Tokenization, along with other technologies like Blockchain, Smart contracts, NFTs and Crypto will transform creators to own nation states. Their state, their rules.

So far, the power of traditional platforms has been the aggregation of the eyeballs (in other words, the audience) and the algorithmic sharing of them. Creators got onboard in order to gain exposure to large audiences and create a fan base. And so they did.

This came at a cost though. Artists got locked in those platforms not being able to move their followers and fans elsewhere. Their full empire has been built in rented land, and they can get kicked out at any moment. 

The decentralisation of the fan base

That’s where the decentralisation of the fan base will come into play. It will soon be possible for the creator himself to be the aggregator of his fans.

Let me explain.

Today every creator has multiple usernames / handles in multiple platforms. Tik tok, Instagram, Twitch, Twitter, Facebook etc. This is a broken way to have an online presence. Firstly, because it is not owned by you, since every platform can kill your account at any time, and secondly it’s extremely cluttered as an experience for the end user.

A single ID on the chain

What creators need is a single unique identity on the chain that their fan base can follow and that will aggregate everything they do no matter where they do it. Not only will it be platform agnostic – it means that creators will be their own platforms.

That’s why I strongly believe that the next entrepreneurial force will come out of the creators. Using that power the creators will become entities like corporations. They will control and own everything they do and share.

Crypto, NFTs, Blockchain and Smart contracts will kill the middlemen forever, enabling creators talking, selling and providing to their fans directly. But that’s not going to happen right away. It’s a step by step process.

The value will be held by the creators and the infrastructure and services that support them. That’s where we come in.

Giving everyone ownership over the value they create.

The current status quo will adjust. We already see the big platforms trying to create a layer that will accommodate the creators in every way. The Facebooks of the world are releasing tools and services tailor made for creators so they keep them on board for as long as possible. But the real issue here is centralisation. This won’t work unless it’s decentralised.

Web platforms 3.0

Imagine platforms built, operated and owned by the users. This is a true revolution. The tools are here, what we need are the rules and the initial risk takers. The first movers that will create the protocols and set the foundation for everything else.

We can be them.

CopyrightsWorld as a leader

We have set our bet. We are on the side of the creators and I strongly believe this is the right bet for us. Our services have one and only purpose. To best serve the people that create the initial value. The creators. My vision is to evolve into a decentralised platform that will set the foundation and the rules for the next day.

Our team is creative at its core. But we need to engage that ecosystem more, be part of it and live in it. Everyone by himself and all as a team. Otherwise we will soon become irrelevant or late. Because if we want to serve the Creator’s Economy we need to be part of it. We need creators. We need people that live and breathe that reality as part of our team. 

Companies will change, and so do we. Creators need skin in the game, and, I strongly believe, deserve to be part of the process and the decision making. Companies will need to share tokens, equity, and ownership to their communities. Truly creators-first companies must reflect that on their cap tables.

Keep in mind though that business logic and best practices will still apply. Creators will do their part by providing the initial value. We should do the rest. I do not believe they will be the first to create the pipelines and the ecosystem that will support the change. Not yet at least.

With tokens being basically packets of value anyone can own, the distribution of that value can be real, transparent and worldwide. As a result people that are true followers of artists will be able to invest in some way and accumulate part of the value generated, as creators will give a shared stake on their projects.

What do you do? I’m a fan. 

Being a fan can become a full-time job, like being a creator. Exchanging time for money won’t cut it. People need to do things they love, things they are passionate about and be able to live out of them. Fans can be a new type of investor.

And finally, this is now possible.

And we can be there, with you, dear reader, leading the way.

Let’s do this! !

You had to build your own servers, buy a special fast and super expensive internet connection, maintain and scale the infrastructure and data centres yourself. And all of that, before even thinking about creating a product or even attracting customers in some way.

But during those years all of these hugely expensive and time consuming tasks have been transformed into services that can just be turned on and off and plugged into your own world.

Services like AWS, Salesforce and Hubspot have made the building of a company so much easier that it used to be. And that’s awesome.

Today, if you truly know what you are doing you can assemble a stack of services to support your vision and then concentrate on what matters. Your product, your customers and your strategy.

