price in LBC, the client must issue a payment in LBC to the specified address. If the content is published encrypted, LBRYNet will not allow access until this payment has been issued.
    4. +
    5. If the content is set to have another payment method, the seller must run or use a service that provides a private server enforcing payment and provisioning accessing keys.
    6. +
    +
  4. +
  5. Simultaneous to #2, LBRYNet uses the metadata to download the content itself. +
      +
    1. The metadata allows chunks to be discovered and assembled in a BitTorrent-like fashion. However, unlike BitTorrent, chunks do not individually identify themselves as part of a greater whole. Chunks are just arbitrary pieces of data.
    2. +
    3. If LBRYNet cannot find nodes offering chunks for free, it will offer payments for chunks to other hosts with those chunks.
    4. +
    5. This payment is not done via proof-of-bandwidth, or third-party escrow. Instead, LBRYNet uses reputation, trust, and small initial payments to ensure reliable hosts.
    6. +
    7. If content is not published directly to LBRY, the metadata can instruct other access methods, such as a Netflix URL. This allows us to catalogue content not yet available on LBRY as well as offer legacy and extensibility purposes.
    8. +
    +
  6. +
+

Layer 2: Services

+

Services are what actually make the LBRY protocol useful. While the LBRY protocol determines what is possible, it is the services that actually do things.

+ +

While the protocol is determined, open, and fixed, the service layer is much more flexible. It is far easier to redesign a website than it is to revise the HTTP protocol itself. The same is true here.

+ +

Additionally, just as in the early days of the internet the later direction of web would have been unfathomable, so too may the best uses of LBRY’s namespace or technology be undiscovered. However, here are some clear uses.

+

Applications and Devices

+

A LBRY application is how a user would actually have meaningful interactions with the LBRY network. A LBRY client packages the power of the LBRY protocol into a simple application that allows the user to simply search for content, pay for it when necessary, download and enjoy.

+ +

Additionally, a LBRY client can allow users to passively participate in the network, allowing them to automatically earn rewards in exchange for contributing bandwidth, disk space, or processing power to the overall network.

+ +

Applications beyond a traditional computer based browser are possible as well. A LBRY television dongle, a LBRY radio, and any number of existing content access mechanisms can be implemented via an analogous LBRY device.

+

Content Discovery

+

Although the namespace provided by the LBRY protocol is helpful towards discovery, much as the web would be much less useful without search engines or aggregators, LBRY needs it’s own discovery mechanisms.

+ +

Search features can be constructed from the catalogue of metadata provided in the blockchain as well as the content transaction history available in the blockchain or observed on the network. All of this data, along with user history, allows for the creation of content recommendation engines and advanced search features.

+ +

Discovery on LBRY can also take the form of featured content. Clients can utilize featured content to provide additional visibility for new content that consumers might not otherwise be looking for.

+

Content Distribution

+

Digital content distributors with server-client models are subject to the whims of internet service providers and hostile foreign governments. Traffic from the host servers can be throttled or halted altogether if the owners of cables and routers so choose. However, in case of the LBRY protocol content comes from anywhere and everywhere, and is therefore not so easily stifled.

+ +

Additionally, the market mechanisms of LBRY create a strong incentive for efficient distribution, which will save the costs of producers and ISPs alike. These properties, along with LBRY’s infringement disincentivizing properties, make LBRY an appealing technology for large existing data or content distributors.

+

Transaction Settlement

+

While payments can be issued directly on the LBRY blockchain, the LBRY protocol encourages a volume of transactions that will not scale without usage of offchain settlement.

+ +

Essentially, rather than issue a transaction to the core blockchain, transactions are issued to a 3rd-party provider. These providers have a substantial number of coins which are used to maintain balances internally and settle a smaller number of transactions to the core chain. In exchange, these providers earn a small fee, less than the fee required to issue the transaction directly to the blockchain.

