区块链如何改变未来娱乐行业
作者：Sunny Dhillon
虽然区块链技术还远未被主流应用，但它有望改变众多领域的现状。本文将会聚焦于一个会被颠覆的行业-娱乐业。
内容创作与消费的状态
比其他行业更明显的是，娱乐业有一个中间人的问题。直到最近，如果没有获得唱片协议，没有依靠工作室进行录制发布，是不可能出版音乐的。 电影和电视也一样：没有工作室和制作公司的支持，没有电影院和有线电视频道放映你的作品，是不可能发行电影或者电视节目的。
虽然互联网已经使娱乐业内容创作和发行民主化，创作人员不再需要迎合Interscope或迪士尼的喜好，一批新的中间商出现在数字内容领域。
如今，用户依赖平台去消费音乐或视频内容。 例如YouTube (15亿用户)，SoundCloud (1750万用户)，Spotify (1400万用户)和Netflix（约1100万用户）等平台，控制全球用户消费，并作为发行商，同时负责收集订阅和广告收益，将其分摊给艺术家们。
这类控制有利于主流唱片公司和流媒体平台，已经造成关于艺术家赔偿和待遇方面的争议，其中最著名的就是Taylor Swift和Apple Music，Spotify的例子。随着艺术家们对这些平台越来越失望，他们正在寻找新的选择。进入区块链行业。
通过提供一个数字公共数据库来存储正在进行的交易记录，区块链使公司能够完全加密所有权记录，并执行智能合同（即自动执行交换任何有价物而不需要中间人）。目前有几次尝试创建以区块链为基础的公司和与媒体及娱乐相关的货币。当应用于媒体消费时，该技术解决了关于内容访问，发行和赔偿；资产及数字权限管理；融资等问题。
可以说区块链解决了主要的问题，至少在内容消费方面是微支付。尽管Patreon等平台专注于帮助创作者从粉丝手中筹集资金，但这些平台还不是便利的平台。使用加密货币有助于通过安全支付，减少交易费用，创作者占据销售额更大比重来消除中间商。
格莱美奖得主Imogen Heap是采用区块链的最杰出音乐家之一。她最近与Ujo-一家希望成为独立音乐发行和支付的一站式商店的公司-合作，发行了以太坊区块链上的第一首歌。智能合约的概念是以太坊的核心，它让Imogen Heap可以完全控制她与合作者的支付方式和支付环境（比如，购买下载，直播，混音和同步歌曲的许可）。
Stem，一家为区块链支付建立必要平台的公司，希望成为创作者的支付分配平台。他们允许创作者在一个易于使用的平台上发布内容，管理合同，处理付款。虽然微支付在如今的内容消费上远非常态，但承诺降低交易费用，更安全的销售和消费记录，可能使它成为艺术家，作家和电影制作人感兴趣的商业模式。
数字权限
区块链也为微支付的前身，数字权限管理，提供了保障。从1709年英国颁布世界上第一部版权法到过去的Napster，BitTorrent，制作与贩卖内容的历史，是对谁拥有内容版权的长期斗争。
区块链技术以其不变的记录和去中心化的性质提出了解决方案。大公司已经注意到：去年必须解决未付版税诉讼的Spotify最近收购了数字版权管理创业公司Mediachain。 Mediachain将区块链基础架构与类似Google图片搜索中的内容ID技术相结合，创建一个“通用媒体库”，您可以在其中识别内容背后的“作者和故事”。
有形商品
娱乐业中的有形商品呢？名人商品，活动门票或纪念品？莱昂纳多•达•芬奇的《世界的救世主》一画在一个月前以4.5亿美元的价格售出，以超过200%的价格打破了拍卖记录; 而超级碗的平均票价近5000美元。这儿有一个“超级明星效应”：不是最佳表演者因为他们自身能力进入更大市场而获得更多收入，而是市场拓展内容的能力推动了价值的稀缺，或是真实。
区块链具有保持真实的巨大潜力。与比特币如何使用记录点对点转移价值的不可变账本一样，区块链技术可以记录供应链交易或为每一个产品单位提供一个独特标识，以追溯其链上的踪迹。该单位可以与NFC芯片、二维码或RFID标签配对，以便在数字世界纪录其实际进展。
VeChain是一家位于上海的创业公司，由于涉及奢侈品手袋，已经在研究这个问题。人们可以想象将相同的技术应用于名人商品。 在英国，BitTicket推出了一个基于区块链的平台，管理公共活动门票的销售，并旨在打击门票倒卖。Aventus和TicketChain是竞争对手。 Everledger是一家首次将区块链解决方案应用于钻石采购问题的公司，该公司已经涉足美术领域，以打击那里的欺诈行为。
游戏
过去的几周里，无法避免谈论这类区块链应用。这种必然性几乎完全要归功于CryptoKitties，一款在以太坊区块链上运行的虚拟养猫交易游戏。TechCrunch将其描述为“口袋妖怪卡片的数字版本”和分散的Neopets。自从11月28日发布以来，情况迅速升级：截至2017年12月6日，人们在该网站上花费了超过630万美元；它阻塞了以太坊区块链； 小猫数量已经超过了六位数。 当然，它也很方便地为那些对区块链有想法的人提供了罗夏测试。也就是说，每个人：这是区块链规模化问题的证据。与Beanie Babies相比，它很容易就能被看作是区块链的泡沫特征的警告。据该公司的市场总监介绍，这是对如今的ICO市场的一种半开玩笑式的批评。
无论如何，这是区块链上首个重要的游戏应用。 与Neopets不同，CryptoKitties不使用中心化数据库。尽管它的开发者，AxiomZen，从游戏的每一笔交易中提成，但该公司可能明天就会消失，而小猫仍然可以交易。CryptoKitties的突破性成功将为区块链上的游戏开发吸引更多的关注和融资，而且还有其他项目将受益。Game Protocol因其规模和野心脱颖而出：他们最近，建立了一个包含整个视频游戏经济的协议后，发行了ICO，其中包括一个去中心化的游戏商店，一个开发者社区以及创建游戏的工具，以及一个让消费者资助他们喜欢的项目的众筹平台。从电子竞技投注到纸牌游戏的所有内容都基于区块链进行了迭代。
毫无疑问，区块链提供了众多令人激动的应用程序来解决困扰娱乐行业数十年的问题。
原文：
How Blockchain Can Transform The Future Of Entertainment
POST WRITTEN BY
Sunny Dhillon
