Piracy is a severe problem that has been plaguing the digital entertainment industry for ages, and the situation is even worse in developing nations. Billions of dollars are lost every year due to piracy and losses are expected to rise as almost everyone with an internet connection and a VPN can gain access to pirated content. This issue is now being addressed with the help of a distributed ledger technology (DLT) based solution, by Tech Mahindra, an Indian multinational company providing information technology services and business process outsourcing to companies.
According to a recent report, the Indian IT services giant has launched a DLT-based solution powered by IBM’s Hyperledger, dubbed the Blockchain Based Contracts and Rights Management System (bCRMS). The platform is designed to protect the intellectual property of content creators while also making royalty payments easier.
The new solution is designed for both linear broadcast and Over-The-Top (OTT) service providers like the online media streaming platforms. The platform will provide precise information regarding the number of downloads and the number of streams a content has attracted while automating royalty payments.
The platform has been deployed at a time when industry experts have estimated that the piracy of content especially from online streaming platforms in over 138 countries would have resulted in almost $51.6 billion in losses for content creators by 2020.
The report further mentions that solution uses hashing and forensic watermarking to enhance transparency about where a media firms’ content has been distributed to, thus restricting unauthorized access and illegal redistribution of licensed content.
Multi-Purpose
According to Rajesh Dhuddu, Blockchain, and Cybersecurity Practice Leader at Tech Mahindra, the bCRMS platform would also enhance the revenue of enterprises, alongside curbing piracy. He noted:
“bCRMS orchestrates the entire media content lifecycle and workflows across pre-production, post-production, and distribution phases to enhance revenues.”
Furthermore, Tech Mahindra has also noted that bCRMS could also be deployed across other sectors like “trade, finance, and healthcare that have a requirement for intellectual property and secured digital content”.
However, this isn’t Tech Mahindra’s only venture into the world blockchain tech. The IT behemoth has been working with Chromia, a blockchain company working to push the adoption of decentralized applications (dapps) by addressing the limitations of the existing blockchain networks by solving scalability issues.
Tech Mahindra is the sales channel for all Chromia products in India and also holds exclusive rights to Chromia’s land-registration tech usage in India.