* +
+
+

LBRY Credits

+

LBRY Credits, or LBC, are the unit of account for LBRY. Eventually 1,000,000,000 LBC will exist, according to a defined schedule over 20 years. The schedule decays exponentially, with around 100,000,000 in the first year.

+ +

Additionally, some credits are awarded on a fixed basis. The total break down looks like this:

+ + +
+
+

More on Naming

+

LBRY names are one of the most unique aspects of LBRY and one that we believe will play a big role in helping it succeed.

+ +

Control of a LBRY name is awarded via a continuous running auction in LBC. Bids are entered into a trustless escrow, marking the credits as unspendable, but leaving them intact. When a user looks up a name, the name resolves to the largest bid made by a party or parties. The ability for any number of people to have a say in where a name resolves is part of what makes LBRY a system controlled by its users. As the credits are distributed primarily among users and producers, it is community itself that has ultimate controls over the catalogue of what is available.

+ +

Additionally, bids can also be retracted at any time, even if you’re the current winning bidder. To prevent a name from rapidly switching between multiple resolutions, the parties that have existing control of a name have a reasonable period of time to respond to counter bids before a name’s resolution switches.

+ +

It’s possible this system sounds like chaos to you, but we’re betting on a Nobel-prize winning result that predicts the opposite. Economist Ronald Coase theorized that in a system with low transaction cost and clear rules, property will be held by those who value it the most. Since LBRY names are the equivalent to content storefronts, we believe that LBRY names will hold the most value to rightsholders who produce content associated with a given name.

+ +

As names in demand on LBRY will be more expensive, the names themselves will also serve as a signal of reputation, legitimacy, and quality. If a user searches LBRY for Spider Man and sees one at lbry://spiderman and one at lbry://spiderman_russhaxor, there will be little doubt that the latter is less legitimate.

+ +

It is also worth noting that in the event that LBRY received notice that either name contained an illegitimate copy of Spider Man, LBRY would dutifully and quickly put that content id on a blacklist, blocking discovery or purchase via any legal services. LBRY and users of LBRY are still subject to the DMCA and other relevant laws of their respective countries.

+

Combatting The Ugly

+

As neither naïfs nor knaves, we acknowledge that LBRY can be used for bad ends. Technology is frequently this way. Encryption protects our privacy -- as well as that of terrorists. Cars allow us to travel marvelous distances -- and kill millions per year.

+ +

The downside to LBRY is that it can be used to exchange illegal content. However, several factors of LBRY make illicit usage less likely than it may seem at first consideration. On the whole, as with the car and encryption, the benefits of LBRY clearly outway nefarious uses.

+ +

To evaluate a technology’s effect, we must consider where it moves us from the current state of affairs, not judge against a Platonic ideal or past eta. In assessing LBRY, we must compare it to a world in which BitTorrent already exists and is quite popular, not the 1950s. LBRY is an improvement over BitTorrent in combatting unsavory content in at least five ways:

+ +
  1. More records. LBRY contains a public ledger of transactions recording name purchases and content publishings. As many purchases make it onto the ledger as well, this means infringing actions are frequently recorded forever, or are at a minimum widely observable.
  2. + +
  3. Unilateral removal. The LBRY naming system allows for quick, unilateral acquisition of infringing URIs. Once a BitTorrent magnet hash is in the wild, there is no mechanism to update or alter its resolution whatsoever. If a LBRY name is pointing to infringing content, it can be seized according to clear rules.
  4. + +
  5. Blacklists. LBRY will publish and maintain a blacklist of infringing names. All clients we release and all legal clients will have to follow our blacklist, or one like it, or face substantial penalties. Especially because…
  6. + +
  7. Stiffer penalties. Penalties for profiting off of infringement are far stronger and involve can involve jail time, while infringement without profit only results in statutory damages. This serves as a far stronger deterrent for all infringing uses than BitTorrent provides.
  8. + +
  9. Expensive or impossible. Offchain settlement will be a requirement for efficient purchases at any significant network size. Settlement providers, ourselves included, will be able to block purchases for infringing content. At significant traffic volume, if infringing content can’t be outright removed or blocked, transaction fees will make it prohibitively expensive.
  10. +
+

And of course, let’s not forget that LBRY users are still subject to the DMCA and other laws governing intellectual property. Users who publishing infringing content are still subject to penalties for doing so in exactly the same way they would be via BitTorrent. LBRY only adds to the suite of options available. This makes LBRY a strict improvement over BitTorrent with regards to illegal usages, which provides none of the mechanisms listed.

