UKIPO and creative industries unite in blockchain initiative

The UK Intellectual Property Office (IPO) has united with audio-visual and image organisations and blockchain rights company Jaak to investigate the potential use of blockchain technology.

Under the partnership, which was announced today, November 27, the working group will explore how blockchain can improve the availability of public domain works, such as copyright works where protection has expired or works offered to the public to use for free.

With a focus on the UK’s film and image industries, collaborators include the British Film Institute, the Design and Artists Copyright Society, the British Association of Picture Libraries and Agencies, and the Federation of Commercial Audiovisual Libraries.

“Often it can be very difficult to locate high-quality sources of these materials, [so] offering simpler ways of searching for works will encourage their wider use in creative and artistic innovation,” said the press release.

The working group will explore solutions that overcome barriers to access and improve the availability of public domain works.

Initial discussions are likely to focus on the process behind classifying and cataloguing works, particularly those where the copyright term has expired. This will include collaborating on a standard dataset, stored on a public network via Jaak’s Kord technology.

Jaak uses Kord, an open protocol on the Ethereum blockchain, to allow participants including libraries, creators, labels, publishers, and performing rights organisations to record and track IP data.

The group will also look into similar opportunities for film and image orphan works (where the rights owner is unknown or uncontactable).

In addition to classifying and cataloguing, the group will explore a verification system which could expedite the search process for licensees. This supports the current orphan works licensing schemethat the IPO manages.

David Humphries, head of research at the IPO, said: “It is important for the UK government to better understand how new technological solutions, such as blockchain, impact on the IP framework.”

Dan Fowler, strategy and research at Jaak, added: “This project marks an important step as we look to take the technology that we have built with the music industry and apply it to wider use cases.”