Blockchain: a great opportunity for creators, media and companies

Crea Cultura, el movimiento de Atresmedia para defender y valorar la Propiedad Intelectual, celebra en Madrid su IX Foro bajo el título ‘¿Será “blockchain” la salvación de los creadores?’

En colaboración con Bertelsmann, Atresmedia ha organizado una nueva edición de su foro Crea Cultura en el que se ha analizado la tecnología blockchain y lo que esta denominada cuarta revolución industrial aportará a la cultura y los medios de comunicación.

En el debate, moderado por la periodista Helena Resano, presentadora de LaSexta Noticias, The co-founder of the Blockchain Observatory and CriptoNoticias correspondent, Covadonga Fernández, participated; the lawyer specialized in intellectual property and information technologies, Cristina Carrascosa; and the Founder of Blockchain Spain and co-author of the book “Blockchain, the industrial revolution of the internet”, Álex Preukschat.

Helena Resano has asked the participants for a definition of what the concept of 'blockchain' means. Alex Preukschat has acknowledged that it is "a very difficult question, perhaps the most difficult; blockchain technology is in a pre-alpha state, but we can point out that in the last 20 years we have seen that the decentralization of information packages can be transferred to all sectors and create new business models that we cannot even imagine today."

In this regard, Cristina Carrascosa added that “bitcoin had many attempts to talk about decentralization, it is the initial phase of the business, now the business is going elsewhere.”

Covadonga Fernández has highlighted the 'blockchain' "qualities of security and transparency in any type of transaction and in the media it can avoid all types of fake news because you can see the origin of the fake news. It is a tool that provides a lot of security, but not yet absolute, work is being done on it and we believe that in a few years it will be much safer, it is something that large corporations are working on." “It will be able to improve and even reward good journalistic content and advertisers will be able to decide where to place their advertising,” he added in this sense later in the question period.

Preukschat ha apuntado que este sistema permitirá “romper barreras de intermediarios” y, en lo que respecta a los creadores de contenido “va a abrir un mundo de oportunidades de poder monetizar sus creaciones. Para los grandes grupos de comunicación ofrece un gran reto: tras una primera ola de internet, esto es una segunda ola, un nuevo tsunami para adaptarse”.

“El valor fundamental de blockchain es que devuelve a los autores el control sobre la difusión de su obra; como la copia se puede reproducir hasta el infinito no tiene ningún valor y esto le devuelve el control del derecho de la copia y el control del derecho de autor”, ha subrayado Covadonga Fernández.

Para entender mejor este sistema, Fernández ha destacado el ejemplo real de Flixxo, una compañía que “quiere competir con Youtube descentralizando la plataforma, lo que hace es que a cambio de que los usuarios le cedan el almacenamiento de su dispositivo, son remunerados”.

“Todos los modelos de negocio están en fase prealfa, están intentando inventar, Mediachain, de Spotify, es un ejemplo muy bonito”, ha añadido el Fundador Blockchain España.

“Se están desarrollando sistemas inteligentes que eliminan intermediarios y, por ejemplo, más que seguir la copia ilícita, podrá rastrear dónde se está gestionando ese contenido, Mediachain crea ese protocolo para rastrear la música”, ha añadido Álex Preukschat.

Carrascosa ha añadido que “también se está aplicando a la fotografía, por ejemplo a través de mecanismos para avisar al autor de que alguien está utilizando su fotografía”.

"All companies are trying to implement technology in their businesses. Technology arrives, we have the case of Uber. The difficulty with this technology is that it is very complex," said Fernández who, when asked how it will affect users?, predicted that "I believe that, for the first time, users will be able to be paid for viewing content and advertising. It is also a way of consuming advertising in a much more rational and logical way. Now there is infinite communication and information, and what is needed is attention, attention is lacking and Blockchain makes it possible to pay for that attention.”

“Estamos en una fase similar a como surgió Internet, en el 92, especulando cómo va a ser dentro de 20 años, los modelos económicos se están definiendo. Hay mucho dinero de gente fluyendo y apostando por ello, pero no significa que sepamos exactamente dónde va, que se convierta por ejemplo en un Second Life o quizá definitivamente se cree un modelo descentralizado. Nadie imaginaba hace 20 años que en esa era que surgía de internet íbamos a utilizar Twitter de esta forma que se usa hoy”, ha manifestado Preukschat.

Insisting on the role of the media and, specifically, on the figure of the 'freelance' journalist, Carrascosa added in this regard that "a very useful tool is reputation systems, they are normally based on objective criteria." In this sense, he said "I, for example, on Twitter I follow a lot of media and I follow a freelance photographer who covers the war in Syria and to know what is happening in Syria I follow his profile, but I also continue to see that of the media; neither are we going to see the information all through these platforms, nor are we going to leave the traditional media," he predicted.

“Blockchain es como cooperativa inmensa que habrá una red de corresponsales por todo el mundo. Los periódicos te ordenan la actualidad, te organizan la agenda, no sé cómo lo van a resolver estas plataformas”, ha añadido Covadonga Fernández.

¿Una amenaza?

And how do the big ones play this revolution? “If the basis of your business is to extract profits through user data, as Google or Facebook do, blockchain technology breaks this model in half because it gives the user control over their data,” Carrascosa pointed out. “At Google there must be a man thinking about how to fix the cultural movement that blockchain is generating,” added the lawyer specialized in intellectual property and information technologies, Cristina Carrascosa.

For his part, Covadonga Fernández has stressed in this sense: “The approach of blockchain is to break the cake for the internet giants and for the content that is viewed to be remunerated.”

And it also affects media advertising, since as experts have pointed out, “the traditional Internet model is being broken because right now the cake is being taken by only one person.”

Asked about a possible misuse of this system, Carrascosa said that "there are people who have a lot of knowledge of this technology and there are perverse minds everywhere, I think it is a tiny percentage who can handle this."

Spain, facing a great opportunity

Sobre el planteamiento global que se está produciendo hacia esta tecnología, Alex Preukschat ha comentado que “hay países que abrazan la innovación y lo ven como una oportunidad, una prosperidad y una vía de generar empleo como Japón, Dubai o Singapur y otros como una amenaza. España está en un punto intermedio. Lo que queremos ver desde España es que abracemos la innovación y podamos generar y experimentar en el país modelos de negocio, que podamos participar en esa transformación.

"We have to try above all to understand the technology, let's play and experiment with it and then create business models. We have to first understand how these ecosystems work, maybe we won't sell applications, but we will have great engineers. This is what the Japanese are applying, this time we will be there. And those from the Emirates are thinking about the same thing," he assured.

Carrascosa added on this point: "if we had done this in the 90s we could have faced other business models and we would not have had to import them from other countries. When can we apply it? When will we see the first chaos of use? Maybe in two years we will see it." “I am in favor of changing the mentality, of not closing down or being afraid,” she said, adding that “the Police and the Army are already putting their efforts into this.”

Preukschat ha remarcado que “es una oportunidad para España de posicionarse. Dejémonos del complejo de si lo harán los americanos, es una oportunidad presente. Tenemos este talento y este capital. Los de Singapur no tienen miedo, unámonos a esa mentalidad”.