Blockchain remains a relatively unfamiliar concept to most people in the broadcast and media industries, writes Steven Bilow, SMPTE Member, volunteer, and contributor. But it has use cases for our industry
By Contributor
Published: December 23, 2020
Blockchain remains a relatively unfamiliar concept to most people in the broadcast and media industries, writes Steven Bilow, SMPTE Member, volunteer, and contributor. But it has use cases for our industry
target=_blank title=Share on LinkedIn class=share-linkedin> Blockchain remains a relatively unfamiliar concept to most people in the broadcast and media industries, writes Steven Bilow, SMPTE Member, volunteer, and contributor. But it has use cases for our industry
https://www.tvbeurope.com/features/using-blockchain-to-track-media-assets-securely title=Share via Email class=share-email>
How does it work?
Blockchain is a distributed data structure that supports creation of a digital ledger and sharing it across a network (or community) of users. Community members use cryptographic hashing algorithms to manage the ledger securely with no central repository or authority.
The digital ledger itself comprises a series of blocks', or chunks of digital data, arranged in a chain', or network. Each block stores information about a transaction and the parties involved, as well as a hash', which is a unique cryptographic code that distinguishes a particular block from every other and actually encodes all previous blocks to ensure traceability. Because this hash value includes all prior transactions, and because this digital ledger is distributed across a network, it is extraordinarily difficult to alter a transaction.
What does this have to do with the media industry?
The default way to create, record, broadcast, and exchange media is now digital. This reality brings about a whole new set of problems surrounding how we reliably, securely, and transparently manage all of the information associated with ownership and use. For example, how does a media asset itself keep track of who owns it, who's licensed to use it, and who owes whom the royalties for its use?
You can summarise all the security and licensing issues involved in one word: trust. Trust is a key concept when it comes to contracts. Imagine having a giant accounting ledger documenting all your trusted transactions. Now imagine that your ledger falls into the hands of just one bad actor. No transaction is safe. Trust is gone.
But if your ledger is distributed among 1,000 people, and every transaction requires validation from a subset of that group, then a single bad actor has a negligible effect on the whole. And if every transaction is encrypted, the details remain private. Finally, if you include the entire distributed ledger as part of every transaction, then any questionable transaction could be traced all the way back to the beginning of time. In short, you can count on the security and trustworthiness of every transaction. This is the beauty of blockchain.
Given the complexity of digital media, digital contracts, and digital distribution, now is the perfect time for our industry to consider blockchain solutions. Potential use cases for blockchain in media include rights management, royalty tracking and payment, validating the authenticity of an asset such as news footage, tracking content through its entire life cycle, and intellectual property management.
The application of blockchain technology to these use cases will make for simpler, more transparent media and advertising ecosystems. The accuracy of copyright tracking improves, and it becomes easier to distribute appropriate royalty payments. With blockchain documenting the chain of custody and validating every step in the production and distribution process, it will be easier to deter fake news' and deep fake' videos.
Perhaps the most compelling benefit of blockchain is that smart contracts can be built securely into transactions for licensed assets. These contracts are essentially computer code, stored in the blockchain, that is capable of performing specific actions under specific circumstances, and effectively eliminating the need for human intervention.
Facilitating secure, automated transactions, blockchain can make media distribution safer, faster, and less prone to piracy. Free from the need to continually monitor contractual agreements and related distributions, organisations can be more efficient in the allocation and distribution of royalty payments. While making illegal file sharing and other copyright infringements much more difficult, blockchain offers a mechanism for better visibility into usage and, ultimately, more flexible and effective monetisation of content.
Many of the organisations using blockchain to add contractual data to content are doing so with the API for Ethereum, which is an open-source, public blockchain-based computing platform designed with smart-contract scripting functionality. (Ethereum is also one of the largest distributed blockchain networks.) But it's still early days yet for implementation.
Today we are at a point where many media companies are doing exciting research on the challenges and benefits presented by blockchain technology. Some companies do actually use blockchain in practice, but it remains a very new technology. Over time, however, blockchain will solve a variety of security, privacy, validity, and rights issues. Blockchain isn't the only way to handle these issues. But it is a pretty enticing option both because it uses a hashing algorithm that's been proven for years as an encryption mechanism and because it is a distributed system that does not force users to trust a central authority.
Now that we have a way for every transaction to be initiated, concluded, and tracked as a permanent record with a verifiabl
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
31/08/2025
Legrand | AV, a global specialist and industry leader in audiovisual solutions, returns to CEDIA Expo 2025, taking place Sept. 4-6 in Denver, with a powerful li...
31/08/2025
Global media technology company Backlight will unveil new capabilities in its Iconik, Wildmoka, and Zype product lines at IBC2025 (booth #1.D09), September 12 1...
30/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
Blockchain remains a relatively unfamiliar concept to most people in the broadcast and media industries, writes Steven Bilow, SMPTE Member, volunteer, and contributor. But it has use cases for our industry 
