Hundreds of years have passed since the birth of the first copyright law in the early 18th century, but with the development of the times, not only the copyright law, but also the repeated piracy.
The harm of piracy to the interests of content creators has been repeatedly mentioned, but the strange thing is that piracy, as a well-known “political mistake”, has become a part of our daily life.
Why is piracy rampant?
Piracy has two essential problems:
The first is the issue of content copyright —infringement is easy and difficult to protect rights, and the cost of piracy is low. Even if you are informed of infringement, at most you can delete it, and you cannot recover the benefits that pirates have already obtained.
The second is the issue of content distribution – it is inseparable from intermediaries, so there is always a market for piracy, even if the copyright awareness is strong enough, even if the crackdown is strong enough, but because the genuine version is much more expensive than the pirated version, many people feel “self-blame and helpless” Still use piracy.
These two problems can be cured because of the arrival of the blockchain wave.
Blockchain: Countdown to the Death of Piracy
The immutability of the blockchain does not actually complete the confirmation of rights, because the content on the chain is not necessarily uploaded by the author himself .
However, because of the openness and transparency of the blockchain, every pirate infringement will become “covering the ear and stealing the bell”, the risk and cost of piracy will increase, and pirates will not dare to pirate. Moreover, even if the piracy is successful, the income obtained is also clear on the blockchain. Once it is discovered, the confirmation of the copyright can be solved in disguise.
Even if the risk is high, as long as there is trading, the pirated market will exist, and many people take risks for profit. The most important reason why piracy cannot be killed and blocked is the high price of content consumption, which discourages consumers.
One of the values of the intermediary company is to fight piracy, but it is also the intermediary company that makes the cost of content products higher. One-third of Universal Music Publishing Group’s employees are responsible for royalties and copyright management in the global market. These costs of combating piracy will eventually be reflected in the beginning and end of the supply chain. Content creators are forced to reduce their income, and content consumers are reluctant to spend more.
The blockchain smart contract technology can build an automatic content distribution platform, which is automatically executed by the program, not only can realize ” no middleman to make the difference “, but also make ” your content you call the shots “, a writer can directly price the work, Readers buy directly, and the system automatically distributes it, realizing point-to-point direct sales between creators and consumers, so that ” creators earn more and consumers spend less .
The better solution to eliminating piracy is not to crack down on piracy harder, but to make every consumer feel that “piracy is not worth it”. If you can enjoy the genuine version for a small amount of money, do you have to take a huge risk of using a pirated version?
Fighting piracy is everyone’s responsibility
Before the emergence of the blockchain, each piece of content was not strongly related to consumers. After the transaction was completed, content dissemination/promotion/reporting depended on their preferences. Although consumers were encouraged to protect the rights of creators, this was not an obligation. In fact, consumers’ secondary dissemination, promotion, and copyright maintenance all contribute value but have no benefit.
Because the value of these behaviors is difficult to measure, consumers cannot get the value they deserve. These behaviors, which were originally difficult to measure value, can be carried by infinitely subdivided Tokens . Through the automatic execution of smart contracts , “one point of effective cultivation and one point of accurate harvest” can be realized.
Therefore, everyone who contributes to the original content can get benefits because of the contribution. Token binds everyone to the genuine content, and everyone holds Token and becomes a shareholder. Piracy is no longer something that doesn’t matter to every consumer, but something that will infringe on their earnings. In this way, piracy has really become “a street rat that everyone shouts and beats.”
Epilogue
The immutability of the blockchain facilitates copyright confirmation, the openness and transparency of the blockchain increases the cost of piracy, the automatic distribution of smart contracts reduces intermediate costs, and Token bundles content and consumers, making it everyone’s responsibility to fight piracy.
The blockchain cannot directly solve piracy, but it is expected to gradually withdraw from the market through technical means and incentive mechanisms.