Image Protect ICO

Abstract

Since the introduction of the smart phone, it is estimated that there are over a trillion licensable
images on the Internet today. A simple web search gives access to thousands of photos, and
with just a click, a digital file can be saved to the desktop. The Internet makes it difficult to
identify copyright owners for payment and licensing is costly for potential buyers. Arguably,
most theft happens because it’s inconvenient to do it any other way. According to a study done
by Getty Images and the Stock Artists Alliance, 70% of all visual media used on the Internet
today was not authorized by the copyright owner. This leads to a loss of billions of dollars to
content owners. Unfortunately, roughly 80% of unauthorized uses are non-commercial and not
pursuable for monetary value because they are personal blogs, forums, ad supported blogs, or
there is no identifiable owner. The only action is to send DMCA takedown notices to the ISP or
hosting company to remove the infringing content from the websites.
Commercial infringements are expensive to pursue. According to Penn Law, the average cost to
litigate a copyright infringement case through trial ranges from $384,000 to $2,000,000.
Additionally, to pursue a case in federal court the image must be registered through the US
copyright office. According to a survey done by PPA, only 4% of professional photographers
register their copyrights. This leaves very few cases for photographers to monetize.
The photo licensing industry is controlled by a few companies who keep up to 85% of licensing
revenues leaving little profit for creators and rights owners. The current landscape lacks
transparency and efficiency in protecting copyrights, managing licensing, and leaves few ways
for creators to monetize their work. This limits industry growth and creates legal issues for both
rights holders and photo buyers. Blockchain decentralization and smart contracts promises
incentives and technology to solve these challenges.
Image Protect is a revolutionary content rights platform, utilizing blockchain technology to
manage, protect and monetize digital media for content producers of all levels, publishers, and
advertisers. Our embeddable in-image advertising format, IPShare™, lies at the heart of our
mission. IPShare™ will significantly change the current copyright and licensing landscape by
locking in attribution, securely sharing content, gaining visibility, social engagement, ownership
authentication, easy-to-use licensing, and revenue growth from online advertising. Image
Protect’s marketplace will be the center for all digital transactions, allowing complete transparent
licensing and increased protection for all digital assets. Designed to restore trust and
transparency to its members, blockchain technology will be used to securely record transactions
that are impossible to later repudiate or manipulate. Blockchain will also be used to secure
smart-contracts to create transparency into sales history, usage, evidence collection and
provenance of registered content.

Reasons to Support ICO

1. Strong team with impressive success story and industry experience.
2. 450,000 members with over 35,000,000 digital assets.
3. IPShare™ technology makes images virtually impossible to steal and differentiates us from
   competition by generating ad revenue through an embeddable image format, comprised of inimage
   advertising, hot links, and social sharing.
4. IMAGE tokens receive 10% of revenue generated from infringement settlements, smartlicensing
   and recurring online ad revenue from impressions, click-through traffic and shares.
   This allows a token owner to earn revenue for years to come.
5. Image Protect democratizes the market, supporting competition, quality and growth and
   releases content creators and end consumers from domination of monopolist intermediaries
   with their enormous fees up to 85% of payments.
6. Blockchain-based registry protects authors’ rights and saves end users from lawsuits risks.
7. Smart contracts (or smart licenses) allow access to large market of rights managed
   (exclusive) content.
8. Combined Market Revenues $345BLN by 2020.
9. IMAGE Tokens are issued by a real operating company - not newly created “shell company”:
   existing company based in the United States and operating since 2014.
   Using resources gained through fundraising and the use of IMAGE (Image Protect Token) will
   allow us to apply blockchain technology within the visual content market. As a result, the biggest
   issues with copyright protection and monetization will be resolved and bring significant growth to
   the marketplace. We are ready for the next step – our platform will change the copyright market
   landscape forever!
   Introduction to Image Protect
   Since 2015, Image Protect has become the fastest growing community of visual artists focused
   on copyright protection. By combining advanced image search technology, digital image
   recognition, and a secure shareable online image format, IPShare™, with a growing platform of
   over 450,000 members, Image Protect is at the forefront for the protection and monetization of
   global copyright. We’ve achieved explosive growth in membership due to strategic partnerships
   with an array of photo-related technology agencies (500px, Snapwi.re, Mega, etc.).
   Image Protect is introducing a revolutionary new digital licensing model, IPShare™. Currently,
   Image Protect sends the standard DMCA takedown notice to an ISP or hosting company for
   removal of the original image. With the launch of our new IPShare™ technology, Image Protect
   now asks the website owner to replace the current image with the same image that has been
   converted to the IPShare™ embeddable format. It’s as simple as copying and pasting the image
   into the user’s website dashboard across all web templates, i.e., WordPress, Blogger,
   SquareSpace, Wix, etc. The image is instantly transformed into an online billboard, containing
   in-image advertising, hot links, social sharing and dynamic messaging. This new technology
   derives revenue from the global digital advertising market, which is expected to grow to over
   $291B by 2020 (1). Our IPShare™ solution will significantly change the current copyright and
   licensing landscape by locking in attribution, securely sharing content, gaining visibility, social
   engagement, ownership authentication, easy-to-use licensing, and revenue growth from online
   advertising.
   
   Image Protect is building a global decentralized copyright registry for digital content that
   authenticates users and links intellectual property to make the management of digital content
   universally accessible. Our online registry will generate a unique ecosystem for rights owners,
   creating a new efficient marketplace for licensing and monetization. The smart-contract
   formalizes existing licensing rights for digital assets, making them easy for a creator or photo
   buyer to use, transfer or modify. The blockchain is used to securely record ownership
   transactions and legal evidence for infringement case that is impossible to later repudiate or
   manipulate. Secure smart-contracts create transparency into usage and provenance of
   registered content. Our image recognition and internet search technology, provides visibility
   into media usage by crawling the web, applying machine learning to identify similar or identical
   media, and subsequently reporting their existence and location to the registered owners.
   Our powerful dashboard allows members
   to monitor content usage, check
   earnings, review analytics, activate
   content, find new websites, and focus on
   media buys. Our proprietary image
   recognition technology, along with a
   cloud-sourced team, analyzes every
   image in our network. Our technology
   breaks down the pixels within the image
   itself, identifying objects and themes
   according to the latest open RTB
   standards. Our cutting-edge keyword
   technology helps advertisers target their
   campaigns to highly relevant content &
   images.
   The result is better performance & ensures consumers are more interested in the campaigns
   they see. This new technology generates additional revenue while providing a targeted, first
   person advertising opportunity across all types of online content.

Useful Links

Website : http://imageprotect.io/

Bitcointalk ANN Thread : https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3548707.msg36344474#msg36344474

Bitcointalk Bounty Campaign : https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3663058.0

Twitter : https://twitter.com/@ImageProtect

Facebook : https://www.facebook.com/ImageProtect

Telegram : https://t.me/imageprotectl