KodakCoin is worth watching
KodakCoin
Yesterday (Jan 9th) Kodak announced the launch of KodakCoin, their new Bitcoin/Blockchain offering for photography, and their stock price jumped on the news. Why? Not because it’s a brilliant business strategy (which it is), but because investors go crazy for anything related to Bitcoin right now. But beyond that hype, this is something to watch.
The general idea of KodakCoin is that photographers can use it to get credited and compensated appropriately for their work in a digital world. This has been a big problem in the digital realm because a copy is the same as the original and as any other copy, and attribution and payment for use has been pretty hard to handle (or easy to skip). With KodakCoin and the Kodak One system they announced, there will be a ledger-based system to more easily track photographic images, and in theory, give them proper attribution, get paid, and (if they’re smart), photographers could also tie-in licenses for use not unlike Creative Commons – letting people use images for free in some situations, pay in others, or possibly even be paid based on future consumption instead of paying a license fee up front.
This has great implications for film as well. As I’ve written elsewhere, Blockchain could revolutionize how we do business in film, and this is a great first step. Most of the press just chalked this up to Kodak “trying to capitalize on the current cryptocurrency mania,” (The Verge), and the trades ignored it, but this could be a big deal. If Kodak knows what they’re doing, and does it right, this could be the future of how we deal with rights and consumption of images both in photography and film. Blockchain will work best for film if it’s tied into everything from capture to consumption – and Kodak is weirdly well positioned to capitalize on all of these areas.
Only problem, as I’ve seen others ask in comments on the announcement, why didn’t they call it KodaCoin, like Kodachrome, instead of KodakCoin? Missed opportunity.
Update – January 31, 2018 – Some news has come out in the NYT since I wrote this, and it seems that while the underlying idea of using blockchain to manage image rights is good, the way Kodak has set this up is a little wonky and that makes it possibly a lot less interesting. I recommend reading the article, and keeping a skeptical eye on how this develops.
Ed. Note: I haven’t blogged since July, 2017 and my output has been slow for the past year or two. I plan to write more often this year. If you’re receiving this via email subscription, and don’t want to anymore, there should be an unsubscribe button in your email. Otherwise, you’ll hear from me more regularly.
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