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Data firm to utilise new blockchain platform to test rights management capabilities

By | Published on Wednesday 12 August 2015

Colu

Following all the chitter chatter of late amongst the chittering chattering chitter chatters about the bloody big blockchain and its potential as a tool for distributing copyright data and music royalties, an Israeli company has announced it is making a platform that uses blockchain technology available to developers looking to create such products.

The company is called Colu, and it says that it has built a platform “based on blockchain technology which for the first time can be used by developers and consumers with little to no bitcoin knowledge to build and exchange digital assets for everything from the financial industry (shares, bonds, stocks) and records (certificates, copyrights, documentation) to ownership (event tickets, vouchers, gift cards)”

Blockchain technology, as there noted, drives virtual currency Bitcoin, but, everyone reckons, could be put to many other uses too, including to manage music data and digital income. And the previously reported start-up data firm Revelator, also based out of Israel, is already partnering with Colu to build a rights management API.

Says Revelator’s Bruno Guez: “We are very excited about the potential for Colu’s platform to simplify the management of music rights, starting with those associated with songwriters and their compositions. Colu has made the complex technology of the blockchain accessible for integrations into platforms like ours, and we’re looking forward to exploring all the ways it can improve service to our clients”.

Of course, since the recent Berklee College report on digital music proposed blockchain technologies as a possible solution to the music industry’s data and royalty challenges, plenty of people have laid in with a list of reasons why it couldn’t work, not least a reluctance by rights owners to publish complete copyright ownership data, and the fact that the specifics of how royalty income is divided between stakeholders are contained in confidential contracts.

But nevertheless, while all that could stop even the best blockchain solution from becoming a one-stop-shop data and royalty distribution network for this brave new world of music, this approach could still help overcome some of the current issues in the way digital music usage is identified, reported and invoiced.



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