The Blockchain – Open for business.

Blockchain, the technology that underlies cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin. is the world’s leading software platform for digital assets. Offering the largest production block chain platform in the world, Blockchain is using new technology to build a completely new and “radically better” financial system.

“We are on a mission to build a more open, accessible, and fair financial future, one piece of software at a time. Our technology is revolutionizing the financial services industry by empowering millions across the globe to authenticate and transact immediately and without costly intermediaries,” states the Blockchain’s website.

There are many that think the hype around the blockchain is a bubble that will burst, but it could have a profound effect on the publishing industry as a whole. The Alliance of Independent Authors, (ALLi) and licensing marketplace IPR License, are both taking it very seriously. In fact Alli has set up a committee and a campaign called the Blockchain for Books to investigate the opportunities and present a white paper of reccommendations. Led by Orna Ross, an Irish author, and the founder of ALLi who has been named one of the top 100 most influential people in publishing by The Bookseller, the white paper, when released should be of great interest to the global publishing industry.

What exactly is this blockchain?

The blockchain is new technology, which, while launching an entirely new financial model, is also likely to underwrite the next disruption in publishing, a widening of the concept of intellectual property and the next digital revolution.

The Blockchain is a continuously growing list of records, called blocks, which are linked and secured. “The blockchain allows one person to transfer a unique piece of digital property to another in a way that 1) is guaranteed safe and secure; 2) open, visible and agreed by all; and 3) cannot be subsequently modified.”

The blockchain is a decentralized model that relies on the agreement of the peer network in order to process the next set of transactions so no individual or organization can subvert the rules that have been established, and the currency traded is Bitcoins.

The Bitcoin as “a cryptocurrency which is not owned by any individual, government, or organization. It allows for transactions to occur outside the traditional financial frameworks and fiat currencies.”

How does it affect the publishing industry?

Alli proposes that the Blockchain will impact Copyright. “The piracy of digital files becomes much more difficult, as the blockchain cryptographically time -and person- stamps the act of publication (and, indeed, of creation through earlier stages of the process, if we want). Ownership becomes indisputable,” says Ross.

“Following on from clear ownership are contract rights and property rights. Automated digital “smart” contracts will be able to simultaneously represent ownership of an intellectual property and the conditions that come with that ownership. Such contracts will be able to automate rules, checking conditions and taking actions with minimal human involvement and cost. Goodbye to lawyers who are too expensive for, and don’t speak the language of, individual creatives,” she continues.

In Alli’s vision, “The blockchain allows authors to become the first calling point and information hub for the work they have created and to credit all who have contributed and collaborated. The blockchain allows us to forward a book, directly from author to reader, without any middle-man, freely or for bitcoin exchange.”

It is the removal of the middle-man and putting authors first in the value chain that most excites ALLi.

“ALLi’s aim, as an indie authors’ association, is to advocate for and lend our support to those who are serious about creating an author-centric financial model for books. Such a model would maximize the value of the authors’ moral and monetary rights and intellectual property and pay the author first, not last, in the chain. We contend that the money flow should begin with the creator, that the creator should be the entry point of payment.”

IPR License development director Tom Cox believes that blockchain has the potential to revolutionize the way Intellectual Property (IP) is traded.

IPR License development director Tom Cox shared some insight with Porter Anderson of Publishing Perspectives recently and he describes the tech behind the Blockchain quite succinctly. Cox believes that blockchain has the potential to revolutionize the way Intellectual Property (IP) is traded.

Cox shared his ideas around the Blockchain with Porter Anderson of Publishing Perspectives recently. “There are now platforms such as Hyperledger and Ethereum that allow developers to build on top of a distributed blockchain infrastructure, which should greatly reduce the time-to-market needed to develop blockchain-based systems,” he says.

“Rights management is, in many ways, similar to financial processing, in that trust is the core component. At present, that trust is provided by large institutions and the complex contracts that describe the ownership, use, re-use, translation, permissions and royalties associated with a product. These rights often cross company and country boundaries,” explaines Cox.

“If we imagine that the industry remains much as it is today, one possible path would be to establish a blockchain network of publishing industry rights trades. Over time, this ledger of rights could become the definitive source for searching and establishing the authoritative rights holder. This shared ledger means that there’s no one single company that’s holding the data and that the ledger itself is always an accurate reference.”

“Publishers would have an incentive to take part in the initiative, as it would reduce the discovery and coordination time associated with searching for and establishing new contracts.”

“The network would be able to provide real-time details about rights holdings across the industry without the need for a central authority to police this. The blockchain ledger wouldn’t be a replacement for existing enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems. Instead the current systems could publish key life-cycle events to the blockchain.”

“If we were to take this a step farther and look at a more disruptive implementation of blockchain, it would be possible not only to store the record of products and rights, but also to implement “smart contracts” enforced by the design of the network. Smart contracts don’t just contain the terms of a contract but also can act in programmed ways, delivering aspects of an agreement once specific terms are fulfilled. If connected to additional resources, such as distribution networks as well as online and physical stores, the contract could automatically deal with recouping costs and paying royalties. When a new contract or a change to a contract was published to the network, the time needed for this information to be available to all nodes would likely to be minutes. If the contracts were sophisticated enough, the complex area of royalties could be handled in almost real time by the system.”

“Some advocates of blockchain suggest that eventually the technology may be sophisticated enough that instead of our current corporate model, we’ll operate with “decentralized autonomous organizations” (DOA)—a distributed corporate model enforced by the setup of the smart contracts that capture the organization’s goals and processes.”

This is a model that could replace the siloed functions of publishing companies with distributed services and could allow content creators much greater oversight and flexibility in how their work is published and disseminated. However, such a model is yet to be proven in any industry, and until the necessary building blocks and technologies are in place, this is only a pipe dream and one which may never come to pass.

The Challenges

“It’s hard to see how such a network could be built without the support of publishers and while the benefits can be clearly laid out, we’re likely to see resistance to this level of change,” says Cox.

There are other challenges to this model and though exciting, the blockchain is far from perfect, as Stefan Thomas points out on Medium in an article titled: The Subtle Tyranny of Blockchain Re-learning old lessons about shared state, which is well worth a read. Some of the more debated concerns centre around security. The environmental impact of all the tech is also huge as the ‘mining’ of the blocks takes enormous amounts of computing power.

“Depending on how it develops, blockchain could go the way of so many technologies now consigned to the dustheap. It could be used to reinforce the status quo or further embed existing privilege. For now, this is an open moment,” says Ross.

“We could just sit back and observe the blockchain and see but by actually advocating for it, we can shape it and we can perhaps help mould how it develops in a way that is advantageous for authors.”

“The scenarios described here are just some of many possible implementations that blockchain that could affect the publishing industry. While much of the current hype around blockchain is certainly unfounded, there’s definitely great potential in this model.
We believe that the publishing industry should be investing in and understanding this new and disruptive technology in the same way that financial institutions have been. It’s certainly an area that IPR License is going to continue to research and develop,” concludes Cox.

https://iprlicense.blog/2017/09/29/blockchain/

https://cointelegraph.com/news/8-best-sources-to-study-blockchain-technology