Licensing Digital Content - Satoshi’s True Legacy
On October 31 of 2008, a paper written by a UFO named “Satoshi Nakamoto” was released referring to Bitcoin as “P2P Electronic Cash”. This document, later to be called a Whitepaper, drafted the fundamentals of the Bitcoin protocol and Blockchain’s innovative approach overall. It was actually the first time the idea of a decentralized trust-less system for electronic assets transfers was brought to light as we know it.
In those 10 years since 2008 reality changed without recognition. Once worth few cents Bitcoin’s price now days stand on 8,875$ after reaching it’s all time high price of 19,666$ back on December 17, 2017. The change in public awareness to the Bitcoin concept and for the Blockchain in general goes way beyond its price. Being mentioned today in every other headline on financial, plain general magazines and media outlets, it is safe to say Blockchain is now one of the major buzzwords out there, one that every person on the street is now using even without truly understanding it’s merit.
Since to date, no actual Blockchain product had fully come to life, one must assume the broad and rapid rooting of the Blockchain came solely from price speculation and news associated with it. With the ICOs market booming more than ever wrapping around 1,800,000,000 USD just in Q1 2018, we find ourselves surrounded by over 100 projects per month claiming to be the embodiment of Satoshi's intention.
So what was Satoshi’s intention? Well, I guess we will never truly know until she will suddenly appear. What we do know is that the Blockchain idea was brought to the world in order to automate the way we transfer digital assets from one another with a direct intention of removing any unnecessary middlemen in the process. One of the most obvious use cases for such ecosystem and the one this article will relate to is licensing digital content and intellectual property management as a whole.
Naturally, being purely conceptual, using Blockchain for intellectual property is intervened with all its parts. Intellectual content trading platforms, royalties distribution, and co-ownership of artworks are just a few examples of how the Blockchain can be used completing all the weak spots of the Copyright management and sales of Artwork in all of its forms. With the introduction of Smart contracts to the world, artists now can join forces, share profits and manage their assets whether directly with their customers or internally with its other creators and sponsors. The abilities they have with the Blockchain serving as a proof of ownership is something artists have yet to witness.
All over the world, numerous projects set their goals on utilizing the Blockchain in the fields of intellectual property and art. Out of all, we found 3 projects worth mentioning. Each one of them implementing Satoshi’s ideas in a different manner.
BITSME is a consultancy firm driving Blockchain based ventures, providing a variety of services from strategy, investor relations, community building and more. Operating in the space for over 5 years now, we slowly established ourselves as a “Go to service” for many projects seeking guidance during their ICO. The following represents our own opinion and does not constitute any financial advice.
Wemark - Photography sector
Wemark is creating a Blockchain-based distribution and exchange system for digital content is zooming in on stock photography by removing third party agencies and fostering a creator-focused economy, which ultimately allows creators to license their content directly to customers. With this new system, Wemark’s “distributed marketplace” keeps the control and the rights in the hands of the photographers, and protects the work they create.
“Starting with stock photography and backed by the biggest names in the image industry, Wemark is taking the middleman out of content licensing by developing a Blockchain-based marketplace for digital content”
Stock photography is one of the most centralized markets existing, with agencies such as Shutterstock and Getty controlling a large part of the $4B industry. However, since these major companies aggregate creators and customers and thus control the distribution, single photographers are left behind and are subject to the distributors changing rules and fees. Additionally, the fees charged for distribution are now among the highest of all other industries in digital content, with photographers being charged up to 85% of their photo sale price! which leaves them with only a fraction of the revenue their content is earning.
Wemark has already a working alpha with thousands of photographers that already signed up, including some of the industry leading content providers, such as Caia Image. The company intends to launch the alpha version of its marketplace in Q2, 2018.
eMusic - Music sector
Although almost nothing was published, it is now official that eMusic is planning to integrate the Blockchain technology into its platform. The exact manner this integration is about to take place is yet to be known and nothing has been said about an ICO to date.
eMusic began its way back in 1998 and was always known for its intentions to support the independent artist sector - Indie. eMusic enables it’s users on the platform to obtain credit in order to purchase music tracks and full albums. Retailers revenue sharing and royalties payout have been a major obstacle in every musician life.
The ability artists have to get a good deal with any music label and to make sure all his royalties are paid is practically a non-existing one. Same as in the stock photography case, the major platforms take outrageous amounts of the proceeds leaving the artist without a true ownership of its creation nor a proper income. According to eMusic, it will take an artist up to 2.1 Million YouTube views in order to earn the national average wage of 1,470$!!!
With their big users, artists and labels base, eMusic seems like a great candidate to be the first major music service to utilize the Blockchain technology, cutting out redundant costs making the artist’s life much better.
White Rabbit - video sector
With most of its founders based in Norway, White Rabbit is a project aiming to disrupt the digital content streaming world fighting piracy and ensuring everyone getting their fair share. The company allows you to reward the films and series you stream, on whatever peer-to-peer platform you choose to stream from.
White Rabbit technology recognizes content and utilizes the Blockchain to facilitate payment between you and the films rights holders. Just like Wemark and eMusic, the White Rabbit team made their decision entering this field after comprehending the sad truth too few filmmakers are actually making money from their film’s digital distribution. In the new streaming era, income is only a fraction of what films once made from DVD sales. Apart from that, like all digital content sectors, streaming revenue lacks transparency and collection takes years rather than minutes.
Using the Blockchain White Rabbit intends to create a trust-less system with each stream automatically reward its content creator and retail platforms in a way that benefits all parties and actually encourage artists to continue to create than to break their spirits. Releasing their Alpha in few months, White Rabbit is definitely one to follow.
Using the Blockchain to monitor and license digital content is obviously just one of the many virtues and use cases the Blockchain offers. However, given the harsh reality we have come to with large aggregators controlling the digital content market living the artists only with crumbs from their work, it seems that this aspect is one of high importance.