Anybody who designs writes or creates any kind of media which falls under the protection of Intellectual Property laws is likely aware of how easily it can be stolen online. On top of having to pursue these thieves, you then have to try and enforce your legal rights as the owner of said media, provided you can prove as much. Although copyright laws protect your work, there have not been systems in place that definitively register your work and verify ownership, until now. In the age of blockchain, the process of safeguarding your creations is becoming far simpler.
Creatives do not have the same options as inventors, who can simply go to a patent office and get protection for their work. Not only that but with the internet, enforcing copyright protection is an issue that has only gotten worse.
When someone uses your Intellectual Property (IP) for commercial purposes, you can seek compensation, but when you are a small-time creator and are dealing with a larger company, the burden is on you. This means you may have to hire a lawyer who will help you prove ownership and then enforce your rights. This process can become drawn out and expensive, which you might still lose. But with blockchain adoption becoming more commonplace, you can streamline the process of defending intellectual property rights.
Blockchain works by creating ‘blocks,’ which store data, but unlike other record-keeping systems, these ‘blocks’ are located on a variety of servers around the world. Blockchain is preferable to these other ledgers because of how automated it is and the fact that blocks cannot be altered once they have been created. This keeps costs low while also being reliable in authenticating ownership.
Blockchain-based IP rights enforcement may be the tool that helps put smaller creatives on even footing with large companies by giving them far more options to prove they own media. It remains to be seen how this is leveraged across different industries, but it has the potential to protect the rights of creatives of all kinds of media.