TORONTO — In a first for Canada, Groupe Média TFO is looking to blockchain technology as a way to potentially transform how digital cultural productions are managed and rewarded financially.
With the support of the Canadian Media Fund (CMF), Groupe Média TFO is inviting interested players from the content production and distribution industries to participate in defining a blockchain prototype for a new royalty model for audiovisual works created by Canadian producers.
“The consumption of cultural products is increasingly achieved through IP systems,” said Glenn O’Farrell, president and CEO of Groupe Média TFO, in a press release. “We wish to participate in creating next-generation tools to credit and reward the rightholders in a way that is transparent, reliable and without an intermediary. As a public, education-focused company, we want to do our part to protect Canadian cultural works, including our own, as we expand their accessibility and visibility.”
Groupe Média TFO’s blockchain project is the first presented by a TV broadcaster to be financed by the CMF as part of its Experimental Stream Innovation Program. Canada is among the countries that have recognized the potential of new blockchain technologies, Groupe Média TFO said.
Blockchains use structured peer-to-peer technology to enable the authentication of transactions by encrypting them on an open or closed network. The distributed form of blockchains prevents transactions from being tampered with, because they are spread out on all network nodes, and ensures that a large amount of data can be processed simultaneously.
“The rise of blockchain technology is the opportunity to make essential practices evolve,” said Ulrich Dessouassi, digital products manager of Groupe Média TFO. “Through this initiative, we hope to create a product that will transform and deeply remodel the way digital cultural productions are handled, from their funding to their marketing and operation. We therefore invite the other players in this industry to join us and participate in this revolution.”
Groupe Média TFO said its blockchain project targets the entirety of players from the digital cultural products industry, and especially those working on movies, TV shows and digital content.
According to Groupe Média TFO, the decentralized nature of blockchains will help to address the various needs of content broadcasters and producers, which the organization listed as the following:
For broadcasters:
- A guarantee of trustworthiness for consumption statistics, which are a crucial sales argument during contract negotiations
- Unalterable traceability for credits and compensation
- The ability to sublicence works while maintaining a better control of their use, attribution and compensation
For producers and rightholders:
- All of the above
- The ability to create and present compensation and licence revenues usage and distribution reports in a transparent way for investors
- A reduction of legal fees and the obsolescence of several complex audit processes
For the entirety of players in the chain: The incontrovertibility of agreements and licences will simplify exchanges and collaborations and will stimulate the market as a whole.
