China’s internet search behemoth has announced the launch of its new blockchain-based platform called Totem which is designed to manage digital image property rights
The company which is considered China’s version of Google has launched the new image platform as part of its mission to fight copyright infringement in the country. The service was launched on Wednesday and it functions by taking advantage of blockchain technology to place timestamps on original photographs submitted by a user. It also includes the identity of the user who created the photo as well as storage data.
Baidu claims that it can achieve the desired goal of managing property rights when it comes to digital images by leveraging its existing capacity in artificial intelligence and internet data scraping. The Chinese internet giant claims that its new platform can compare data the images being shared on the internet especially in a situation involving intellectual property infringement by tracing the data pertaining the specific image on the blockchain network.
It certainly helps that some photo services in the country are also adopting the platform. Visual China Group is one of the notable companies and this is also a big step forward especially because the latter is a partner to Getty Images which is one of the biggest photo giants in the market. The company has not yet made it clear whether it is using a permission-based or public blockchain for Totem.
This is however not the first rights management platform for images that is based on blockchain technology. Kodak also announced such an offering earlier this year, revealing a project that establishes ownership rights by leveraging blockchain technology. The platform was introduced to create a new way avenue for users in the online photo community to earn dividends or income from the images that they license.
Totem marks a step forward in the fight against property rights infringement. It is currently not clear whether Baidu plans to facilitate more content such as videos and music onto the platform. Also, the company’s new service highlights the growing adoption of blockchain in a variety of industries in China and other countries.
