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With rebranding being the main focus for development for the past few months, we are thrilled to introduce Capture Badge and Licensing as new features for Capture App. Though simple in nature, these new features will improve the overall user experience and further clarify the rights digital assets have in the Numbers Protocol network.
Let us dive into the topic further!
Issue surrounding NFT Authenticity and Digital Media Licensing
The topic has been discussed at length since its introduction but for context, it is worth summarizing again the core issues surrounding NFT Authenticity. While the tokenized nature of NFTs allows it and the associated digital entity (photo, video, etc.) to be owned and classified as “one-of-a-kind” it is not enough to protect digital assets from being misused or minted on another network by someone other than the creator. The lack of standards surrounding NFTs has resulted in the space being oversaturated with infringed and inaccessible assets and dampened NFT enthusiasm. This coupled with the recent downward spiral of the crypto space has NFTs at its lowest point.
Digital media licensing is also a big issue. NFTs aside, digital media on the web have little to no protection at all. The freeness of the web allows for a photo posted on social media to be instantly copied and shared without restriction. This is often due to the media platforms themselves having no policies or features in place to inform users of what they can and cannot do. This lack of transparency and understanding results in user behavior that often infringes on digital media rights.
The rise of NFTs has created new opportunities for digital content creators to profit from their work but more than anything it has highlighted the need for better standards to protect rights in the digital space. Until these issues are fully addressed, the challenges facing NFTs' authenticity and the wider digital media industry are likely to persist.
Numbers Protocol addressing NFT Authenticity and the wider digital media industry
This brings us to Numbers Protocol, a digital media library and indexing system that aims to provide a more transparent outlook on digital media. Every piece of digital media registered with Numbers Protocol is given a unique identifier (Nid) that can be called upon to access digital media files on decentralized storage, as well as digital media information, archived on the Numbers Blockchain.
The Numbers Blockchain facilitates the core functions of Numbers Protocol, the most important being the archiving of committed media history of Web3 assets via Nit. Nit is a digital media version control akin to “Git” that changes digital assets from untraceable and unverifiable entities into standalone entities capable of “speaking” for themselves through accessible and transparent blockchain records. Numbers Blockchain archives this by generating Nid and storing key information such as on-creation metadata (location, timestamp, etc.), creation information, changelogs, and most critically licenses onto the blockchain to assure the integrity of the digital media.
Working in tandem to establish the license and authenticity of digital media, Numbers Protocol and Numbers Blockchain are pushing digital media trust to areas that were previously ignored. Despite this, much of the activity happens on the blockchain, a notoriously unfriendly view medium. Creating blockchain records and establishing licensing is great but if it is unknown to users then the issue still persists. This is where Capture Badge and License come into play.
Capture App Feature: Capture Badge & License
Capture App is the world’s first web3 camera and official creation tool of the Numbers Protocol network. Within Capture App are the entire capabilities of Numbers Blockchain in particular asset registration. Despite such a powerful feature, those unfamiliar with Capture App and its web3 capabilities may be confused about what the significance of “Nid”, signatures, hashes, and blockchain records. To address this issue we have introduced Capture Badge, a visual indicator that signifies whether or not the asset was created natively with Capture App and registered to the Numbers network.
Capture Badge is super useful and accessible because at a glance users will know which assets within Capture Apps explorer are registered and the entire authenticity stack including Nid, decentralized storage, signature, Nit commits, native creation, and license. With its information backed and easily verifiable with the blockchain, Capture Badge is a substance base and represents a form of trust for digital media.
Let us take a look at how it appears in Capture App:
As mentioned in the above discussion, one of the core issues with digital media on the web is the lack of transparency and understanding with licensing. Despite digital media in the Numbers network having licenses that are verifiable on the blockchain, not making the information available in Capture App in an easy and informative manner does little for creators and consumers. With this in mind we have updated the product page in Capture to reflect the license.
To mitigate the complexity and trickiness of licenses, Capture App summarizes the rights guaranteed by the license in the form of icons, text and infographics. The end goal is to be transparent about what can and cannot be done with the digital asset in question and if there are knowledge gaps provide users with the means of understanding.
Let us take a look at how the license section looks in Capture App:
To start, we have defaulted all Captures to Creative Commons Attribute License — CCBY. CCBY license allows users to distribute, remix, tweak, and build upon the work, even commercially, as long as credit is given to the original creator. This license gives the greatest amount of freedom for others to use the work, but requires attribution to the original creator. The decision to initially default with CCBY license ultimately came down to providing the highest degree of flexibility, which has proven useful in fostering innovation, building value, and assisting creators to spread their work while also giving credit where credit is due.
Depending on the goals of the creator, CCBY license may not be appropriate to use, especially for commercial use as it provides no restrictions whatsoever. Understanding this very much and not wanting to hamstring our creators we are in the process of creating a new feature in the Capture App that allows users to select licenses for their digital assets. The ability to select your license is a powerful feature that we hope to get to Capture App users as soon as possible along with other Capture App improvements.
Hope you are excited as we are. Stay Tuned!
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