Although blockchain technology remains far from mainstream adoption, it is poised to change the status quo in a wide range of fields. In this article, I want to focus on one industry that could be particularly positioned for disruption – entertainment.
The State of Content Creation and Consumption
Arguably more so than any other industry, entertainment has a gatekeeper problem. Until recently, it was impossible to put out music without getting a record deal and relying on a label to record, distribute, and monetize your music as an artist. The same was true in film and television: You could not distribute a movie or TV show without studios and production companies throwing their weight behind you, and movie theaters or cable channels agreeing to showcase your creation.
While the internet has now democratized content creation and distribution in entertainment and creatives no longer have to get in bed with the likes of Interscope or Disney, a new crop of middlemen have emerged in digital content. Today, users rely on platforms to consume music and video content. Platforms like YouTube (1.5 billion users), SoundCloud (175 million), Spotify (140 million) and Netflix (~110 million) control user consumption across the globe and act as the new distributors, responsible for both collecting subscription and ad revenues and divvying up payments to artists.
This amount of control favors the major labels and streaming platforms, and has led to disputes around artist compensation and treatment, most famously Taylor Swift vs. Apple Music and Spotify. As artists grow increasingly disillusioned with these platforms, they are looking for new options. Enter the blockchain.
By offering a digital public database that stores an ongoing record of transactions, the blockchain has given companies the ability to have completely encrypted records of ownership, as well as execute smart contracts (i.e. automatically enforce the exchange of anything of value without the need for a middleman). There are currently several attempts to create blockchain-based companies and currencies of relevance to media and entertainment. When applied to media consumption this technology solves the problems surrounding content access, distribution and compensation; managing assets and digital rights; and financing, among others.
Arguably the main problem blockchain has solved, at least when it comes to content consumption, is micropayments. While platforms such as Patreon are focused on helping creators raise money from their fans, these platforms are still in the middle as a facilitating platform. The use of cryptocurrencies helps eliminate any and all middlemen by securing payment and reducing transaction costs, freeing up a greater portion of each sale for the creator.
