Then don’t miss our conversation with the fabulous Kris Ruby (@krisruby)!

Kris is the CEO of Ruby Media Group, a full service Public Relations and Social Media Agency located in Manhattan, which offers public relations services, content marketing, social media and personal branding services.

Being a frequent on air contributor on FOX News, CNBC, Good Morning America, and The Today Show, and being featured on Bravo as “one of the pre-eminent social media experts in the field,” Kris joined the CEN podcast and shared her valuable experience and knowledge on Blockchain, the creator economy, PR and SEO.

– What is it like to be a CEO of a top NYC PR agency?

– What PR, SEO and Content Marketing strategies lead her clients to success?

– How important is blockchain technology for content creators and how can it offer IP protection to creators?

– Are NFTs a bubble?

– What steps should a creator follow to build a business online with IP protection as a top priority?

Most importantly she shares her thoughts about the new Creators Economy and Web 3.

It’s a very inspiring and motivating chat, so give it a listen or watch it on YouTube.

Also available on Spotify, Apple podcasts and Google.

Follow Kris on IG

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Also, if you want to listen to more real stories, and get useful tips on how to stay creative and build a successful business, join the Creator Economy Network here

From Instagram bloggers to photographers and Youtube creators – all have found their own niche and loyal audience online. But having to deal with impostors and those who wish to exploit others’ work for their own benefit hinders creativity. 

How should one protect his creation when it is shared among millions? And why is such protection even necessary? To learn more about this, the Cybernews team has reached out to Georgios Efstratiadis, the CEO of CopyrightsWorld – copyright protection, monitoring, and monetization service.

How did the idea of CopyrightsWorld come to life? What has the journey been like?

In 2001, I founded the first online music community in Greece (Musicwave. gr), which came to be one of the largest in Europe. Since then, we have been getting a lot of questions about copyright and online protection. Users were reluctant to upload their creations to a place where everyone could easily get a copy just by making a right-click. Over the years, that was something I constantly had on my mind, looking for a solution that would fit the new developments and creator needs. When blockchain came into play, it clicked right away. This technology is like made for copyright registration. So, me and my co-founder Michael adopted it and started building services around it. That’s how CopyrightsWorld was born.

Can you tell us a little bit about what you do? What are the main challenges you help navigate?

CopyrightsWorld wants to liberate creativity in this new era. We want every creator to feel free and safe to share his work and engage with his potential audiences. That’s why we have created real-time copyright registration on the blockchain and worldwide monitoring that checks the public web and lets you know who is using your work and in what way. And if there is any infringement, we got you covered. Takedown notices and court reports are here to equip you with everything you will need to defend your case.

Also, our automation plugs into the creator’s workflow and pulls data from social media accounts and blogs, protecting and monitoring it automatically. Just set it and forget it. We don’t want to be in the way of our users. We want to be a platform that takes care of what people create transparently, affordably, and in real-time.

In your opinion, what are the most concerning threats that digital asset owners and creators face nowadays?

Ownership, in general, is something that will concern us a lot in this new era. Every 60 seconds, we post 1M stories on Instagram, upload 700 hours of content on YouTube, and send more than 200M emails. And this is only growing at exponential rates. At the same time, people are used to taking and using anything they find online as it is free, and that must change. It’s a long and hard educational process. Also, the new technologies make it almost impossible to recognize something authentic from a copy or a deepfake. NFTs will make a difference on the ownership and tracking part, but the deepfake issue is far from solved.

How did the recent global events affect the blockchain landscape? Were there any new challenges you had to adapt to?

People sometimes think of blockchain technology and cryptos as the same thing. Blockchain is a backbone technology that is here to stay. Cryptos are built on top of this technology, and of course, many carry no real value. Of course, cryptos are the way to go when it comes to monetary values, but it’s a work in progress. In our case, we engage with all new technologies and use them to create better services for our customer base. We constantly adopt. We have our own blockchain technology, and we are plugging into the crypto ecosystem. 

In general, people must be careful and invest only in cryptos with a real utility, business, and roadmap behind them, using money they can risk losing. That’s not financial advice. In any case, it’s just my two cents.

Since digital assets are a relatively new technology, what myths and misconceptions surrounding this environment do you notice most often?

A lot of creators think of copyright as something super complicated to manage and protect. And that used to be the case. Not anymore. Also, some people think copyrights do not apply to digital assets. That’s untrue and dangerous. Every creation of any type and format comes with copyright. But just creating something is not self-proving. In the case where you will have to prove you are the owner of that work, your word is not enough. According to international copyright law, you will need strong and early third-party proof of ownership to become the actual beneficiary. And that’s exactly part of what we do. Affordably, automatically and hustle-free.

What predictions do you have for the future of blockchain technology?

I see blockchains merging into one huge network. Coins, NFTs, and all digital assets will be able to move from chain to chain. Decentralization will dominate the world, and everything will be tokenized. Online and offline. People will use blockchain as a service as they now use computing power in AWS. You will not know which chain you are using, and you shouldn’t care at the end of the day. Also, ownership will become something very important. Ownership and responsibility are two sides of the same coin.

What other technological advancements do you hope to see used widely in the near future?

With the metaverse right at the gate and digital creativity growing exponentially, I would like to see a technology that will help us distinguish and point out fake news, deepfakes, and in general bad actors. I think we are right at the edge of losing this game as the problem of misinformation and data misuse is blowing.

In this age of ever-evolving technology, what are the key security measures everyone should implement on their devices?

Take care of your ID, always check your privacy settings, update your software, and have an eye for people pretending to be you in the digital space.

All people must be aware of the fact that anything online is there to stay. Also, any misuse or bad acting is there forever, just to be discovered at a later date. Blockchain will make these activity records even more constant and permanent, so always have this in mind. 

Share with us, what’s next for CopyrightsWorld?

We currently protect and monitor all digital assets a creator can produce. We’ll soon be adding monetization services to our platform so users can make a living out of their creations. NFTs are a logical next step for us.

Also, we just launched our coin. cwCoin is the first creator-economy utility token that comes with amazing free services for anyone that holds it. We are aiming for a new micro-economy around this coin, so creators of any kind can participate and make use of all the benefits that come and will come with it.

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! !