As I follow the start-up world and the creative world very closely I see some similarities arising.

Creators a few years ago, needed to invest in websites and marketing in order to host their creations and attract eyeballs. Today platforms like Youtube, Instagram and Facebook have made that so much easier for them.

But again, creators did not have the tools to monetise their work. Then Gumroad, Patreon and Fullscreen popped out and tried to solve this problem. And they did, in a big way. Creators can now support their craft by creating and charging for it.

Today there are Youtubers making hundreds of thousands of $ per month and influencers and podcasters making millions per year. A few years ago, this was just fiction.

As a result the number of creators that have become full-time has exploded in the last 2-3 years. It’s a revolution in progress. And the pandemic only accelerated that process.

And that’s something the big distribution companies have now come to realise. They want to get in the game by providing paying solutions and better content hosting services for the creators.

Youtube launched Channel memberships, Twitter Super follows and Facebook Fan subscriptions.  TikTok, Snap, Twitch, Substack, Onlyfans and Clubhouse are doing the same as we speak.

They want to make it easy and more accessible for creators to share content and get paid. And of course they want a piece of that pie.

But we are only scratching the surface here.

There are thousands and thousands of new companies that are created for the creators. Services that can accommodate every creator need and help them become full-time on their craft. This could be the “job” of the future.

NFTs are changing the game once again bringing the value of the “authentic”, “original” and “one of a kind” creation to the online world. A single image was sold for 69M and Jack Dorsey sold his first tweet for 2.9M just some weeks ago.

Some info on NFTs: NFTs’ actual ownership is blockchain-managed. They are unique, rare and indivisible digital assets. Non-fungible tokens contain permanent metadata – like a certificate of authenticity for a rare painting. Also, developers have the power to limit the number of rare NFTs, making them scarce and desirable. Finally, NFTs cannot be split into smaller denominations – you can only trade them as a whole.

This is crazy (but is it?) and it’s only going to get more and more interesting.

The new Creator Economy is booming. Only in the USA creators earned a baseline of $6.8 billion just on the nine top platforms in 2017. 

We could be living Renaissance 2.0. This is really big and it’s only going to get bigger as time goes by.

The internet was created by people for the people and now the same people can live out of the internet not by building a business online, but by tunnelling their creativity into it. Like fuel.

The possibilities are endless here. NFTs, VR, AR, Blockchain and many more technologies embrace the dreams of creators and are used to implement service for the creators era.

The era where people’s job will be just to express themselves and share those expressions with the rest of us. 

A beautiful era.

Firstly, let’s define what “licensed revenue” is: money earned through the licensed use of intellectual property that has a copyright attached to it. More specifically, it is intellectual property that is permitted to be used by another company for profit by the copyright holder.

So, for instance, say one of your photographs is chosen for use by a travel agency for one of their campaigns. In exchange for the use of your image, you will receive a mutually agreed upon amount of money. This amount of money is called a “licensing fee.” Consequently, money collected from this is called “licensing revenue.”

The key takeaway from this type of copyright usage is the term “approved usage.” It should come as no surprise to you when you see your work being used by another commercial entity, as this type of usage has been cleared with you for usage in advance.

In order to get to the point where you are making money from your creations, it is important to create a “licensing agreement.” Such an agreement sets out the terms and conditions for usage of the materials, as well as the fee structure for its use.

You have almost certainly used intellectual property licensed for commercial purposes at some point in your life – most likely thousands of times. For instance, do you own any professional sports apparel with your team’s logo on it? Or maybe a shirt with your favorite artist’s image? If used legally, that image was licensed for use by the copyright holders by the clothing manufacturers. 

Licensing agreements can get pretty specific. For instance, some of the terms covered may include: 

• The approved geographic region for licensed usage. So, if you are licensed to use an item of intellectual property in the US but not the EU, using it in the EU would still be considered an infringement of copyright.
• The time period allotted for usage: once your time slot has expired, so does your license to use the content.
• The exclusivity (or lack thereof) of the agreement

To put things into perspective, every aspect of technology that you use on a daily basis has a copyright and someone, somewhere, holds a license to use it for which they pay. Similarly, every picture, video, song, and book has a copyright protecting its creator from unlicensed infringement. 

