On January 9th, Kodak announced KodakCoin, a photo-centric cryptocurrency, and KodakOne, an image-licensing platform that they claim will give photographers a new revenue stream and secure platform for protecting their creative work.
Kodak explanation about KodakCoin and KodakOne says:
“Utilizing blockchain technology, the KODAKOne platform will create an encrypted, digital ledger of rights ownership for photographers to register both new and archive work that they can then license within the platform. With KODAKCoin, participating photographers are invited to take part in a new economy for photography, receive payment for licensing their work immediately upon sale, and for both professional and amateur photographers, sell their work confidently on a secure blockchain platform. KODAKOne platform provides continual web crawling in order to monitor and protect the IP of the images registered in the KODAKOne system. Where unlicensed usage of images is detected, the KODAKOne platform can efficiently manage the post-licensing process in order to reward photographers.”
On that, Kodak CEO Jeff Clarke adds:
“For many in the tech industry, ‘blockchain’ and ‘cryptocurrency’ are hot buzzwords, but for photographers who’ve long struggled to assert control over their work and how it’s used, these buzzwords are the keys to solving what felt like an unsolvable problem. Kodak has always sought to democratize photography and make licensing fair to artists. These technologies give the photography community an innovative and easy way to do just that.”
“Engaging with a new platform, it is critical photographers know their work and their income is handled securely and with trust, which is exactly what we did with KODAKCoin. Subject to the highest standards of compliance, KODAKCoin is all about paying photographers fairly and giving them an opportunity to get in on the ground floor of a new economy tailored for them, with secure asset rights management built right in”, said WENN Digital CEO Jan Denecke.
The ICO(Initial Coin Offering) will be opened on January 31, 2018 and it will be opened to accredited investors from the U.S., UK, Canada and other select countries. This ICO is issued under SEC guidelines as a security token under Regulation 506 © as an exempt offering.
After all that being said, we can just wait for Wednesday 31st and expect some update from Kodak in the meantime. As a photographer, my opinion on whole project is that it will be very useful for photographers as we will be protecting our work even more. And these days, we need lot of protection as it's very easy to steal others work and use it as yours.
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