A Platform to Verify Ownership of Content

I have been thinking about using blockchain for content ownership verification for some time. I came up with this idea that may be a useful service or a platform if implemented. Let’s visit a use case that this platform or service will be able to serve.

A user or author decides to create a useful diagram or an image to use in an article that he will be publish in his favorite social platform, in this case LinkedIn. If LinkedIn participates in the content ownership verification service, then when the author is uploading the diagram the first time, it will detect it as a content type that needs to be verified. Then LinkedIn will check with the decentralized content ownership blockchain. Because this diagram is being built from scratch by the author for the first time, the blockchain will respond that this is not a pre-existing content and hence will allow it to register the content permanently for future verifications with this user as the owner of this content. Then LinkedIn will ultimately publish the article along with the diagram.

Now the author wants to use his other favorite participating platform Twitter to broadcast this article. When the author is int he process of generating the tweet, Twitter platform will again check the blockchain to see if the diagram or image in this article is pre-existing or not. This time the blockchain will reply its pre-existing along with the ownership details and permissions / authorization rules for the usage of this content. Now Twitter will verify if the author of this tweet and the author of the diagram points to the same author or someone who is licensed to use the content digitally. If yes, twitter will allow to publish the tweet, otherwise will reject it.

So the advantage is that any participating service or site or entity that registers with this content ownership platform / blockchain will be able to deliver only authorized and legal content without ever breaking copyright of any sort. I envision that in future this will be true not only for social platforms or web sites but be true for any kind of services we use everyday. Here are some examples –

• you won’t be able to upload a video in youtube with an image that you are not licensed to use in your video
• you won’t be able to run an MP3 audio song in your car’s player if the song has not been purchased from a participating service
• you won’t be able to use a video in your blog that you didn’t ask for permission from the original author
• you won’t be able to share an article or tag a photo of a friend in your own facebook wall without prior approval from the original author
• …. many more