The recent announcement that Kodak is jumping on the blockchain wagon confuses many as many would have thought that the old film giant was trying to diversify and move into a field of technology that it doesn't have an ounce of credibility to be in.
First, let's look at the Kashminer. According to the Kodak licensee, an upfront payment of $3,400 for a two-year contract would lead to bitcoin production value of around $375 per month at current bitcoin value. The partnership would provide the licensee with half of the resulting $9,000 made over the 24-month period. The other half is being kept by Spotlite, the company who has licensed the Kodak name for its range of mining rigs.
Bitcoin production would reach around $25 per day on the Kodak Bitcoin HashPower Upfront Payment Plan.
We all know that Bitcoin mining contracts are subject to mining difficulties. To put out a promise to pay $375 a month is nothing short of a lie. Spotlite’s licensing of Kodak's name to sell its mining contracts is nothing short of a sham. Sure it will produce BTCs but with fluctuating prices, can Spotlite guarantee that the $375 will be the minimum payout every month?
Another scam in the making is Kodak's Blockchain project KodakOne by partnering with Wenn Digital. Wenn Digital CMO Bruce Elliott was quoted as saying that they have a team of 20 people working on the KodakCoin project for "months and months".
Elliet also added, "we can get a photo, lock it into our blockchain, then we can sort of assign the IP [intellectual property] to the individual, then we can look through the entire internet and find where that photo is being used, and if it's not being used correctly, then we can reach out to them with an automated system that says, 'hey, you might not have known that you're using this photo without a licence, why don't you get a licence to that', and then that money comes back and gets paid back to the photographers, and that whole transaction happens with that KodakCoin cryptocurrency,"
This is inanely stupid to think that the very culprits who steal your photos are going to own up and pay a licensing fee. In America you can try to get a take down from Google or file a DMCA but it doesn't work elsewhere in the world. To think that you photos that has been misappropriated in China or India would be protected is plain wooly headedness.
I have given up on Photography for many years now and the reason is simple. To enforce a copyright, you need to have a slew of lawyers and for the paltry amount you gain from winning a law suit just isn't worth it.
So perish the thought that Kodak is going to change the way digital photos are used on the Internet and Kodak should just go back to producing film stocks, a name which it is good for and try selling them for Bitcoin.