Research on Digital Copyright Protection in the Field of Digital Publishing

Based on Blockchain

Word count: 2968

Exectutive Summary

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At present, the problems of digital copyright protection are mainly manifested in three
aspects: the lack of transparency of digital copyright trading information, the difficulty
of safeguarding digital works’ rights and the low profit sharing of digital works’ creators.
Compared with traditional digital copyright protection technology, blockchain has
unique advantages due to its technical characteristics of decentralization, timestamp,
distributed accounting, open system, smart contract and so on. Distributed ledger and
hash algorithm can improve the transparency of digital copyright trading information,
time stamp record can effectively prevent digital works from being pirated,
decentralization and smart contract can increase the income of digital creators.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction ............................................................................................................ 3
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2. Challenges for Digital Copyright Protection ............................................................ 4

2.1. Lack of Transparency in Digital Copyright Trading Information ..................... 5

2.2. Difficult in Proving and Protecting the Right of Digital Works ........................ 6

2.3. Less Profit Sharing for Creators of Digital Works .......................................... 7

3. Overview and Characteristics of Blockchain Technology ....................................... 7

4. Feasible Application of Blockchain in Digital Copyright Protection ......................... 8

4.1. Distributed Ledger and Hash Function Can Improve the Transparency of
Digital Copyright Transaction ............................................................................... 9

4.2. Using Time Stamp to Record Digital Works to Protect Rights ..................... 10

4.3. Adding Revenue for Digital Creators Based on Decentralization and Smart
Contracts.............................................................................................................11

5. Conclusion ........................................................................................................... 12

References List ........................................................................................................ 13

1. Introduction

In recent years, the development of digital publishing is more and more popular. The
problem is how to protect the legitimate copyright of digital content. Digital copyright

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protection is an important research topic in the field of digital publishing. Compared
with the piracy and infringement of traditional publications, the theft of digital resources
is easier. By copying, downloading and secondary transmission, the pirated digital
resources can be quickly spread out at a very fast speed, and it is difficult to clean up
their communication channels and find the source of piracy. Besides, the legal
standardization is also insufficient. In addition, the rapid development of the Internet
greatly increases the protection of digital copyright The difficulty of nursing. Therefore,
digital copyright protection and rights protection is an important research direction in
the field of digital publishing. At present, digital rights management (DRM) technology
and digital watermarking technology are relatively systematic in digital copyright
protection. However, these technologies often restrict the sharing of digital content,
and even eventually become a tool for businesses to monopolize profits, which makes
users feel resentment and conflict (Qi and Liu, 2018). Blockchain technology provides
new ideas for digital copyright protection, and the unalterable decentralized copyright
registration form has become a new choice for digital copyright protection. Digital
copyright protection is related to the healthy and healthy development of the digital
content industry, and is also a multidisciplinary research field. Therefore, this paper
will focus on whether blockchain technology can become a feasible solution to the
digital copyright protection problem. Key critical questions to be answered in this paper
include:

① What are the challenges facing digital copyright protection in the field of digital
publishing?

② What is blockchain?

③ Can blockchain technology become a new idea of digital copyright protection?

2. Challenges for Digital Copyright Protection

The proliferation of Internet users provide digital development space for the publishing

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industry. In China, for example, in 2016, the overall revenue scale of the digital
copyright industry was 580 billion yuan (Blazyte, 2019). In the UK, digital publishing
revenue is on the rise in 2018, at 3%. While the physical book module decreased by
5% (Rowe, 2018). However, with the rapid development of the global digital publishing
industry, the digital publishing industry is also facing increasingly obvious challenges.
Compared with traditional paper publishing, the essential difference between digital
publishing and traditional paper publishing lies in the different carriers of publishing
works. In the era of paper media, it is difficult to copy the text works, and there are few
distribution forms and modes. Therefore, the supply chain structure of paper media is
single. However, digital works are easy to copy and spread, and the roles of
disseminator and receiver can be transformed, which makes it difficult to protect digital
copyright. At present, the problems of digital copyright protection are mainly
manifested in three aspects: the lack of transparency of digital copyright trading
information, the difficulty of safeguarding digital works’ rights and the low profit sharing
of digital works’ creators.

