Managing copyright is a challenge in the digital world, as there is not a perfect solution for emerging artists who build on existing works, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mashup_(culture) . There continues to be a problematic identification process of who retains authorship, and copyright, surrounding music https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mashup_(music) and digital media https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mashup_(video) that deploys the use of existing works. With trends building around remixes, mashups, intermusical, and intermedia works, authors and publishers continue to debate about who owns the product. For example, creators of original operas that create new and artistic materials by the composition of other materials can never claim the opera as original and gain any rewards, actually, they are sued by the law. Mashup creators or anybody creating an opera without working directly (or knowing) other authors are also subject to this problem. POCRE solves this problem through the authorship acknowledgement of materials that have different authors using a blockchain identification process. Some of the key aspects of the problems being solved relate to the following users within the process:
- 1st Creator: Autonomous authorship management
- Co-Creator: Invited to authorship acknowledgement
- Claimer: Claim authorship acknowledgement
- Litigator: Resolving disputes
By connecting various parties through Cardano, parties are able to interact across a smart contract workflow that allows for complete transparency in the ownership, authorship, and copyright process. The attached "use case workflow" shows how the actors interact with each other.
As there are more and more ways to express creativity, publish works, and claim authorship through decentralized mediums and platforms on the internet, a globally recognized model does not exist. While corporate mainstream possibilities exist under major recording businesses and labels where copyright can be claimed, this does not represent independent artists well. Independent publishers can still claim authorship and ownership of materials, but the process is often expensive and difficult to prove without an overseer.
As a result, there are often problems in claiming and proving originality in works. In order to meet the demands of existing copyright claims, and provide ownership and authorship rights, a verification process that deploys blockchain technology and issues certificates on the blockchain is the desired solution provided by POCRE. Identifying all the parties involved in the process and appeasing all the ownership and creative works by each contributor is a central component of our blockchain system.
The adoption of blockchain in the field of copyright is not new even if not globally adopted. For example, Algorand is adopted by SIAE (the official Italian copyright collecting agency, <https://www.siae.it> ) to store the copyright as a “simple” immutable record store of the author in the "traditional" way. However, co-creation ownership, real-time claiming and litigation processes are not managed.
POCRE is innovative in the process but also only possible because internally implemented on a novel layer 2 solution adopting Cardano HYDRA https://iohk.io/en/research/library/papers/hydrafast-isomorphic-state-channels/ https://iohk.io/en/blog/posts/2022/02/03/implementing-hydra-heads-the-first-step-towards-the-full-hydra-vision/ . In POCRE the transition data (claiming and litigation) are immutable but not permanent. Only at the end of the N possible transitions (for N coauthors) the final block, containing all the elected co-authors, is permanently and immutably stored on the layer 1 chain. In the "use case workflow" attached is it possible to see how layer 2 is used.
Based on the usage and adoption, currently, there appear to be no barriers to scalability thanks to HYDRA. POCRE is fully decentralized and on-chain thanks to "Star-Shaped Head Network" [https://github.com/input-output-hk/hydra-poc/blob/abailly-iohk/star-shaped-network/docs/topologies/star-shaped.md](<https://github.com/input-output-hk/hydra-poc/blob/abailly-iohk/star-shaped-network/docs/topologies/star-shaped.md >) a new protocol (in development) of Hydra. Because of that, there is no need for third-party custodianship.
When comparing it to other similar style products like shout4 https://www.shout4.com - where authors are offered recognition for their work inside a centralized platform that can guarantee and validate recognition only inside itself - POCRE goes beyond traditional mechanisms by using a global blockchain.
FINANCIAL Key Performance Indicator (KPI)
• Revenue growth
New types of economic opportunities derive from the managing and supporting of Hydra heads.
• Profit margin
Every time the (co)creator claim an opera (portion of) a micro-pay for the network is required, in this way the ecosystem is sustainable and incentivised.
SOCIAL KPI:
• SDG Goals https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sustainable_Development_Goals
Goal 10. Reduce inequality within and among countries
SDG Subgoals <https://sdgs.un.org/goals/goal10>
10.2 By 2030, empower and promote the social, economic and political inclusion of all, irrespective of age, sex, disability, race, ethnicity, origin, religion or economic or other status
10.2.1 Proportion of people living below 50 per cent of median income, by sex, age and persons with disabilities
• Socio-economic benefits
Being globally decentralized, the POCRE solution advances the socio-economic benefits for creators, producers, and consumers alike, outside any authority and autoregulated by the actors themself.
Being fully on-chain and without any third-party custodianship, POCRE is fully autonomous, sustainable and anti-censorship.
HOW DO GET PEOPLE TO ADOPT THE SOLUTION
We will build a website (useful also for tracking the progress of the development) where users can play with a demo account.
When the solution is stable and solid, we can start to do partnerships with authoring tools like www.mash-up.app (focused on editing and publishing songs).
Another partnership can be done with potential "competitors" like www.soundreef.com where we have a few connections (but not yet business).
The main uncertainty is related to the status of the development of HYDRA https://github.com/orgs/input-output-hk/projects/21/views/7 that could be completed by the 3rd quarter of this year. At this stage, there is a HYDRA head working demo https://github.com/input-output-hk/hydra-poc/tree/master/demo where we can start to study and investigate (we would love to contribute as testers and early adopters).
The Hydra team just released <https://github.com/input-output-hk/hydra-poc/blob/abailly-iohk/star-shaped-network/docs/topologies/star-shaped.md> a draft of a document about "Star-Shaped Head Network". It is a piece of tech in development, but mandatory to make POCRE work in the way I designed it (without any third-party custodianship and fully on-chain) so, delays are possible.
Also, we don't expect full covered documentation, so all of these things can contribute to the slow delivery of the project. Anyway, we are not scared about it because learning is in our DNA.
There is a lack of Plutus/Haskell developers, the available ones we found asked a costly daily rate (crazy things between 50$ and 100$ per hour). Obviously, we cannot afford this expense, that's why our plan is to hire senior developers on a monthly based but train them on specific topics when needed. This problem could slow down the delivery.
SKILL REQUIRED
Mid-level seniority Haskell + Plutus=> difficult to find
Deep understanding or experience in RESTful API => moderately easy to find
Generic Web stack knowledge => very easy to find
Quality Assurance tester => easy to find