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Putting proof of ownership of a photo on the blockchain is an interesting idea, but I don't understand the economics. Artists pay Kodak to register their image

Putting proof of ownership of a photo on the blockchain is an interesting idea, but I don't understand the economics. Artists pay Kodak to register their image with the blockchain, and Kodak has a mechanism to crawl the web to find images violating this blockchain registration. Okay, great, but why would anyone want to mine their blockchain?

dev_throw 9y ago
The incentive would be to get tokens that they in theory could exchange for money on exchanges. The token's value would be determined by the free market, or by the incentives they talk about in the article: > "...such as a share of KodakOne’s revenue and access to a “marketplace” that will allow them to spend their KodakCoins on camera equipment, studios for photo shoots, and travel expenses."
- CydeWeys 9y ago
  Yeah, but that has nothing to do with the service they're offering. It's a service with random blockchain stuff grafted on. If you want to use tokens as store of value or medium of exchange, go use something like Bitcoin, Ethereum, etc.
  - k__ 9y ago
    Seems to me like some people can't understand the difference between tokens and blockchains. But maybe they do and thought "Well, a blockchain is a good idea to track photo ownership AND people make mad bucks with crypto currencies at the moment, we can offer a something that has to do with photos and make big money on the side"
    - CydeWeys 9y ago
      Is there truly a meaningful difference between tokens and blockchains though? Sure, the token is running one level up in the architecture hierarchy, using a blockchain or maybe even another token as its settlement layer, but from a user's perspective it doesn't act any differently. It's kind of like how, as a user, I don't know or care whether the HN webserver my browser is talking to right now is running in a VM or on bare metal. The actual use properties of tokens/coins/blockchains aren't any different.
politician 9y ago
Is it permissionless? Sounds like a RightsShare-like scheme to me.
jethro_tell 9y ago
It's not a bad idea but they got blockchain mixed up in it. Would have been better if they had just built a low cost subscription service with some embedding in the image a crawler and the weight of a corporate lawyer for enforcement. That's a service that a one person pro photog may be willing to pay for.
- sib 9y ago
  That service actually exists and has for many years (e.g., Pixsy https://www.pixsy.com https://www.pixsy.com, DigiMarc https://www.digimarc.com/solutions/photography https://www.digimarc.com/solutions/photography). It just didn't involve the term, "Blockchain" :)
  - jethro_tell 9y ago
    well, by the many years part I would assume it's not a bad idea then and there's no value add from the blockchain so guess they are late to that party as well. Kodak finally decides they aren't going to be late for once and this is what they choose to get in on. Classic
- djangowithme 9y ago
  Without the blockchain their stock doesnt go up 200%, and its all for nothing (maybe thats their perspective, idk)
  - jethro_tell 9y ago
    Yeah could be, My guess is they've been late to the party on everything for the 25 years and someone conned them into showing up on time for this one and it turns out the parties a dud.
- matt_s 9y ago
  Wouldn't an approach not emphasizing the corporate lawyer be better? Something where say a media company can just pluck whatever images it wants out of a repository and the software will infer a blockchain hash out of the image or metadata and then bill them accordingly for usage. Make it completely simple to setup and run so pirating of images is actually harder to do. A media company just needs to run the software on their systems and manage a subscription on usage. Probably some typical SaaS subscription models would work. And the SaaS then gets the photographers paid. This doesn't need blockchain at all for the currency aspect, just to ensure proof of owner on the images. There are probably other ways to do that though.
cwkoss 9y ago
It's worse. There are two possibilities for how this works, neither of which bode well for the future of KodakCoin 1. Registration of an image's IP rights is automated. Users will be able to claim the IP of images which they do not own, and use the system to fraudulently siphon payments from the true owners. KodakCoin would be enabling and cooperating in selling fraudulent IP licenses. 2. Registration of an image's IP rights is not automated. If every image needs manual human intervention to be registered, not only is this not a decentralized system, but the costs to administrate the system will scale directly proportional to growth. Unless the average image generates more profit than the cost of human administration needed per avg image, the more popular KodakCoin becomes, the faster it loses money.
Theodores 9y ago
So they can pay money to Kodak for the hardware needed to mine their 'coins' and not even get the hardware, just be stuck in a two year lease burning electricity night and day to create these comically funny not-even-sh1t-coins. Some respect can be given to those that find many greater fools, take their money and pull off a classic scam, e.g. the Tether incident, brilliant in its crookedness. However this Kodak effort is a joke. Kodak are not in master scammer league and they have an inflated ego regarding their brand worth yet at the same time shaming that brand quite badly. It is as if it is a parody told to a boss that didn't do deadpan, maybe German was the first language. I know people are gullible however: Kodak's January 9, 2018 announcement of KodakCoin and the KodakOne was accompanied by its announcement of the Kodak Kashminer cryptocurrency mining system. The Kodak-branded "Kashminer" rigs would be available for two-year leases and allow owners to mine for cryptocurrency, a focus in Kodak's currency pivot. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KodakCoin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KodakCoin They are having a laugh. However it is definitely 'with' and not 'at' for everyone else that learns of this. Have they gone mad? What next, pivoting into homeopathic remedies? Rhododendrons or KodaTulips?
- BigJono 9y ago
  They could always sell flamethrowers.
Wehrdo 9y ago
If you could somehow manage to make the proof of work tied to discovering copyright infringements (from crawling the web), and have the rewards come from lawsuits/settlements, then maybe it could work? It seems like a stretch for that to be possible, especially considering any rewards would be dependent upon the lengthy legal system. But judging from the ridiculousness of the diagram in the article, I feel like this is not so well thought out.
ozmbie 9y ago
This is a problem with many blockchain ideas. On one hand you get an immutable public record (and smart contracts), but on the other hand you need an incentive to use and mine the network...thus the in-built currency. But if that currency isn't seen as valuable...then the whole system falls apart. I'm not sure why Kodak didn't piggyback of an existing blockchain like Ethereum.
- CryptoPunk 9y ago
  >>I'm not sure why Kodak didn't piggyback of an existing blockchain like Ethereum. This will be built on top of Ethereum.