2.1. Lack of Transparency in Digital Copyright Trading Information

In today's highly developed media, a digital work is usually divided into several
subdivisions of copyright for independent licensing. Because the database of the
digital copyright trading platform is not uniform, and the credit endorsement
mechanism of the centralized copyright trading intermediary organization is lagging
behind, it is easy to cause the unclear status of the digital works owners and the trading
counterparties. Digital works trading platform stipulates that it has the final right to
interpret the trading data published by itself, which to some extent leads to the opacity
of the digital copyright trading process. There are two reasons for the lack of
transparency of digital copyright trading information: first, there is a problem of
information asymmetry among digital works trading platform, digital works owners and
offline users. The digital works trading platform holds the information of creators of
digital works and the data information of users. The credibility of data released by
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digital works trading platform lacks effective supervision path. Second, all major digital
works trading platforms use proprietary databases that cannot be interoperated with
each other. The information of copyright owners is scattered in various databases of
publishers, record companies and other entities. These entities have no incentive to
share this information, resulting in data island effect. Traditional authorization before
use can't reconcile the contradiction of digital works owners, offline users and digital
works trading platform. At present, copyright settlement lacks a transparent and open
third-party platform and market environment. The reliability of data works transaction
can not be effectively guaranteed. The lack of transparency of digital copyright trading
information makes the creators of digital works suffer huge property losses.

2.2. Difficult in Proving and Protecting the Right of Digital Works

Digital creators can get paid by writing online novels and online scripts. However, due
to the openness of the Internet age, the illegal elements gain benefits by stealing the
works of original network authors, which infringes the copyright of original digital
authors. Digital creators cannot effectively control the use of their works on the Internet.
Moreover, modern Internet technology enables information to be spread around the
world cheaply and timely (Huang & Hao, 2014). Illegally copying and selling
unauthorized copies is easier and cheaper. Digital creators sharing their works on the
Internet may lose control of their works. It’s hard for original digital authors to prove
that their works have been infringed. If the original digital authors want to protect their
rights through legal channels, they need to find sufficient evidence first, and then
submit the application to the relevant legal institutions. This process is cumbersome
and complex. What’s more, the cost of safeguarding rights through legal means is very
high. Original digital writers often choose silence in order not to spend too much money.
The diversity of communication platform, the convenience of communication and the
concealment of communication mode increase the difficulty of the original author's
proof and rights protection. It is difficult to trace the source of online piracy after the
original platform of digital works is infringed.
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2.3. Less Profit Sharing for Creators of Digital Works

In general, the distribution of digital works needs to go through a three-party platform

to reach the hands of users. Take musical works as an example. The three parties are
the copyright agent of lyrics and music, the copyright owner of recording and the music
playing platform. Users also need to go through these three platforms to enjoy music
works. For example, intermediaries such as spotify and Youtube are increasingly
integrated into the value chain between artists and audiences. Given the bargaining
power of these online intermediaries, it is difficult to expect a more equitable
distribution of authors’ income if the status quo is maintained (Savelyev, 2018).

3. Overview and Characteristics of Blockchain Technology

Blockchain, invented by Nakamoto in 2008, is used as the public ledger of bitcoin

transaction public password (Swan, 2015). Blockchain is a growing list of records. This
list of records is called block, and through the password system link to achieve the
purpose of protection against tampering (Benchoufi & Ravaud, 2017). Each block
usually has a time stamp, and Besides, each block exchanges data with the previous
block through a password hash (Li et al., 2017). This chain is resistant to data
modification. It is an open distributed general ledger technology, and can effectively
record things between the two sides in a permanent way. As a distributed ledger,
blockchain is usually managed by a peer-to-peer network, which completely follows a
protocol for communication between nodes to verify new blocks. Once a record is
generated, the data of any specified block cannot be changed, and all subsequent
blocks cannot be reversed, which will command most network blocks to reach a
consensus (Turk & Klinc, 2017). Blockchain is a secure design, and a distributed
system is proposed to limit the Byzantine general problem to the greatest extent.
Because the blockchain realizes the consensus among the decentralized sequences.
This distributed consensus is a core approach (Yuan & Wang, 2016). Therefore,
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blockchain is applicable to event record, medical record and file management. Such
as identity management, transaction processing, citation, food traceability and voting
applications.