Grammy winner Imogen Heap is one of the most prominent musicians to embrace the blockchain. She recently teamed up with Ujo, a company looking to be the one-stop shop for independent music distribution and payments, to release the first song on the Ethereum blockchain. The concept of smart contracts is at the core of Ethereum and allowed Heap to enjoy absolute control over how she and her collaborators on the track were paid and under what circumstances (e.g., buying licenses to download, stream, remix and sync the song).
A company building out the necessary platform for blockchain-based payments is Stem, which hopes to be the payment distribution platform for creators. They allow creatives to publish content, manage contracts and transact payments all from one easy-to-use portal. While micropayments are far from the norm in content consumption today, a promise of lower transaction fees and more secure records of sale and consumption could make it an interesting business model for artists, authors and filmmakers.
Digital Rights
Blockchain also holds great promise for that erstwhile cousin of micropayments: digital rights management. The history of producing and selling content is a long scuffle over who owns the rights to the content, from Britain enacting the world’s first copyright law in 1709 to Napster and BitTorrent in the recent past.
Blockchain technology, with its immutable record-keeping and decentralized nature, presents a solution. The big players have sat up and noticed: Spotify, which had to settle a lawsuit over unpaid royalties last year, recently acquired Mediachain, a digital rights management startup. Mediachain combines blockchain infrastructure with content ID tech similar to that found in a Google image search to create a “universal media library” in which you can identify the "author and story" behind a piece of content.
Tangible Goods
What about the tangible goods involved in entertainment: celebrity merchandise, event tickets, or memorabilia? Leonardo Da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi painting shattered the record for a painting sale by more than 200% when it sold for $450m not a month ago; and the average Super Bowl 51 ticket fetched nearly $5000. There is a cousin of the “superstar effect” at work here: Instead of the best performers reaping greater gains due to their ability to reach a broader market, however, the broadened ability of the market to reach a piece of content drives value to scarcity - or authenticity.
And blockchain has great potential for keeping the authentic, authentic. Similarly to how Bitcoin uses an immutable ledger that records peer-to-peer transfers of value, blockchain technology can record supply chain transactions or provide a unique identity to each unit of product, tracing its journey on the chain. The unit can be paired with a NFC chip, QR code, or RFID tag that logs its real-world progress in the digital world. VeChain is a Shanghai-based startup that is already working on this problem as it relates to luxury handbags. One can imagine the same techniques being applied to celebrity merchandise. In the UK, BitTicket has launched a blockchain-based platform that manages the sale of public event tickets and aims to tamp down on ticket scalping. Aventus and TicketChain are competitors. Everledger, a company that first rose to prominence applying blockchain solutions to the problem of diamond sourcing, has waded into the murky world of fine arts to combat fraud there.
Gaming
The past few weeks have made it impossible to avoid talking about this application of blockchains. That inevitability is almost entirely due to CryptoKitties (“the future is meow!”), a digital kitten trading game running on the Ethereum blockchain. TechCrunch described it both as a “digital version of Pokemon cards” and a decentralized Neopets. Since launching on November 28, the situation has escalated quickly: More than $6.3m had been spent on the site as of December 6, 2017; it is choking the Ethereum blockchain; and kitties have gone for more than six figures. Of course, it also handily serves as a Rorschach test for people with thoughts on blockchain. Which is to say, everyone: It’s evidence of blockchain’s scaling issues. Its easy comparison to Beanie Babies serves as a warning about blockchain’s bubbly characteristics. It’s a “tongue-in-cheek critique of the ICO market today,” according to its marketing director.
Whatever else it is, it’s the first significant gaming application on a blockchain. Unlike Neopets, CryptoKitties does not use a centralized database. Though its developers, AxiomZen, take a cut of every transaction on the game, the company could disappear tomorrow and the kitties would still be tradable. The breakout success of CryptoKitties will draw more attention and financing to game development on blockchains, and there are other projects poised to benefit. Game Protocol stands out for its scope and ambition: it recently launched an ICO after building a protocol that encompasses an entire videogame economy, including a decentralized game store, a developer community along with tools for creating games, and a crowdfunding platform for consumers to fund projects they like. Everything from esports betting to card games has seen iterations based on blockchain.
There is no doubt the blockchain offers numerous exciting applications to solve problems that have plagued the entertainment industry for decades.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/valleyvoices/2018/02/01/how-blockchain-can-transform-the-future-of-entertainment/