+
+
+

Our Values

+

We want to be the first digital content marketplace to:

+ +
    +
  1. Treat users like adults LBRY doesn’t play nanny. It encourages individual people to express their own preferences, rather than force our own onto them. We enable consumers to make their own choices about where and who they want to purchase digital content from.
  2. + +
  3. Operate openly, inclusively, and transparently Anyone can publish or interact with the LBRY network. No one needs permission from us or anyone else. LBRY encourages all parties to participate in the network, rather than the creation of walled gardens. LBRY is a completely open specification and all code is open source.
  4. + +
  5. Prove decentralization doesn’t mean infringement Existing decentralized publishing protocols offer no way for rightsholders to combat or capture profits from illegally shared content. LBRY’s service layer, blacklisting mechanisms, and naming system all improve the status quo.
  6. +
  7. Acknowledge modern digital realities and ethical norms Prohibition has failed at every turn and in every iteration. Regulating human behavior only works when it aligns with moral norms that are shared by the majority of the population. + + If it is impossible to keep drugs out of prisons, it will never be possible to enforce copyright via analogous tactics on the infinitely less-controlled internet. Instead, focus on enticement. While legal compliance is paramount, concentrate as much as possible on making a system that relies more on giving people no excuse to do the wrong thing.
  8. + +
  9. Collect no rent. Whatever an artist or creator charges for their work should go to them. Distributing bits is exceedingly simple. There’s no need to give 45% to YouTube or 30% to Apple. Collecting no rent isn’t just a promise, it’s hard coded. The nature of LBRY means this could never be done -- by us or anyone else.
  10. +
+
+
+

TL;DR

+

Digital art is one of the first goods to evolve beyond scarcity. This evolution is changing the way content is discovered, publicized, paid for and delivered. Heretofore, the lack of transparency and monetization mechanisms in peer-to-peer sharing networks has largely enabled piracy. By equipping a peer-to-peer protocol with a digital currency and transparent decentralized ledger, the LBRY protocol opens the door to a new era of digital content distribution making peer-to-peer content distribution suitable for major publishing housing, self-publishers and everyone in between.

+ +

If LBRY succeeds, we will enter a world that is even more creative, connected, and conservatory. We will waste less and we make more. We will create a world where a teenager in Kenya and a reality star in Los Angeles use the same tool to search the same network and have access to the same results -- a world where information, knowledge, and imagination know no borders.

+ +

Build our dream with us. Download LBRY at lbry.io/get.

+
+Layer 1: Protocol +

While the protocol is one comprehensive set of rules, it is easier to understand as two parts.

+

Part A: The LBRY Blockchain

+

A blockchain, or distributed ledger is the key innovation behind the Bitcoin network. Blockchains solved the very complicated technological problem of having a bunch of distributed, disparate entities all agree on a rivalrous state of affairs (like how much money they owe each other).

+ +

Like Bitcoin, the LBRY blockchain maintain balances -- in this case, balances of LBC, LBRY’s unit of credit. More importantly, the LBRY blockchain also provides a decentralized lookup and metadata storage system. The LBRY blockchain supports a specific set of commands that allows anyone to bid (in LBC) to control a LBRY name, which is a lot like a domain name. Whoever controls a name gets to describe what it contains, what it costs to access, who to pay, and where to find it. These names are sold in a continuous running auction. We will talk more about this system a little later on.

+ +

If you’re a programmer, you might recognize the LBRY blockchain as a key-value store. Each key, or name, corresponds to a value, or a metadata entry. Whichever party or parties bid the most LBC gets to control the metadata returned by a key lookup.