Compared with traditional technology, blockchain has five features:

❖ Decentralization. In the traditional network, there needs to be a core management

organization with absolute authority, which has many security risks. The core of
blockchain technology is to remove the centralized equipment, decentralize the
diversified nodes, and be granted equal rights and share responsibilities. Besides,
it is maintained by the coexisting nodes in the system.

❖ The information shall not be tampered with. The data added in the blockchain will
not be tampered with. A single node can not modify the data through personal will,
so it constitutes a highly stable system.

❖ Openness. The private information of each node is password protected. In addition,

all data in the blockchain system is open to access. So as to form a highly
transparent system.

❖ Autonomy. Blockchain is in a unified protocol specification, so it can exchange

data safely in this system. They restrict each other through nodes, but can't
intervene artificially.

❖ Anonymity. Due to the nature of blockchain itself, data interaction between nodes
does not need to verify each other. In the process of transaction, there is no need
for identity disclosure, so as to ensure the privacy of customers to the greatest
extent.

4. Feasible Application of Blockchain in Digital Copyright Protection

Through mutual verification, supervision and data backup between blockchain network

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nodes, the data stored in the linked ledger can not be tampered with maliciously from
the technical level. All the transaction records can be traced, and the transaction
information is open, which is especially suitable for solving the problems in the field of
digital copyright: the lack of transparency in the transaction information of digital
copyright, difficulties in rights protection of digital works and the small profit sharing of
creators of digital works.

4.1. Distributed Ledger and Hash Function Can Improve the Transparency of
Digital Copyright Transaction

Blockchain can provide users with a distributed ledger in which transactions can be
confirmed and recorded, and can not be deleted or modified at will. Once tampered,
each transaction will change the data status on the blockchain. Hash algorithm is a
one-way cryptosystem. The feature of hash function is that if two pieces of information
are identical, the final encrypted string is identical. If two pieces of information are not
the same, even if only one character is different, the final string will become very messy
and random. This means that inputs with small differences produce very different hash
values. As a result, hash operations can be used to publish new and unique identifiers
for each replica itself. Compared with the traditional private database, the blockchain
database is more transparent. The hash function returns the data of creators and users
of digital works to them, and through network construction, it can provide real high-
quality data for some cutting-edge technologies, and promote the continuous
development of technology. Hash algorithm is very useful for the identification of
authors and the resolution of disputes. As Melanie Swan (cited by Savelyev, 2018)
stated, “people can use the [blockchain] web-based service to hash things such as art
or software to prove authorship of the works”. The transparency of distributed
accounting can open transaction data to all users, effectively solve the problem of
opaque management of the third-party platform, and greatly improve the visibility and
availability of copyright transaction information.

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Some of the services based on distributed ledger and hash algorithm have become
reality. For example, a service called Ascribe. io provides a secure way to give creative
works ownership by providing a unique password ID for each creative work and
verifying it through blockchain (Turk & Klinc, 2017). Although the scope and user base
of such solutions are quite limited at present, they are a valuable playground in which
the success and failure will produce valuable experience to be considered when
establishing a more global IP chain in the future.

4.2. Using Time Stamp to Record Digital Works to Protect Rights

Time stamp makes every data in the blockchain have a time mark. Time stamp is an
encrypted voucher document issued by the third party for the electronic document,
which is used to prove the creation time and content integrity of the electronic
document. Compared with the traditional copyright registration, timestamps can
simplify the cumbersome and complex work protection procedures. In the creation of
digital works or after the completion of creation, the original author can use the time
stamp authentication system to protect his copyright. Using timestamps in digital works
can also prove who created what kind of works at what time. If someone imitates or
embezzles, as long as the original author takes out the timestamps, it can prove the
ownership of his works. Protecting digital copyright by timestamps can be a powerful
tool for judicial trials, because timestamps and hash computing technology allow each
digital copy of copyrighted works to be personalized within a certain range.
Personalizing the digital copy of each content makes it possible to track the history of
each digital content (Savelyev, 2018).