dev_throw 9y ago

The incentive would be to get tokens that they in theory could exchange for money on exchanges. The token's value would be determined by the free market, or by the incentives they talk about in the article: > "...such as a share of KodakOne’s revenue and access to a “marketplace” that will allow them to spend their KodakCoins on camera equipment, studios for photo shoots, and travel expenses."

CydeWeys 9y ago
Yeah, but that has nothing to do with the service they're offering. It's a service with random blockchain stuff grafted on. If you want to use tokens as store of value or medium of exchange, go use something like Bitcoin, Ethereum, etc.
- k__ 9y ago
  Seems to me like some people can't understand the difference between tokens and blockchains. But maybe they do and thought "Well, a blockchain is a good idea to track photo ownership AND people make mad bucks with crypto currencies at the moment, we can offer a something that has to do with photos and make big money on the side"
  - CydeWeys 9y ago
    Is there truly a meaningful difference between tokens and blockchains though? Sure, the token is running one level up in the architecture hierarchy, using a blockchain or maybe even another token as its settlement layer, but from a user's perspective it doesn't act any differently. It's kind of like how, as a user, I don't know or care whether the HN webserver my browser is talking to right now is running in a VM or on bare metal. The actual use properties of tokens/coins/blockchains aren't any different.

politician 9y ago

Is it permissionless? Sounds like a RightsShare-like scheme to me.

jethro_tell 9y ago

It's not a bad idea but they got blockchain mixed up in it. Would have been better if they had just built a low cost subscription service with some embedding in the image a crawler and the weight of a corporate lawyer for enforcement. That's a service that a one person pro photog may be willing to pay for.