+ +

Here is a sample key-value entry in the LBRY blockchain. Here, wonderfullife is the key, and the rest of the description is the value.

+
+
+    wonderfullife : {
+      title: "It’s a Wonderful Life",
+      description: "An angel helps a compassionate but despairingly frustrated businessman by showing what life would have been like if he never existed.",
+      thumbnail: "http://i.imgur.com/MW45x88.jpg",
+      license: "public domain",
+      price: 0, //free!
+      publisher: "A Fan Of George Bailey", //simplification
+      sources: { //extensible, variable list
+        lbry_hash : <unique id>,
+        url : <url>
+      }
+    }
+
+

A slightly simplified sample entry of metadata in the LBRY blockchain. Whichever party or parties bid the most in an ongoing auction control what a name returns.

+ +

Other than the usage of the LBRY blockchain to store names and metadata, there are only minor differences between the blockchains of LBRY and Bitcoin, and the changes are generally consensus improvements. We’ve buffed the hashing algorithm, smoothed the block reward function, increased the block size, increased the total number of credits, and prepared for offchain settlement.

+ +

The LBRY blockchain simply maintains LBC balances and a content namespace/catalogue. The next part, LBRYnet, specifies what to do with this data. To compare to the existing web, the blockchain is like the domain system (it maintains a listing of what is available), while the next piece makes it possible to actually fetch and pay for content.

+ + +

Part B: The Data Network (LBRYNet)

+

LBRYNet is the layer that makes the LBRY blockchain useful beyond a simple payment system. It says what to do with the information available in the LBRY blockchain, how to issue payments, how to look up a content identifier, and so on.

+ +

To use the LBRY network, a user’s computer needs the capacity to speak LBRY. That layer is LBRYNet. Just as your computer has a library that enables it to understand HTTP, DNS, and other languages and protocols, LBRYNet is the piece of software that allows your computer to understand how to interact with the LBRY network.

+ +

To understand what role LBRYNet plays, let’s drill a little more into a sample user interaction. Once a user has affirmed access and purchase, such as in step 5 of our Sample Use above, the following happens:

+ +
    +
  1. LBRYNet issues a lookup for the name associated with the content. If the client does not have a local copy of the blockchain, this lookup is broadcast to miners or to a service provider. This lookup acquires the metadata associated with the name.
  2. +
  3. LBRYNet issues any required payments, as instructed by metadata entries. +
      +
    1. If the content is set to free, nothing happens here.
    2. +
    3. If the content is set to have a price in LBC, the client must issue a payment in LBC to the specified address. If the content is published encrypted, LBRYNet will not allow access until this payment has been issued.
    4. +
    5. If the content is set to have another payment method, the seller must run or use a service that provides a private server enforcing payment and provisioning accessing keys.
    6. +
    +
  4. +
  5. Simultaneous to #2, LBRYNet uses the metadata to download the content itself. +
      +
    1. The metadata allows chunks to be discovered and assembled in a BitTorrent-like fashion. However, unlike BitTorrent, chunks do not individually identify themselves as part of a greater whole. Chunks are just arbitrary pieces of data.
    2. +
    3. If LBRYNet cannot find nodes offering chunks for free, it will offer payments for chunks to other hosts with those chunks.
    4. +
    5. This payment is not done via proof-of-bandwidth, or third-party escrow. Instead, LBRYNet uses reputation, trust, and small initial payments to ensure reliable hosts.
    6. +
    7. If content is not published directly to LBRY, the metadata can instruct other access methods, such as a Netflix URL. This allows us to catalogue content not yet available on LBRY as well as offer legacy and extensibility purposes.
    8. +
    +
  6. +
+

Layer 2: Services

+

Services are what actually make the LBRY protocol useful. While the LBRY protocol determines what is possible, it is the services that actually do things.

+ +

While the protocol is determined, open, and fixed, the service layer is much more flexible. It is far easier to redesign a website than it is to revise the HTTP protocol itself. The same is true here.

