Anti-piracy blockchain start-up launches token sale
August 15, 2017
By Colin Mann
Sydney based start-up Veredictum has launched the token sale for its decentralised anti-piracy and distribution platform for the film and video industry.
The Ventana token sale aims to achieve widespread acceptance within the film and video industry using blockchain-based technologies to register video and film ownership rights, and to add detectable fingerprints to content so digital ownership can be tracked.
It also aims to bring content producers closer to consumers and provide greater access to quality content at price points that are competitive and fair. Veredictum believes it will reduce film and video piracy by 80 per cent over 10 years.
Tim Lea, founder of Veredictum, says the Veredictum platform centres on targeting the drivers of piracy and theft holistically rather than just its symptoms. “Piracy is not just one person’s problem; it’s everyone’s,” says Lea. “Our objective is to galvanise the creative community to solve the biggest problem that is facing the industry’s survival.”
The Veredictum user base, use their surplus bandwidth and computing power to form a powerful global network of machines that perform global searches for registered content. Thanks to an incentive model, users will be rewarded for providing the infrastructure.
“Whilst there is a natural incentive for creatives to want to resolve the problem, from a pragmatic point of view we also need to economically incentivise the community to work with us. These payments are made using our cryptocurrency, Ventana. Users can earn Ventana while they sleep,” says Lea.
Members of Veredictum’s global community function similarly to bitcoin miners. The more registered content they locate and the more bandwidth they provide to support, the more Ventana they can earn. After the Token Sale has completed, Ventana is expected to be converted to Bitcoin within a couple of weeks.
Veredictum’s ultimate objective is to provide the infrastructure for easier access to content. The model connects producers directly to influencers and their tribes, creating a marketplace where users collectively bid for the content they wish to view, with the Veredictum infrastructure distributing and watermarking the content.
The token sale has a core target raise of $7.5 million (€6.4m) and a hard cap stretch target of $20 million.