CONCENSUM Launch

For the launch of CONCENSUM in August 2018, we have conducted a short interview with the creators of this project. CONCENSUM is the first global copyright register, making it possible for everybody to register, protect and monitor their images on the Internet. The sophisticated technology is based on a blockchain solution that is developed inhouse.

What is currently the biggest problem in the photography market?

Every day 2 billion images are uploaded and shared worldwide on the internet. Digital content faces two types of challenges – those faced by users and those faced by rights-holders. Users often misunderstand the usage of digital images online and the corresponding licensing options. On the other hand, rights-holders have few or no methods to prove ownership of original content and derivative work.

There is a strong need of a reliable and trustworthy instance to solve that problem.

What is the idea behind CONCENSUM?

Worldwide there are only 17 countries with an official national copyright register, but digital content is shared worldwide without any limits. It´s only logic that the registration and control of copyright can no longer be a national but a global issue.

CONCENSUM connects the copyright of digital content with its authors based on blockchain technology to protect their assets worldwide.

Who should register at CONCENSUM and why?

Every creator/author of digital images and rights holders can register their digital assets with CONCENSUM. Once they have registered their images copyrights, all their images will automatically be protected online by continuous monitoring by our technology partner COPYTRACK.

Is it difficult to register (a larger amount of) images?

Not at all, you simply drag and drop your images to your account and CONCENSUM offers bulk registration. CONCENSUM will also offer several direct interfaces to major portals and applications.

Why is a blockchain solution needed for this initiative?

No database meets the requirements for this solution better than blockchain as a decentralized peer to peer network. CONCENSUM connects the copyright of digital content with their authors and writes a hash of this information to its blockchain. This way the information is stored immutable and the author has a permanent proof of his copyright. Of course, we can also handle and resolve disputes which can always occur.

How much does a global image registration via CONCENSUM cost?

It´s for free for the creators/authors.

What are the next steps?

We have a full roadmap of additional functions that we will work on, but another main aspect is to get CONCENSUM widely accepted and used among all image creators and the image industry, as well as throughout the many countries we offer our services.

Why is there no real global copyright register yet?

First of all, most nations care for national solutions. Second the image industry used to work completely different and sharing images over the internet has just evolved rapidly over the past 10 years. These kind of institutions, as well as the image industry itself have simply not kept up with the speed. Also there was nobody so far that could approach this global matter with a global solution.