+ +

Additionally, just as in the early days of the internet the later direction of web would have been unfathomable, so too may the best uses of LBRY’s namespace or technology be undiscovered. However, here are some clear uses.

+

Applications and Devices

+

A LBRY application is how a user would actually have meaningful interactions with the LBRY network. A LBRY client packages the power of the LBRY protocol into a simple application that allows the user to simply search for content, pay for it when necessary, download and enjoy.

+ +

Additionally, a LBRY client can allow users to passively participate in the network, allowing them to automatically earn rewards in exchange for contributing bandwidth, disk space, or processing power to the overall network.

+ +

Applications beyond a traditional computer based browser are possible as well. A LBRY television dongle, a LBRY radio, and any number of existing content access mechanisms can be implemented via an analogous LBRY device.

+

Content Discovery

+

Although the namespace provided by the LBRY protocol is helpful towards discovery, much as the web would be much less useful without search engines or aggregators, LBRY needs it’s own discovery mechanisms.

+ +

Search features can be constructed from the catalogue of metadata provided in the blockchain as well as the content transaction history available in the blockchain or observed on the network. All of this data, along with user history, allows for the creation of content recommendation engines and advanced search features.

+ +

Discovery on LBRY can also take the form of featured content. Clients can utilize featured content to provide additional visibility for new content that consumers might not otherwise be looking for.

+

Content Distribution

+

Digital content distributors with server-client models are subject to the whims of internet service providers and hostile foreign governments. Traffic from the host servers can be throttled or halted altogether if the owners of cables and routers so choose. However, in case of the LBRY protocol content comes from anywhere and everywhere, and is therefore not so easily stifled.

+ +

Additionally, the market mechanisms of LBRY create a strong incentive for efficient distribution, which will save the costs of producers and ISPs alike. These properties, along with LBRY’s infringement disincentivizing properties, make LBRY an appealing technology for large existing data or content distributors.

+

Transaction Settlement

+

While payments can be issued directly on the LBRY blockchain, the LBRY protocol encourages a volume of transactions that will not scale without usage of offchain settlement.

+ +

Essentially, rather than issue a transaction to the core blockchain, transactions are issued to a 3rd-party provider. These providers have a substantial number of coins which are used to maintain balances internally and settle a smaller number of transactions to the core chain. In exchange, these providers earn a small fee, less than the fee required to issue the transaction directly to the blockchain.

* + */ ?> \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/view/template/social/sidebar.php b/view/template/social/_list.php similarity index 53% rename from view/template/social/sidebar.php rename to view/template/social/_list.php index 03763270..c395587a 100644 --- a/view/template/social/sidebar.php +++ b/view/template/social/_list.php @@ -1,10 +1,9 @@ -