However, holding a copyright does not protect you from infringement if you are unaware of it, which is why features like CopyrightsWorld’s Infringement Monitoring tool exist – to protect visionaries like yourself from missing out on revenue.

Luckily, you are one of many creators today who have to work to protect their work against potential copyright infringement, be it accidental, or very much deliberate.  

We’ve boiled down the essential steps of what to do if the worst happens and you realise that, for whatever reason, your work has been stolen. 

1. Evaluate

It’s a hard pill to swallow, but it is worthwhile to step back and objectively evaluate what exactly has occurred, and what the best and worst case outcome scenarios look like. Before you engage the party that did the infringing, figure out their goals for using your content. For instance, are they using it for personal or commercial use? Based on that, decide for yourself whether you want to ask for a certain amount of money in recompense or whether it’s worthwhile pursuing legal action… or both, or neither, or something in between. 

2. Document

Screenshots and any other documentation you can collect are your best friends at times like these. A high-resolution image (with the URL included) can speak a thousand words and solidify your case against the guilty party. Include a time-stamp, if possible. In other words, anything that will amount to concrete, irrefutable proof of infringement. Moreover, continue documenting any and all communications pertaining to the infringement, whether they are with the infringer or even your own lawyer. You want a paper trail. 

3. Notify

One follow-up possibility (although it probably won’t garner you any money) is sending a takedown notice to the host or whoever manages the websites. In many countries, a takedown notice alone requires the party that has infringed on the copyright to take down the item in question, or at the very least to take some sort of action.

4. Advocate

Copyright laws are complicated on a good day, more so when infringement occurs. Laws also vary from country to country. If you have any doubts at all as to how to proceed (and you most likely will!) or even just have questions in general, now would be a great time to reach out for professional guidance. Luckily, there are many copyright protection and monitoring services, (CopyrightsWorld is one), not to mention organisations and lawyers, that are there to help you reach the right conclusions and not over or under-react. At the end of the day, many creators tend to undervalue their work, yet engaging in a lengthy legal battle can have disastrous consequences for you. This is precisely why constant professional monitoring of infringement can be a life-saver. Automating and digitizing this process, as CopyrightsWorld has done, makes it much easier to avoid copyright infringement.

5. Contact

Now comes the trickiest part… making contact with the party you think is stealing your work. Let’s be honest – there are very, very few scenarios in which personal contact with the infringer can go smoothly. Of course, resolving matters peacefully and fairly is never off the table, but there are too many cases of the exact opposite occurring for us to recommend reaching out to the other party yourself. 

Not reaching out in person is not the extent of how far you have to remove yourself from the situation, however. You must absolutely 100% refrain from posting anything whatsoever about potential infringement activity on any public medium such as social media. 

If you decide to contact the other party after all, make sure you have a clear purpose in your communications that makes it obvious what you want from the other individual: is it money? Licensing? Recognition? If it is money, attach an invoice from other work you have licensed showing approximate costs. However, if you’re unsure about the exact commercial value of your work, don’t “guesstimate”. This will make it difficult later to seek an accurate amount for your work. Avoid the topic of pricing at all until you can ask for a specific number. 

Although the famous Oscar Wilde quote “imitation is the sincerest form of flattery” is true in some instances, creators like yourself can have their livelihoods destroyed by unauthorized copyright infringement. When your uniqueness is the backbone of your earnings, there is nothing more important than protecting your individuality. At CopyrightsWorld, we get it, and we’re here to be your copyrights watchdog.

I would like to thank you from the bottom of my heart for keeping up supporting us and our vision. We know it was not easy.

On our side we did everything possible not only to sustain our service level, but to make it even better. 

During the past few months we did so many things. We rebranded our services, we upgraded our software in every level, we made Defender(TM) and COO(TM) even stronger and we have already plans for new exciting services for the near future. 

But the truth is we wouldn’t be able to do any of those things without your support. 

I know some changes were not expected, but bear in mind that we are still testing stuff and your input is more valuable than ever. If you have something to share, please do. Your opinion is gold to us.

