Today's media industry is made up of a complex consortium of players - big and small - all trying to get a slice of the same content pie.

Think of a platform providers, content aggregators and media conglomerates like Warner Media Group, News Corp or Viacom. Between the consumer and an actual piece of content, like an article or a song, there are multiple layers of intermediaries.

Third-party middlemen and brokers such as rights management bodies and royalty collecting associations all try to elbow their way in, to get a small slice of the value, from even as little as 1%.

You might have heard of a music streaming service like Spotify paying it's artists only $0.0035 per stream. Or YouTube, which depending on their fuzzy algorithms, pay slightly better at between $0.01 to $0.03 per ad view. Not only do the mass of content creators receive very little compensation for thier work - they're also at the mercy of the platform. For example;

YouTube, Facebook or Instagram may one day decide to cancel or block a user account, along with all of its contents, including photos, videos and personal data. This has left many creators out cold and without access to the content they have worked so hard to build and curate.

Copyright Issue

Upon signing up, many users also give up the rights of ownership of their original content to these platform providers, who may then repurpose the content as they wish, resell it to advertisers or conduct research with it.

Fact

Did you know that when you post something on Facebook and set it to 'public', you are essentially giving Facebook a "non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free worldwide license".?

Issues such as data privacy, fair compensation, ownership of content and the risk of censorship are all rife within the current media landscape. Yet the media companies face issues of their own.

Content piracy are continuing to steal value from the rights owners.

Online advertising fraud from ad bots have cost companies at least $19 billion in lost revenue annually.

But a technology already existed that is also made to change the relationship between the consumers and creators - and it is Blockchain.

What is Blockchain?

At his heart, blockchain is an immutable digital ledger record of transactions that is stored across a network of many nodes.
Some characteristics of the blockchain include:

• Transparency - which means all transactions can be seen on the public ledger.

• Immutability - meaning transactions once recorded on the blockchain, they cannot be altered, deleted or reversed.

• Traceability - Information such as data usage, rights ownership can all be tracked and traced on the blockchain providing proof of origin and authenticity.

How blockchain will change the case of social media?

Ethereum has introduced the use of Smart Contracts. Smart Contracts are basically computer code that execute certain actions when specific conditions are met. All this is done automatically, without the oversight or approval of an intermediary body.

In the case of media, Smart Contracts mean that micro-payments can automatically be released to the content ownership when it is being consumed by a user in real-time.

Whenever an article is read, or a song streamed or downloaded, the creator of that content can be compensated immediately, without going through manual processes by a third-party.

Blockchain is already making waves within the media landscape, with disruptors such as Brave Browser with its Basic Attention Token or BAT, the Steemit and Sapien social media blogging platforms, video streaming service ThetaTV, music streaming platforms such as Audius and Ujo, the Vezt music rights marketplace and the rights management platform Verifi.

With all data immutable in the blockchain, copyright owners will be able to track the usage of their content as it happens across multiple channels, and stamp out data and content piracy ae well as copyright infringement.

Blockchain creates a transparent, decentralized database of rights and rights owners, while automating royalty payments through smart contracts and cryptocurrencies, which actually provides liquidity to content owners.

When successfully implemented, the blockchain will make rights management and royalty collection automatic and seamless, while cutting out the profiteering middlemen.

Best of all, blockchain has the potential to shift power to the copyright owners and creators directly where it belongs.

This blockchain-based ecosystem will make creators distribute their work directly to the consumers and artists can have a direct relationship to their communities and fans.
This is already happening with the creation of social or community tokens as well as music and digital art, Non-fungible Tokens or NFTs that are disrupting the digital media landscape, while empowering content creators, brands and consumers.

Jack Dorsey

The co-founder and CEO of the social media platform Twitter has even said that Bitcoin and its underlying decentralized blockchain technology are the future of Twitter.

Artists such as R.A.C., Boys Noize, Imogen Heap and Deadmau5 are already setting up a presence on blockchain platforms like Audius and Ujo where they benefit from fairer revenue compensation; by bypassing the usual gatekeepers and are able to create stronger, more direct relationship with their fans and communities.

In a decentralized future media landscape, all this is possible and it is just beginning.

@ryryry143 💞