Blockchains in the new era of participatory media experience

Project Information

BLOOMEN

Grant agreement ID: 762091

DOI

10.3030/762091

Project closed

EC signature date 2 June 2017

Start date 1 September 2017

End date 31 August 2020

Funded under

• INDUSTRIAL LEADERSHIP - Leadership in enabling and industrial technologies - Information and Communication Technologies (ICT)

Total cost

€ 3 283 616,08

EU contribution

€ 2 757 662,50

Coordinated by

WORLDLINE IBERIA SA
Spain

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - BLOOMEN (Blockchains in the new era of participatory media experience)

Reporting period: 2019-03-01 to 2020-08-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

Designed for the media industry, the main goal of Bloomen has been to extend the use of the blockchain technology to different types of online user transactions, and to provide an innovative way for content creation, sharing, personalized consumption, monetization and copyrighting. Bloomen has explored and researched how blockchain technology can be used to manage and track a variety of content, such as music, pictures or WebTV offerings. Ranging from single artists to employed media creators and senior decision-makers, a key group of stakeholders for Bloomen is content creators. No matter whether large or small, these creators currently face many challenges in how digital content of any kind can be efficiently used, attributed and monetized. In this context, Bloomen has provided blockchain-based solutions and inform about their potential use and impact.

An important aspect of the project pilots was to validate Bloomen use cases from a business point of view. The consortium has, through use case pilots implementation, validated if the proposed solutions have addressed and solved particular problems of the media industry more efficiently than other solutions. Bloomen results allow the media industry stakeholders to define and deploy new business models for their service offering [1] and new features which increase the level of transparency, copyright management [2], Know Your Customer procedures, and monetization [3] (e.g. through mobile wallets using crypto tokens).

References:
[1] Papadodimas, G.; Palaiokrasas, G.; Litke, A.; & Varvarigou, T. Implementation of smart contracts for blockchain based IoT applications. In 2018 9th International Conference on the Network of the Future (NOF) (pp. 60-67). IEEE, November 2018
[2] Kapsoulis, N.; Psychas, A.; Palaiokrassas, G.; Marinakis, A.; Litke, A.; Varvarigou, T.; Bouchlis, C.; Raouzaiou, A.; Calvo, G.; Escudero Subirana, J. Consortium Blockchain Smart Contracts for Musical Rights Governance in a Collective Management Organizations (CMOs) Use Case. Future Internet 2020.
[3] Palaiokrassas, G.; Litke, A.; Fragkos, G.; Papaefthymiou, V.; & Varvarigou, T. Deploying blockchains for a new paradigm of media experience. In International Conference on the Economics of Grids, Clouds, Systems, and Services (pp. 234-242). Springer, Cham, September 2018

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

Digital technologies have transformed media content production and distribution in the global entertainment and media industry, however critical issues still exist with regards to the way through which digital content could be copied and freely distributed on the Internet, and how content creators could be compensated, when their material is used or purchased, through legitimate channels. Given its core features of decentralization and non-tampering, blockchain can solve these issues and thus ensure the income rights of original producers. Towards that direction, Bloomen project has implemented a new paradigm of a distributed architecture for content creation, sharing and consumption based on blockchains, which has been validated against real life use case scenarios that are derived from the music, news media, and video industries.

- Music Use Case: Can Blockchain Improve Claims Management and Resolution?

Challenges in the music sector largely relate to inefficient systems for the distribution of royalties. The Bloomen Music App aims to support a better music ecosystem, making it fairer, more transparent and efficient (see Bloomen deliverable D5.2 Music industry use case).

Bloomen has developed the Decentralized Rights Management app, an innovative solution that leverages the properties of blockchain technologies to overcome one of the biggest pain points of the music value chain: the management of copyright data. Any rightsholder of a musical composition or a master recording is able to register their claims and dispute with other interested parties any conflict that may arise, instantly sharing the information in a secure, traceable and auditable platform that can be plugged in Collective Management Organisations’ royalty distribution systems.

- Photo Photo use case: A new take on photo assignments

Photos are essential for information, but the challenge is how to get original pictures and manage the entire workflow: Finding the pictures, licensing them properly are crucial steps. But while the number of photos required by news organisations is rapidly increasing, underlying systems for image acquisition remain largely unchanged.

Bloomen Photo focuses on how to buy and sell photos for use by newsrooms (see Bloomen deliverable D5.4 News Media use case). Bloomen Photo enables photo sourcing on the basis of an adapted workflow developed in close exchange with Deutsche Welle’s photo editors. Features include identification for onboarding, licensing, contracts. Equally important is that metadata can be stored and edited by both parties, the photographers and the photo editors. Further, the blockchain-enabled platform allows for copyright management and contracts, based on smart contracts.

- Video Use Case: Can Blockchain Improve OTT Media Services?

Smaller broadcasters with Over-The-Top (OTT) media services face several challenges, such as acquiring copyrighted materials, expensive VOD systems, GDPR challenges and high transaction costs. Bloomen WebTV App aimed to overcome these types of challenges by developing a decentralized OTT Media System, with benefits relating to security, privacy and monetization (see Bloomen deliverable D5.6 WebTV industry use case).

This system incorporated innovative components, such as a mobile wallet for maintaining full ownership of copyrights and providing access to several devices for the playback of this material. Another addition was to use blockchain for performing transactions and maintain an immutable database for proving ownership and distribution of copyrights, as well as an environment that allowed for smart contracts, for clearly defining who pays whom, and what are the terms of every relationship and communications done digitally.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

The following nine components and applications, grouped into “technology” and “use case” components, have been identified as the final Bloomen Innovations for which IPR related issues have been considered. Technology innovations have been led and implemented by technology partners. The use case innovations refer to the three blockchain-based demonstrator applications, which have been developed by use case leaders in cooperation with their respective technology partners from the Bloomen consortium. For this reason, the use case demonstrator applications are jointly owned by the respective use case and technology partners. With regard to their application, the use case partners were co-developers, which included tasks such as initial conceptual/business design, specifying detailed requirements and user stories, overall and specific feature development, continued advice, iterative user testing and definition of improvements, data model design or integration in user environments.

Technology Innovations
- Bloomen Integrated Platform (ATC)
- Anonymity, Data Privacy and Personalisation Services (ICCS)
- Basic Blockchain Services and Smart Contracts (ICCS)
- Kendraio App (KENDRAIO)
- Bloomen Blockchain Framework (WLI)
- Bloomen Mobile Wallet (WLI)

Use Case Innovations (Apps)
- Photo App (DW/ATC)
- Music App (BMAT/ICCS)
- WebTV App (ANT/WLI)

Bloomen Poster