The new status quo has transformed rapidly the way we work, entertain ourselves and communicate with each other. Digital assets are produced more and more by everyone with a smartphone or a computer.More than 2,5EB per day. That’s unimaginable. 
Managing those assets will be a challenge as we go forward. And we are determined to provide answers and solutions to those challenges the new era brings apron us. 

Also, we all know that Christmas time and New Years will be very different this year. You are probably going to spend this family-time apart from your loved ones, and that’s hard.Remember, we are all together in this.

I want to wish for a new year that will bring us back together again. Talking, hugging and being with each other again. This pandemic has highlighted in my head what really matters the most. 

And living, laughing, playing, talking, walking with other people is something that pops out every time. It’s invaluable.

So, let’s all raise our virtual glasses and drink to that.To a happy Christmas and a new year that will bring us all back together. 

I can’t thank you enough for being with us this year. We’re looking forward to seeing what we can do together in 2021! 

Happy holidays to all!

Stay Safe, 
Georgios 
CEO, CopyrightsWorld

If you are a business owner, or just take pride in your creations, you will be familiar with these terms. 

But despite hearing about them, you may have found it difficult to understand what they are, or how they are similar or differ from each other.. 

We wrote this article to shine some light on exactly those things.

Let’s first start with defining copyright and looking at how it works. 

Copyright

Whenever anything is created, whether it is a painting or a website, its creator automatically holds the sole legal copyright (often referred to as “intellectual property”) to it. 

Copyright allows the work’s owner to do with it as they please, including allowing others to make copies of it, or to use it with or without compensation.

A work’s copyright  owner is able to set all terms and conditions on how they would like to allow their work to be used, copied, or reproduced.

License

The term “license” literally means, “to give permission.” Licenses are given based upon how a work specifically allows others to use it by means of reproduction, and/or distribution. A license protects a work’s owner by allowing them to set terms for its use, while  allowing them to maintain its sole ownership through copyright. 

A person who wants to use a work, can pay to use it, but the license to do so doesn’t give them ownership, in any way.

Licenses can define numbers for use, conditions of use, as well as the time and length of use. Furthermore, a licensor can also grant a license which would allow licensees to freely use their work without an infringement claim.

Licensing can be used as a marketing or brand extension resource, by anyone – from small home-based businesses to large corporations. 

Finally, licensing can also be used as a business model without needing to make significant investment in equipment, facilities, or manufacturing processes.

Creative Commons

Creative Commons is the next generation of “licensing.” What makes it so different, is that it allows artists to share and use creative materials and knowledge through free legal tools.

The Creative Commons, offers free copyright licenses that allow public access to work, and the ability to use and share it  based upon conditions that the owner chooses. 

Creative Commons do not replace copyright; they work with copyright. This changes “all rights reserved” to “some rights reserved”, and allows rights owners  to choose and modify terms depending on how they decide to represent their work.. 

Creative Commons licensing is very simple, as it requires no registration to use. Creators choose one of six licences depending on their needs and standards and mark their work accordingly. 

Creative Commons licensing can be used for any type of work, including, music, photography, educational resources, databases, and many others. 

Pretty much anything can be covered by Creative Commons licensing.

Comparison

Now that we have looked at copyright, licenses, and Creative Commons, individually, let’s compare and contrast their distinguishing attributes. 

Creative Commons is more closely related to a license than it is to copyright. Copyright gives a work’s owner the exclusive rights to alter, copy, distribute, perform, display a work – and to allow others to do the same. 

Creative Commons licensing involves an owner allowing others to do the same, by setting terms and conditions. Creative Commons licensing makes it easy to manage copyright terms that are automatically connected to any creative work. 

The main differences between licensing and copyright are that a work’s creator owns sole rights to that work, whereas a license grants limited usage of the work, based upon restrictions the owner sets, defining how exactly the work can be used.

While there are many differences between copyright, licensing, and Creative Commons, it is important that you choose wisely when deciding how to protect your work. 

You wouldn’t want others to take advantage of you by claiming your work as their own. This could lead to a lengthy legal battle, which is the last thing you want to have to deal with. 

Do yourself – and your work – a favour, and protect your copyright before choosing how to licence it. In the end, you will be thankful you did.