Why (and how) we use Blockchain Tech to Protect Content Creators at Screener Copy
Building stuff with blockchain technology is hard.
Like, really really hard.
When we started building Screener Copy in 2013, all the fancy tools the script kiddies are using to build their dapps were not available. It was a completely new technology with a bunch of kinks and quirks that did not lend itself well to building cool stuff.
Luckily, we have a bunch of incredibly smart people on our team telling us it is indeed be possible to build an online video distribution platform that utilized blockchain technology to incentivise pirates to become snitches.
Which, I suppose, still doesn’t answer your question: why do we use blockchain?
To understand why, you do not have to understand how blockchain technology works (cue collective sigh of relief); you only need to understand its central features.
The first killer app built using blockchain technology was Bitcoin: digital money.
Bitcoin is most famous for criminals using it and teenagers getting filthy rich from it, but, hands down, the coolest thing about Bitcoin is that it lets you send money anywhere in the world without having to go through a bank.
Back in the day when the world was small, and everyone lived to the ripe old age of childbirth, you did not need a bank. You could just barter your goods or trade it for gold.
But, since then, our lives have gone global — and finally, our money has too!
Sure, you could do a cash transfer anywhere in the world before Bitcoin, but the innovation of Bitcoin was like going from posting letters globally to having email. Just like your grandparents don’t need to go to the post office to send you borderline racist jokes anymore, now they don’t have to interact to the bank to send you your birthday money (which has not been adjusted for inflation since the nineties and can’t by more than a hamburger now anyway, but that’s not what matters). It’s just technology all the way down. No more going to the bank with your proof of residence and identification documents, now with a click of a button you, your grandmother, your dog, and your fridge could each have their very only Bitcoin wallet and start sending and receiving money globally.
As a result, Bitcoin has some cool and valuable features:
Firstly, it’s inherently global — unlike Yen or starbucks vouchers, it’s relevant and valuable everywhere.
Secondly, it’s free and easy to create an account. You don’t need to go to the bank, you just needed to run some software. Suddenly, your whole bank account is replaced but a pair of numbers — one that acts as a password for you to send money, and one that functions like an address where you can recieve money.
Thirdly, since it’s so easy to create new accounts and you don’t need to ask anyone’s permission, it’s very easy to remain anonymous when sending or receiving money. This is big deal, that has a lot of value for criminal activity, but also to anyone concerned with privacy, like journalists, people living under oppressive governments, informants and foil hats.
It’s a combination of these three features that made our technology possible. I don’t know if you know this, but we’ve built a platform designed to incentivise people in criminal communities from all over the world to protect your content. It’s counterintuitive, but it works.
Let me break it down with a long and convoluted analogy, because I’m on my third martini and I really want to make some puns:
So imagine your cat goes missing. (Stop hyperventilating, your cat is not really missing, this is just a thought experiment.) You’ve heard about this super sleuth, called Sherlock Meowlmes. He specialises in finding lost cats, and he is the best in the business. He were leave no stone unturned and spare no expense to find Mr. Meowgi, your beloved Oriental Shorthair with it’s lactose intolerance. While you are quick to tell anyone that asks (and many that don’t) that Mr. Meowgi means the world to you, it is the end of the month, and cash is tight. Sherlock Meowlmes is the best in the business, but his fee before expenses is more than you make in a month.
Luckily, you have a bright idea. Instead of having one pair of very proficient (and expensive) eyes looking everyone for your cat, you rather have a big bunch of eyeballs looking for your cat, and only pay the person that finds it. You put up a couple of posters (with one of the more flattering pictures of Mr. Meowgi because he is sensitive about his weight) all over town, stating the reward, and start waiting.
The next day you get a knock on your door, and there’s Mr. Meowgi in the arms of this guy and he’s so tall, and handsome as hell. He’s so bad, but he does it so well. I can see the end as it begins. My one condition is, SAY YOU’LL REMEMBER ME! STANDING IN A NICE DRESS, STARING AT THE SUNSET, BABE!…Sorry, I went full Taylor. BUT THIS IS GETTING GOOD NOW!
The point?
You’ve got your cat back, there’s a handsome AF cat rescuer at your door, and you still have money for pizza.
This is what we do. Just with blockchain technology rather than wanted posters on lampposts, because we’re smart.
We find your film online when someone puts it somewhere where it shouldn’t be.
You’re not searching for kitties anymore. Piracy is global, and we need a way to pay rewards to anyone in the world who reports your film as pirated. Blockchain technology allows us to reward anyone in the world for information about who leaked your film.
You never want your film to be on The Pirate Bay. You probably don’t want your film being shared on campus networks. You don’t want the guy from the local paper that you asked to review your movie sending it to his friends. We get people from all over the world to anonymously tell us when they find your film where it shouldn’t be. Unlike the example above with Mr. Meowgi and his ripped rescuer, you actually do not care who informs you about the leak — you only want to know when it’s leaked. But it goes a bit further than this.
So if your movie is somewhere where it shouldn’t be, someone put it there. Now that’s the real turd in the drinking water, as we say in Afrikaans. This person probably doesn’t hate you. They probably did not intentionally leak your movie and spoiled your commercial prospects. In our experience, leaks most frequently happen because of carelessness. You get a review copy, you think the movie is cool, and give it to you kid. The kid shows it to his friend, who copies it. They give it to their cousin. The cousin gives it to his older sister who is in college. She spreads it on the campus network, and eventually it finds its way to The Pirate Bay and you are screwed. Just because you wanted the local paper to review your movie to get Netflix’s buyers attention.
You can’t go around doing security audits on all the people you want to send your screeners to. Some of our customers send advance and review copies to hundreds of people. What we rather do is give the recipient some skin in the game. There are other services that add watermarks to movies. Even the major studios add watermarks. What they have that you don’t is departments of people and NSA level web crawlers looking for their movies (Sherlock Meowlmes in the previous example that you can’t afford). By adding the bounties we make sure the person that leaks the content will be be caught — and frequently this is enough to make people think twice before sending along content. It’s been so effective in South Africa that we’ve stopped all pre-release piracy for the last 2 years! And South Africa is one of the biggest pirate countries in the world.
I’m going to level with you, leaks are always going to happen. No draconian hard DRM will stop a motivated person from copying your movie. I live in a country with some of the most crime in the world. We may have gates around our properties, and bars on our windows, but we still invest in the best insurance we can afford.
If a potential pirate gets their hands on a film we protect, they’ll need to think long on hard before they upload it. We have blockchain magic, and we will find them.
