A smart contract rights management platform for film and television will be developed by SingularDTV based on ConsenSys' Ujo Music rights management prototype.

The platform will allow adding usage conditions to media flows via Ethereums blockchain. The option is believed to bring prominence to independent artists who are reluctant to sell their rights to record companies.

S-DTV's CEO Zach LeBeau is certain that entertainment rights management is an ideal use case for blockchain technology.

“S-DTV will address today's lack of transparency and fundamentally change the prominence of creative accounting in the entertainment industry,” he said.

Ujo, the prototype that is expected to lay the foundation for the platform, is “intended to serve as a user-owned and controlled content registration platform where usage policies can be attached for artists, consumers, promoters, venues, curators and other actors to license and use as appropriate.” 

According to Joseph Lubin, the founder of ConsenSys, the prototype allows for creating and transferring licenses in real time. He believes that the film and television rights management platform developed by S-DTV will benefit Ujo ecosystem by enabling the emergence of a "business and social network for various arts industries."

The idea of using blockchain for the good of identity verification and ownership matters in the entertainment industry has been discussed recently during the Berlin Music Tech Fest, with a special task force working on an advocacy material to be submitted before for the European Commission. 

Earlier, MUSE platform partnered OpenLedger to help artists store copyright data and licensing conditions for their tracks in the blockchain; unlike S-DTV's project, the partnership was intended for music industry only.

Maria Rudina