Blockchain in the Real World #5- Content Creation
The hype around social media is starting to wear thin. Centralised control of your data has turned you, the user, into nothing more than a product. Now, however, in much the same way that the GFC inspired the adoption of Bitcoin, the abuse of your personal information and re-distribution of your content is finally leading to an evolution in the entertainment industry. Blockchain is poised to change the way we receive, distribute and interact with information and content, and put the power back into the hands of content creators!
Online and out of Your Hands
The past few years have been awash with scandals, and the general realisation that the safety of your personal data and information is not guaranteed. In fact, in most cases, it is sold on to help make you a target for marketing and advertising, and in more sinister cases- to help you to be manipulated.
It wasn’t so long ago that social media giant Facebook was implicated in the Cambridge Analytica Scandal, where personal information was (allegedly) harvested, and then used to influence huge global events like the 2016 US presidential campaign and the Brexit vote.
Similarly, if you are a content producer, your content technically belongs to whatever service you have submitted it to. Let’s take YouTube for example. Your uploaded video content is subject to the whims of a centralised control point, which determines how/where it shows up in searches, the ads that are displayed, as well as the content you are actually allowed to post. Add to that the fact that YouTube is using your content to generate their own income streams (with little to no reimbursement for you) and you begin to see the cracks in the current system.
To put things into perspective, let’s look at the music streaming service Spotify. According to CNBC, Spotify pays somewhere between $0.006 to $0.0084 per stream to the holder of music rights. In the music industry, however, that means that fractions of a cent can be split among the record label, producers, artists, and songwriters. Until recently, signing a deal with a record label was the only way to have your music released, while simultaneously taking the power and creative direction out of your hands.
And even though Spotify has grown 40% year on year, the company itself is still running at a loss (nearly $5bn in 2018!) due to royalty payments to big record labels, and other expenses being split among so many parties!
Enter Blockchain- The Saving Grace for Content Creation and Entertainment
The time has come for artists and content creators to earn their just rewards. With blockchain now allowing for the immutable traceability of intellectual property, and the ability to send/receive micro-payments in a matter of seconds, the entertainment industry is about to lose a lot of the ‘middlemen’. Let’s take a look at some examples across different industries.
Music
Imogen Heap became the first Grammy award-winning artist to release music on the Ethereum blockchain, in 2015. Using smart contracts and micropayments, users could purchase her song Tiny Human for $1 (which was 1 ETH at the time), which was sent directly to Heap.
In light of the success of her Ethereum release, Heap went on to found MyCelia, a platform designed to allow artists to sell their music direct to consumers, and receive the adequate remuneration for their work. These platforms also help to cut down on copyright infringements by tracing music, it’s creation, and it’s sale all the way back to the original producer.
Browsing
We have been bombarded with so many ads, trackers, cookies and other data-stealing apparatus that we have become completely immune to them. Sadly accepting them as part of the online experience (and an unfair trade at that), society has sat idly by while our information is used against us.
Now, however, the Brave Browser seeks to change that by blocking 3rd party trackers, advertising, unnecessary https upgrades and more, dramatically increasing the speed of your internet while ensuring that you remain in control of your data.
The browser also comes with its own token system, using the Basic Attention Token (BAT) to allow you to:
- Tip your favorite content creators, ensuring that you are directly supporting the people who actually matter to you, such as YouTubers or writers, without ever having to leave your browser window.
- Opt-in to watch ads (without 3rd party trackers) and be rewarded with BAT. For the first time since the inception of the internet, you can choose which ads you wish to see, and be rewarded for your attention.
Art and Collectibles
If you’ve been following ECOMI for a while, you’ll know we’re purveyors of the non-fungible token (NFT). This allows you to take any asset (physical or digital) and create a tokenised version of it. This token can then be sold or traded across the world, granting the new owner rights to the original work.
When it comes to art and collectibles, NFT’s have allowed for a whole host of new repatriation services. Aside from creating liquidity where there was previously very little, NFT’s and smart contracts allow content creators to tokenise their own assets and sell them across open marketplaces like OpenSea.
Recently, Known Origin have removed another layer of friction in this process, creating a ‘self-serve’ tokenisation system, allowing you to create, upload and tokenise your artwork all in the same transaction.
“From this point onwards we will be switching the part of the tokenisation process into autonomous flow that will empower collectors and artists as more digital assets will be available (and quicker).”
Not only does this tool drastically improve the speed at which an artwork can be tokenized, but it is also putting a whopping 85% of the sale (in ETH) back into the hands of the content creators!
Of course, these are only a few examples of companies changing the entertainment industry and ensuring that it is the content creators that receive the kickbacks, rather than corporations and middlemen. The only way this industry continues to change, however, is if these services are actually used! So if you’re still paying conglomerates for your content, maybe it’s time you considered looking into your options and supporting the people who matter the most!
If you’re interested to see which other industries are being revolutionised thanks to blockchain technology, check out the rest of our series.
About ECOMI
ECOMI is a technology company based in Singapore and is leading the way in the emerging digital collectibles space. ECOMI offers a one-stop-shop for digital collectibles through the ECOMI Collect app bringing pop culture and entertainment into the 21st century.
The Collect app allows users to experience true ownership of premium digital collectibles. Through the app marketplace, users can obtain common, rare, or one-of-a-kind digital collectibles, share these across the social network service, and exchange them with the Collect community, all from the palm of their hand.
ECOMI sees digital collectibles as a new asset class which offers intellectual property owners the opportunity for new revenue streams in the digital landscape. Digital streaming, gaming, and in-app purchasing have become a multibillion-dollar market and the next to join this digital trend is the pop culture and collectibles industry.
For more information please see the ECOMI Collect Whitepaper or join the community on Telegram, Twitter and Facebook.
