What Is Blockchain Technology And How Can The Entertainment Industry Use It

At its core, blockchain technology is a decentralized and transparent way of exchanging information. Each “block” is a recorded transaction, which is shared on a peer-to-peer network consisting of “nodes.” A node is a device, such as a computer, that contains a history of all transactions for a particular blockchain, i.e. all the blocks in that chain. In order for a new block to be added to the chain, all the nodes in its network must verify it. Once added to the chain, information cannot be modified or removed, ideally creating a trustworthy, transparent record of transactional information.Blockchain and “The Industry”The entertainment and media sectors are just beginning to test out blockchain and uncover its amazing potential to solve some of the industry’s key problems.One of the biggest problems that has plagued creative industries since inception is the issue of ownership and rights: who created what, and who has the full right to control the project and make the deal? This process is known as “chain-of-title” and it has to be understood for the project to have any value or be distributed. With blockchain, these chain-of-title questions can easily and quickly be answered due to the transparent record of each transaction relating to an entertainment project’s intellectual property (IP) rights. Through blockchain, these intellectual property rights can be tracked, and digital rights management companies can access the full record of transactions to find the exact timestamped “block” when any project rights were first transferred and people made contributions to that project.