Why is Blockchain Disruptive for Content Publishing?

Quick Takes:

• Blockchain makes it easier for content developers to realize publishing independence.
• Blockchain provides developers with content ownership and royalties as well as a favorable environment for free creation.

Quick question, what pops into your mind when thinking about “publishing”? Some of you might immediately think of books, newspapers, or some other kinds of print media. Indeed, publishing traditionally refers to the creation and distribution of such printed works, yet in the digital age that we live in, the scope has expanded to include music, games, apps, software, and the like.

Published content isn’t the only thing that is evolving, so is the publishing method. Blockchain technology, with its capability to manage issues covering copyrights, royalties, collaborations, and more in a decentralized manner based on smart contracts and an immutable ledger, is receiving increasing attention in the publishing industry and causing a disruptive jolt.

Traditional Publishing

The traditional publishing model is mainly centered around big publishers and well-funded studios, which stand in between the content developers and users while dominating the marketplace. If developers wish to succeed, they have to either secure a lot of funding from investors or depend on the resources and channels of the publishers.

Often, the developers are rejected on the ground of a lack of publishing capacity or commercial potential. Such monopoly over publishing resources and content may result in unattractive projects for users since the publishers set the logic and rules of the content based on their financial interests.

Even if they do get their work admitted and published, the chance of getting a higher proportion of sales revenue as royalty is unlikely, while a loss of control over the publishing process is inevitable and the initial creativity of the content may also be lost in translation during the incubation and publication process.

A convenient example would be Kindle Direct Publishing by Amazon, which is already a step forward in terms of facilitating self-publishing by providing a channel for independent authors to upload and sell ebooks. Yet with its restriction on ebook format and requirement for complete sales exclusivity, many believe that Amazon is keeping users on its platform and causing independent authors to lose their independence.

Blockchain-based Publishing

As opposed to the highly monopolistic status quo of traditional publishing, blockchain-based publishing can be disruptive in a way that it allows the content developers to truly own their works and reap more reasonable profits while assuring a favorable environment for both developers and small publishers.

Developers with True Independence

With features of immutability, decentralization, and transparency, the blockchain technology can help to assure developers of their rights and royalties as well as the support for free creation, paving a path towards the true independence of developers.

• Rights and Royalties

With blockchain being a publicly viewable ledger to record everything automatically through smart contracts, the data regarding the original content developer or the individual share of contribution to a group-work project is tracked and kept on-chain permanently, which protects the ownership right of everyone involved, including both developers and publishers.

Moreover, unlike the traditional way of publishing, in which revenues are normally controlled by third-party service providers, the adoption of blockchain in publishing can remove all intermediaries and allow content developers and all stakeholders involved to monitor the distribution of the content and receive payments directly.

• Autonomous Creation

While it is applicable to secure initial funding from Web2 and Web3 investors, the blockchain technology is providing developers with another choice by enabling fiscal funding before content production, facilitating content creation with lower threshold and greater freedom.

To be more specific, developers get to launch presales of their project NFTs or native tokens to obtain fiscal support from the mass buyers of their on-chain token. A well-edited clip of visual demo or even a good storytelling of the project’s worldview, missions, and feature highlights would do the job, significantly lowering the entry threshold for developers.

MixMarvel, as a leading blockchain content incubation and publication platform, adopts a publishing model of assets before content, which means FT or NFT issuance comes before product content, overturning the traditional publishing strategy of content before marketing and promotion.

The MixMarvel-incubated GameFi application DeHero is an example in the case whose card mining and NFT blind boxes are both distributed beforehand. Users can thus obtain assets first and then get more assets in the game through the game’s revenue mechanism, to continuously build their awareness of the game itself.

Without the profit-driven and authoritarian decision-making from big traditional publishers, independent developers in the blockchain world can exert their talent with greater autonomy and even go further to create their mission-driven projects alongside community feedback and ideas, which fundamentally revolts against traditional publishing model.

Small Publishers with Greater Opportunities

The adoption of blockchain technology in content publishing, being that blockchain games or dapps, is genuinely disruptive in that it ends the publishing monopoly and encourages creative content to be developed toward the users’ and developers’ interests while opening up a living space for small publishers.

With independent developers trying to attain initial funding through initial offerings of their tokens, they have actually become small publishers themselves. By successfully communicating their ideas and creativities, and by dedicating to content or a project that serves the actual interest of their target audience, these small publishers can realize their dream project with funding from their community audience and support from blockchain users.

About MixMarvel

MixMarvel is the world’s leading blockchain content-incubation platform and creators community. By in-depth exploring the open world and integrating world-renowned IP with high-quality content, MixMarvel connects investors and mass users through asset distribution, content publication, DeFi tools, infrastructure, community co-creation, and other diversified scenarios in a new ecosystem of dapps. Its ecosystem comprises a broad portfolio of FT/NFT assets, including the MIX, RPG, and HEROES tokens; blockchain content including the GameFi application DeHero; and infrastructures including Rangers Protocol and MixMarvel SDK. For more information, visit https://linktr.ee/MIXMARVEL.