- Twitter + Twitter
- Facebook + Facebook
- Reddit + Reddit
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/view/template/social/_listDev.php b/view/template/social/_listDev.php new file mode 100644 index 00000000..3409eee2 --- /dev/null +++ b/view/template/social/_listDev.php @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ + + Documentation + + */ ?> +
+ GitHub (source code) +
+
+ Slack (chat) +
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/web/scss/_basic.scss b/web/scss/_basic.scss index b460d7ec..80c68796 100644 --- a/web/scss/_basic.scss +++ b/web/scss/_basic.scss @@ -76,6 +76,8 @@ section .meta { font-size: 0.8em; } .meta-large { font-size: 1.2em; } .clear { clear: both; } +.align-left { float: left; } +.align-right { float: right; } .link-primary { @@ -161,7 +163,7 @@ a:hover img .table-layout { - td + td { padding: 3px 5px $spacing-vertical - 3px; vertical-align: middle; diff --git a/web/scss/_blog.scss b/web/scss/_blog.scss index a981500e..fb21f8c3 100644 --- a/web/scss/_blog.scss +++ b/web/scss/_blog.scss @@ -16,6 +16,7 @@ { margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; + max-width: 800px; a[href] { @include anchor($color-primary); diff --git a/web/scss/_content.scss b/web/scss/_content.scss index 95a416ba..603f5d61 100644 --- a/web/scss/_content.scss +++ b/web/scss/_content.scss @@ -1,10 +1,4 @@ @import "global"; -.content-constrained -{ - max-width: $max-content-width; /*we have more padding than desirable so numbers from ol can exceed container*/ - margin-left: auto; - margin-right: auto; -} .content { margin-left: auto; @@ -18,6 +12,14 @@ { max-width: 1400px; } + &.content-tile + { + max-width: $max-text-width; + } + &.content-readable + { + max-width: $max-text-width + 200; + } padding-left: 15px; padding-right: 15px; diff --git a/web/scss/_cover.scss b/web/scss/_cover.scss index daf7b7e6..781ecba0 100644 --- a/web/scss/_cover.scss +++ b/web/scss/_cover.scss @@ -24,7 +24,7 @@ .cover-title { font-size: 2.8em; margin-bottom: $spacing-vertical; } } @media (min-width: $mobile-width-threshold) { - .cover-title { font-size: 4.0em; } + .cover-title { font-size: 4.0em; &.cover-title-tile { font-size: 2.8em; } } } @media (max-width: $max-content-width) and (min-width: $mobile-width-threshold) { .cover { padding: $spacing-vertical * 1.5 $spacing-vertical * 2; } diff --git a/web/scss/_form.scss b/web/scss/_form.scss index ab62cde1..f181ad37 100644 --- a/web/scss/_form.scss +++ b/web/scss/_form.scss @@ -17,6 +17,16 @@ input[type="email"], input[type="text"] height: $spacing-vertical * 1.5; } +.span4 input[type="email"] /*hack rule fix me*/ +{ + width: 100%; +} + +form .full-width +{ + width: 100%; +} + textarea { width: 100%; diff --git a/web/scss/_global.scss b/web/scss/_global.scss index 930e6d2a..59c3903a 100644 --- a/web/scss/_global.scss +++ b/web/scss/_global.scss @@ -8,7 +8,7 @@ $color-text-dark: #000; $color-money: #216C2A; $color-meta-light: #505050; -$font-size: 18px; +$font-size: 16px; $mobile-width-threshold: 801px; $max-content-width: 1000px; @@ -21,13 +21,13 @@ $font-body: 'Raleway', sans-serif; { color: $color; text-decoration: underline; - .icon:first-child + [class*="icon-"]:first-child { - padding-right: 5px; + padding-right: 8px; } - .icon:last-child + [class*="icon-"]:last-child { - padding-left: 5px; + padding-left: 8px; } } diff --git a/web/scss/_grid.scss b/web/scss/_grid.scss index ed594bae..37766d19 100644 --- a/web/scss/_grid.scss +++ b/web/scss/_grid.scss @@ -66,7 +66,14 @@ $gutter_fluid: 4; } } -.row-fluid, .tile-fluid { +.column-fluid-constrained +{ + max-width: 1400px; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; +} + +.row-fluid, .tile-fluid, .row-fluid-always { @include clearfix(); } diff --git a/web/scss/_header.scss b/web/scss/_header.scss index cf7ad0c5..c145e4d9 100644 --- a/web/scss/_header.scss +++ b/web/scss/_header.scss @@ -11,6 +11,10 @@ $color-nav-border: #ddd; z-index: 1; .icon-close { display: none; } } +.header-absolute +{ + position: absolute; +} .header-scroll { z-index: 2; diff --git a/web/scss/_icons.scss b/web/scss/_icons.scss index 884bce4a..8f142cc8 100644 --- a/web/scss/_icons.scss +++ b/web/scss/_icons.scss @@ -23,6 +23,11 @@ font-size: inherit; text-rendering: auto; transform: translate(0, 0); + &.icon-fw + { + width: 1.6em; + text-align: center; + } } .icon-mega