Although, blockchain influenced the most dominating segments of the industry, its wide area of competence has strong hopes for the creative industry. Blockchain in itself is a very robust and fair platform that guarantees extreme end-user satisfaction and security. Along with it, it also offers a very flexible network that can be accessed from any part of the world at any moment! Blockchain does not have the risk of single-point failures since it does not follow a single sever multiple user architecture. Apart from these basics, blockchain has a lot of potentials which would be discussed further in this article.
This discussion has been enriched with a survey involving around 800 executives. Among this set of respondents, 58 percent of the respondents believe that upto 10 percent of the world’s GDP will be stored using blockchain technology.
The entire framework of blockchain technology has several features which would be of tremendous advantage for the creative industry in particular. Let us discuss some of these benefits in details below:
- The transactions in the network are fraud-proof or rather immutable making it one of the most reliable platforms. The creative industry has a lot to benefit from blockchain especially with its unique ability to secure transactions over a network.
- The entire sequence of events can be tracked over a blockchain network. This makes it very convenient for people to track and audit the previous transactions. The availability of time stamps give a very accurate transactional history for perfect audit reports. These advantages will always benefit the creative industry.
- The entire blockchain platform works on a distributed network rather than a central sever client model. This allows the users to enter or leave at will and offer significant resistance against attacks by possible hackers.
Artist rights in the creative industry have often been a matter of serious concern and disputes in certain cases. Artists always complain that they receive a very small portion as cut compared to the amount of money generated by the promoters and the broadcasting partners.
Here are five ways in which the blockchain technology can serve as a major platform to safeguard the rights of the artists
Benefit 1: Enables Smart Contracts which in turn helps artists control their digital rights and set revenue allocations to the deserving contributors.
Benefit 2: This system offers very transparent one-to-one transactions between the artists and the broadcast hosting companies. There cannot be a single instance when the participating parties would be able to raise a dispute regarding a transaction since blockchain transactions are immutable. Timestamps and decentralized ledgers offer maximum protection against frauds with digital tokens which carry a hash of the previous transaction. Blockchain can offer one of the most robust platforms to
Benefit 3: Blockchain would establish an efficient and dynamic pricing model. The tracking system of blockchain is very transparent and leaves no room for content mispricing. Often, artists complain that their content is not being fairly priced. Artists can control prices especially when they feel the risk of being underrated for certain events.
Benefit 4: The concept of micro-metering is very unique and a revolutionary way to price content usage. Through micro-metering, one can always measure the smallest unit of usable content in the form of a movie file, a sound clip or any other form of digital content.
Benefit 5: Last, but not the least; blockchain establishes a very strong trust system among the users. Blockchain is one of the most reliable platforms for the extraordinary league of artists. They deserve the best appreciation for their arts and should be duly remunerated for their efforts as well. Along with fair pricing and a capacity to manage their rights, the artists will have the support of a robust technological platform as a backing to micromanage their day to activities.
Along with the several benefits associated with blockchain, it is also very important to understand the risks and challenges associated with blockchain.
- Licensing challenges: There are several licensing challenges that are being faced owing to the implementation of blockchain with the creative industry. It is very true as well that the blockchain systems also leave behind a lot of loopholes which would later on manifest as major challenges to the smooth implementation of blockchain in the framework of the creative industry. Thus, it would take a much stronger will compared to the existing ones to bring about a major transformation to the creative industry.
- Artist promotions: Artist promotions may face several disparities especially with some artists getting more focus compared to the others. It is indeed a very robust platform when it comes to managing the creative industry but would not be able to maintain a balance between the concerned artists.
- On chain vs Off chain storage: The storage of the creative media is a real challenge especially when it comes to the choice of data being stored in the blockchain itself or meta data sets. If the metadata of the content is just stored on the blockchain, then the question arises as to how the system will store the creative content. Blockchain systems are more or less associated concerned with the most fundamental aspect of data storage.