Outdated copyright deals, anxious creators
Copyright disputes have intensified in recent years due to the low cost of plagiarism, the difficulty of obtaining evidence, safeguarding rights and the confusion of copyright ownership. The confusion of music copyright ownership is nicknamed “Goldie’s knot”. Why fall into such a situation, only blame the traditional copyright protection way is too outdated, no longer suitable for the era of digital copyright, leading to the content industry into the head of copyright disputes, long tail copyright can not be protected, although the creators are anxious but helpless.
First, copyright registration costs are expensive and the cycle is long. In China, the cost of traditional copyright authentication is very high. The cost of registering the copyright of a single work ranges from 300 yuan to tens of thousands of yuan, and a large number of identity authentication and related materials are required. The registration cycle generally takes 20 working days, which is costly, time-consuming and laborious.
Traditional writers born in the 1960s and 1970s are willing to pay high prices for copyright verification, but they cannot afford to wait for time-sensitive content industries such as we-media and newspapers. Without the energy and cost to register copyright, many creators choose not to do copyright certification, which ultimately makes it more difficult to protect their rights. Because legal rights protection also needs to pay a lot of time and energy, even if the lawsuit wins, the benefits of rights protection and pay are often not proportional, which is also the reason for the more malignant development of infringement events.
As a result, copyright disputes often occur when the domestic copyright law is not perfect and the cost of plagiarism is very low. In the end, many creators can only watch their creations being plagiarized, and they cannot hold the plagiarists accountable.
Second, creators are not properly rewarded. In the traditional copyright transaction mode, there are third-party transaction agents between creators and consumers. If the rights of the third party are too large, such as monopolistic advantages in the industry, even the well-known creators are also in a weak position, and may not be able to get equal remuneration in line with the real value of their works. For example, a green literature website, its signing rules for the author is very strict, the proportion of sharing is very low, industry insiders repeatedly criticized, readers are indignant, but because of its monopoly position, the situation has not changed after the outcry.
Third, there is a risk of information being tampered with. Traditional copyright protection generally adopts two ways of text storage and database processing, but it is not convenient to save the text, and it is easy to lose and damage. Database also has the risk of tampering. CSS/AACS, Key2Audio and other well-known DRM technologies, although protective, are also easy to be cracked, and eventually become a monopoly tool for businesses, both for consumers and creators of poor experience.
The traditional way of copyright protection is too old, and the traditional transaction mode also limits the creators to get more income, which is no longer suitable for the current original environment. However, it is gradually coming into the view of the general public, which makes the Internet leaders even discuss the block chain at 3 am during the Spring Festival, which is quite suitable for copyright protection.
Cut the gordie knot, block chain breaks the copyright puzzle
Mentioned block chain will think of COINS, block chain actually refers to using distributed nodes, hash algorithm (binary), asymmetric encryption technology, intelligent automatic recording function, to achieve the reliability of the collective to maintain data protocol, in a nutshell is the open book information encryption, everyone can query, maintenance, the currency is only one block chain technology application results. Many enterprises are also trying to apply blockchain technology to more fields. Besides digital currency, blockchain + entrepreneurship has become a hot topic, and blockchain + copyright is one of them. Many related projects have emerged at home and abroad.
There are blockchain copyright platforms for the music industry in foreign countries. Grammy winner Imogen Heap used blockchain to sell her new album. Domestic block chain copyright platform is originally, paper and copyright, books, etc., the paper you have completed the tens of millions of yuan in 2017, A round of funding, and has set up A successful docking of the Himalayas, the western literature, in the Cambrian, excitation film more than 30 original content platform, such as the traditional way of copyright protection is not in conformity with the current copyright protection requirements of the creator, It is an important reason for paper GUI to move from traditional copyright protection mode to blockchain copyright.
The copyright ownership of the content industry, especially the music industry, is very confused, just like the Gordian knot that no one can solve for a hundred years. However, several characteristics of blockchain are very compatible with copyright protection, and it may be like Alexander’s sword to cut this unsolved knot.
First, decentralization. Blockchain data is jointly recorded and maintained by all nodes, which is open and transparent and meets the requirements of copyright protection. After decentralization, creators directly deal with consumers, and consumers no longer have to experience the charging business of installing several music software and buying multiple platforms for one singer. Creators also do not need to be attached to the platform or record company. After they put their original music into the blockchain system, they can use smart contracts to set different transaction standards for different user groups. For example, they can charge a few percent of digital currency for listening to songs in the system, and they need to pay higher copyright fees for other commercial purposes. A smart contract guarantees full payment to the artist.