sib 9y ago
That service actually exists and has for many years (e.g., Pixsy https://www.pixsy.com https://www.pixsy.com, DigiMarc https://www.digimarc.com/solutions/photography https://www.digimarc.com/solutions/photography). It just didn't involve the term, "Blockchain" :)
- jethro_tell 9y ago
  well, by the many years part I would assume it's not a bad idea then and there's no value add from the blockchain so guess they are late to that party as well. Kodak finally decides they aren't going to be late for once and this is what they choose to get in on. Classic
djangowithme 9y ago
Without the blockchain their stock doesnt go up 200%, and its all for nothing (maybe thats their perspective, idk)
- jethro_tell 9y ago
  Yeah could be, My guess is they've been late to the party on everything for the 25 years and someone conned them into showing up on time for this one and it turns out the parties a dud.
matt_s 9y ago
Wouldn't an approach not emphasizing the corporate lawyer be better? Something where say a media company can just pluck whatever images it wants out of a repository and the software will infer a blockchain hash out of the image or metadata and then bill them accordingly for usage. Make it completely simple to setup and run so pirating of images is actually harder to do. A media company just needs to run the software on their systems and manage a subscription on usage. Probably some typical SaaS subscription models would work. And the SaaS then gets the photographers paid. This doesn't need blockchain at all for the currency aspect, just to ensure proof of owner on the images. There are probably other ways to do that though.

cwkoss 9y ago

It's worse. There are two possibilities for how this works, neither of which bode well for the future of KodakCoin 1. Registration of an image's IP rights is automated. Users will be able to claim the IP of images which they do not own, and use the system to fraudulently siphon payments from the true owners. KodakCoin would be enabling and cooperating in selling fraudulent IP licenses. 2. Registration of an image's IP rights is not automated. If every image needs manual human intervention to be registered, not only is this not a decentralized system, but the costs to administrate the system will scale directly proportional to growth. Unless the average image generates more profit than the cost of human administration needed per avg image, the more popular KodakCoin becomes, the faster it loses money.

Theodores 9y ago

So they can pay money to Kodak for the hardware needed to mine their 'coins' and not even get the hardware, just be stuck in a two year lease burning electricity night and day to create these comically funny not-even-sh1t-coins. Some respect can be given to those that find many greater fools, take their money and pull off a classic scam, e.g. the Tether incident, brilliant in its crookedness. However this Kodak effort is a joke. Kodak are not in master scammer league and they have an inflated ego regarding their brand worth yet at the same time shaming that brand quite badly. It is as if it is a parody told to a boss that didn't do deadpan, maybe German was the first language. I know people are gullible however: Kodak's January 9, 2018 announcement of KodakCoin and the KodakOne was accompanied by its announcement of the Kodak Kashminer cryptocurrency mining system. The Kodak-branded "Kashminer" rigs would be available for two-year leases and allow owners to mine for cryptocurrency, a focus in Kodak's currency pivot. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KodakCoin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KodakCoin They are having a laugh. However it is definitely 'with' and not 'at' for everyone else that learns of this. Have they gone mad? What next, pivoting into homeopathic remedies? Rhododendrons or KodaTulips?

BigJono 9y ago
They could always sell flamethrowers.

Wehrdo 9y ago

If you could somehow manage to make the proof of work tied to discovering copyright infringements (from crawling the web), and have the rewards come from lawsuits/settlements, then maybe it could work? It seems like a stretch for that to be possible, especially considering any rewards would be dependent upon the lengthy legal system. But judging from the ridiculousness of the diagram in the article, I feel like this is not so well thought out.

ozmbie 9y ago

This is a problem with many blockchain ideas. On one hand you get an immutable public record (and smart contracts), but on the other hand you need an incentive to use and mine the network...thus the in-built currency. But if that currency isn't seen as valuable...then the whole system falls apart. I'm not sure why Kodak didn't piggyback of an existing blockchain like Ethereum.

CryptoPunk 9y ago
>>I'm not sure why Kodak didn't piggyback of an existing blockchain like Ethereum. This will be built on top of Ethereum.