Protect yourself from design bandits with Blockchain and ProvenDB.
At ProvenDB, we had the ambition to create a service that provides you with complete data integrity and provenance. Our mission is to be the world’s first truly trustworthy database service. A challenge we have relished! To achieve this, we have reviewed applications and services in the market that maintain sensitive and important data assets. Through analysis, we discovered that it’s often impossible to be sure if data has not been altered or removed.
ProvenDB is a database service, but data in our service is “proven” to the public Blockchain — This means you can be sure your data has not been tampered with, that you can prove the origins of data in the database, and that you can obtain the complete history of data items.
So I’ve talked a bit about how ProvenDB can help you protect your data. I want to now hone in on a time where ProvenDB protected me from a situation that is all too common in the design world. As a designer, I have already found the use of ProvenDB to be a valuable asset to not only my clients but also myself.
Recently I was asked by a client to start a project for them. It was clear from the start they were unsure of what they wanted. I tried to prompt them for more information, and they came up with general and sometimes contradicting instructions. I gave them a few examples of similar work I had done, and they managed to provide me with what was the closest thing to a real brief I was going to get.
Each time I showed them the progress of the design, they had lots of negative feedback, and suddenly they would have a change of heart and start steering the design in entirely new directions. If you have ever dealt with anything like this, I’m sure you know how frustrating this can be for you as a designer. I took some time to take them aside and review what their original brief was, how there had been some changes that seemed to be evolving as the project went on, and how that means it will take more time to get their project completed, resulting in higher costs. Once they understood this (or so I thought), I gave them some time to review the progress, provide any further changes or updates- and then we would wrap it all up.
Once I had that final round of changes regarding the direction of the design, I set to work on completing the project. During this process, I uploaded my daily progress to ProvenDB’s Document Management System to keep a record of protecting the design from copy infringement from my client, but also to protect my intellectual property as no payment had yet been made.
Once I sent my client the final proof, after much reworking again, and again, with their changes as requested down to a tee, I asked them how they felt… I shouldn’t have been surprised to find out that while they liked parts of it — they wanted a major overhaul of many critical features of the design, and I did not have the time to continue doing further work. I explained how I had highlighted in writing that there had been excessive changes and that I had outlined how my time constraints would prevent me from essentially starting from scratch, for about the fifth time.
My client was not impressed. They felt that this was unreasonable and said that they would not pay for the design. They demanded a copy of my files- to have them amended by another designer. After a few emails back and forth of me trying to explain that I had been evident with time constraints, and advised there could not be limitless changes, they smugly told me that they didn’t care and would simply have the changes made on my existing design, and not pay or credit me in any way.
It was at this moment I realized how fortunate I was to be using ProvenDB over the conception of this project. I was able to show them the various versions, time-stamped, and uploaded onto the Blockchain for posterity, showing that my work was indeed my own and when each iteration was completed. I reminded them of how intellectual property works and further explained that without payment — the deigns were legally mine, and to use them may constitute a criminal offence.
I took no joy in having to point out the severe ramifications of the situation, but were it not from ProvenDB’s Document Management System; it would have been a long, arduous, and possibly impossible task to show how my design was my own. The client, after reviewing the links to the items on the Blockchain, relented and agreed to pay for the design.
Start protecting yourself from design bandits. Sign up to ProvenDB’s Early Adopter Program and receive an exclusive 1GB of free storage! Be sure to visit the Document Manager feature located in the left navigation panel.
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ProvenDB integrates MongoDB with the Bitcoin Blockchain. Immutable versions of database state are anchored to the Blockchain, delivering an unparalleled level of data integrity. ProvenDB allows MongoDB developers to build high-performance applications that include cryptographic proof of data integrity and provenance without having to understand blockchain programming complexities.