Second, tamper-proof. Every transaction is recorded on the blockchain, and the recorded data cannot be reversed or tampered with, ensuring the authenticity of the information. If an infringer wants to tamper with the data, it theoretically needs to have more than half of the nodes in order for the new data to take effect, but in practice this is unlikely. Even if the new data takes effect, the old data remains on the chain, marked invalid and not deleted. Whether it is the problem of copyright ownership, or the infringement of counterfeit works, can be investigated for liability on this basis.
Finally, you can go back to the source. Blockchain is said to be a lot like several connected Matryoshka dolls. Doll Number one contains information about the creator, copyright information, work information and so on, which is the first block on the blockchain. When a new transaction is made, a new block is created, which contains information about the first block, the transaction record, and information about the owner of the new block, like a doll on top of the lowest doll, doll Number two. And so the more transactions that are made, the bigger the new Matryoshka, the more information it contains.
When old and new matryoshka dolls are linked together, they form a blockchain, also known as a Matryoshka chain. In other words, each transaction can be traced back to its source to determine whether the transaction is compliant, which solves the problem of unclear ownership of copyright after multiple layers of transfer.
Based on these features, when the creator registers his copyright in the blockchain system, he can make the search for copyright information easy to understand and identify who owns the copyright. Original works with a payment system, then, became a business, ensuring that royalties went back to the creators exactly.
Moreover, blockchain copyright registration is cheap, effective quickly, and also saves various costs for creators. One blockchain copyright registration platform has a minimum registration cost of 0.4 yuan per time, and there is no limit to the size and quantity of files. Blockchain copyright can not only be used for copyright registration, but also to build a platform for intellectual property crowdfunding and intellectual property trading.
The ambition of blockchain copyright platform is not only to provide copyright registration services, but also to build intellectual property exchanges through blockchain copyright services and do IP incubation around property rights. However, blockchain is not perfect.
Five limitations, blockchain + copyright is not mature
As a technology that is only a few years old and not yet mature, blockchain + copyright also has many limitations.
First, blockchain solves the problem of copyright ownership in the early stage, but the link between authenticity and ownership of the information before the chain is still unsolved. Although the copyright registration process is simplified and the cost is reduced, the more urgent problem is how to eliminate the infringing content and how to help creators safeguard their rights in the later stage. Text detection is still easy, but the current technology can not achieve the detection of encrypted images on social media, this problem is not solved, creators will still suffer from infringement. At the same time, after the technical problems are solved, the blockchain copyright platform also faces the problem of compatibility with the local legal system.
Second, decentralization means there will be no exclusive copyright in the future. As we all know, exclusive copyright works often get more resources for publicity, which is also an important weight for the platform to retain users. After decentralization, will the author lose the possibility of obtaining more resources? The main users of many blockchain copyright platforms are b-end content platforms, such as Zhihu and Ximalaya, etc., while the copyright of these platforms comes from individual creators, isn’t it back to the era of centralization?
Third, at present, there are many blockchain copyright platforms, which use different blockchain systems and have not formed a unified technical standard. In the future, the copyright data registered by these platforms are different, which will lead to the problem of duplicate copyright registration. If the data are connected, then in the case of decentralization, there will be no room for two, and many platforms will die.
Fourthly, perhaps because digital currency is the most mature application block chain project, so almost all the current block chain + project, the final will be linking and digital currency block chain copyright also seems to be so, multiple block chain copyright platform are planned in the project to join digital currency in the future, to encourage creators in the platform works copyright registration. According to the development path of digital currency, blockchain copyright projects aiming at tokens may fall into a price war between platforms due to currency speculation in the future, and blockchain copyright fees will therefore become expensive.
Fifthly, chain blocks, rely on the hash value to realize encryption, data protection, copyright but paintings and other art than specific binary number arrangement is widespread, the traditional copyright identification, when the original after modify does not affect its copyright ownership, but on the block chain system, the hash value has changed, in other words the modified work has been a new block. Block chain copyright has some difficulties in protecting digital copyright such as pictures.
It should also be noted that after decentralization, copyright information will be kept by individuals. When the key is lost, individuals will no longer be able to conduct authorization operations, and the risk of key loss is not low. It can be seen that under the current situation of insufficient technological maturity, blockchain is not enough for large-scale application in copyright issues.
The birth of blockchain provides a technical solution to the confusion of copyright ownership and the occurrence of infringement. However, copyright problems are not only technical problems, but also problems in the later detection of infringing content and safeguarding rights.
Influenced by the bad atmosphere in the past, many readers, even the authors, lack the correct understanding of copyright, and there is no lack of readers who openly praise the author’s infringement. Content industry infringement cases are very difficult to deal with. Blockchain solves the problem of copyright ownership in the early stage, but it also needs to solve the subsequent infringement detection and rights protection issues.
Imperfect law is still the main reason for the proliferation of infringement problems. After solving the early problems, it is urgent to promote the perfection of copyright law.
Article/Liu Kuang public account, ID: Liukuang110