Using time stamp records to prove the cost of digital copyright is low and convenient.
After the electronic data is solidified, the content and time of the electronic data can

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not be forged or tampered. The original authors of digital works can get time stamps
by logging into the corresponding websites through intelligent devices such as
computers and operating on their own, so they no longer need to go to the copyright
management organization with relevant certificates for filing, thus greatly saving time
cost and reducing the cost of copyright registration. Blockai, for example, is a
blockchain copyright service operation project in the United States. It mainly helps
artists, photographers and other art creators register their works in the blockchain to
prevent infringement. The library of Congress provides the copyright registration
service according to the law of the United States. If the copyright registration cannot
be obtained in time, the interests of the copyright owners are likely to be infringed. On
the Blockai platform, after the artist uploads the work file to the blockchain through
computer or other network methods, the blockchain technology will write a permanent
time stamp on the work and generate the corresponding copyright certificate. The artist
will be provided with a copy of the registration data showing all relevant contents of
the work registration, which can be used as evidence of copyright infringement
(Koonce, 2016).

4.3. Adding Revenue for Digital Creators Based on Decentralization and Smart
Contracts

Decentralization is the essence of blockchain. Blockchain is based on P2P network,

using distributed computing and storage. The nodes in the network have the same
rights and obligations. The data of blockchain is automatically maintained by the nodes
with maintenance function. The decentralized blockchain technology does not depend
on specific providers, and the terms of use can be embedded in the code. Changes
need to be agreed by most users. The decentralized network architecture makes the
blockchain independent of the third-party platform in the environment of free access
of nodes (Ma et al., 2018). In the long run, this system is more feasible and reliable.
Smart contract is another core technology of blockchain. It automatically executes pre-
set rules and terms based on the characteristics of blockchain data that is difficult to
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tamper with. Since the smart contract is completely executed by the code definition,
human intervention is minimized. Once the smart contract is started, the whole
process will be automatically executed, even the initiator has no ability to change.

Using decentralization technology can realize point-to-point transactions between

creators and users of digital works, and the copyright owners of digital works can
eliminate the previous links, pay automatically, distribute works directly in the
blockchain and obtain benefits. The smart contract of blockchain also enables digital
work creators to get benefits from copyright distribution without the need of copyright
parties. Voise, for example, is the world's first platform that promises digital creators
100% of their work revenue. Voise takes advantage of the decentralized features of
blockchain and omits all participants in the middle. Automatic payment enables point-
to-point transactions between creators and users. Creators upload their works in the
blockchain platform and publish them through the blockchain. When users see the
works of creators, they can get permission through payment. The user's payment
amount will directly reach the creator’s hands through the blockchain system,
achieving 100% of the creator's income. After the project was launched, a large
number of creators joined in. At present, the platform has formed a unique operation
mode: creators pay to increase the exposure of their works on the platform; get a small
amount of transaction costs through blockchain exchange.

5. Conclusion

After researching, it can be found that digital copyright protection is challenged by the
lack of transparency of digital copyright information, the difficulty of proof and rights
protection of digital works, and the low profit sharing of digital works creators. The
technical feature of blockchain is decentralized distributed ledger database. All the
data in the chain are time stamped, and have the characteristics of public tracing and
non tampering. This is in line with the requirements of content right confirmation, legal
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dissemination and reliability enhancement in the use and transfer of digital copyright
content. Blockchain technology has changed the way of digital copyright
communication and established a trading system for digital copyright protection.
Problems such as the lack of transparency of digital copyright information, the difficulty
of proof and rights protection of digital works, and the low profit sharing of digital works
creators can be solved. Hence, blockchain can be a new idea and solution for
addressing the challenges of digital copyright protection in digital publishing.

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