Copytrack has completed its
Initial Coin Offering (ICO) and will be launching a Global Copyright Register (GCR) this summer that will work in conjunction with their Global Copyright Enfocement services (copytrack.com).
With their Presale and ICO they have a total of 8,600 investors who have purchased around 16 million tokens. The purchase of images found on the GCR will be tracked in a Blockchain and paid for using cryptocurrency tokens.
Image creators will be able to place and register their hi-res images in the GCR collection free of charge. If a customer finds an image they would like to use they will be able reverse search a copy of that image to determine if the image is in the GCR collection.
If the image is found the customer will be shown the photographer’s price structure for the use of the image. Each photographer will be able to supply his/her own pricing. The customer will not be able to communicate with the photographer directly. The customer can simply purchase or see which stock agencies the photographer has supplied as alternative sources for the image.
The photographer will also be able to list the agencies where a customer might go to license rights to the image. At these agencies the customer may also find other images produced by the photographer. Stock agencies will not be allowed to post images on the GCR because they are not the copyright owners of the work. However, agencies will be able to “register” and “offer their services” to photographers.
Copytrack intends to provide certain "standard pricing structures,“ in so called “smart-contracts” that can be easily chosen and modified by the photographer as an aid in establishing prices. The “smart-contracts” are self fulfilling contracts if certain conditions are met.
Marcus Schmitt, CEO of Copytrack says that it is part of the company’s “terms of service” that all images found through a GCR search must be licensed through the company’s facilities and recorded in the blockchain.
The GCR will offer all ways of payment such as PayPal, CreditCard, bank transfer, but mainly also payment with the CPY-token, the crypto currency the CGR is based on. The CPY will eliminate all the high bank fees and make payments much faster.
It is unclear what percentage of the total fee paid by the customer Copytrack will remit to the photographer.
A photographer who is also represented by a stock agency can simply register his agency in the GCR and the agency will become a partner of the GCR. From that point all transactions can be made through the GCR, but still the agency will have its cut.
It is unclear whether the agency will be able to actually negotiate with the customer, or whether the agency will simply need to establish a “standard set of prices” that the customer either accepts or rejects.
If the agency has already established a pricing deal with a particular customer, it is unclear whether that deal will apply when an image is found through the GCR. It does seem that when an actual transaction takes place the payment will be made through the GCR system and the hi-res file will be delivered from the GCR collection.
Since all images in the GCR will work hand in hand with Copytrack’s Global Copyright Enforcement (GCE) services (
copytrack.com), Copytrack will automatically detect a usage within 14 days after the image appears on the Internet.
To deal with images that are used in print, but never appear on the Internet, Copytrack is speaking with companies and services who scan all major magazines and newspaper. In this way they should be able to track many print uses, but it seems unlikely that they will be able to track use made in brochures, books, posters, calendars, etc.
In cases where an agency has done the licensing, Copytrack may be able to determine a license exists, but one suspects that they would not have access to the terms of the license, or the fee paid. Thus, they would be unable to determine if a particular use exceeds the terms of the license.
While the system may not perfectly solve all image licensing problems, it may go a lot further, and give photographers a lot more control than most other image licensing systems out there today.
Once a photographer uploads an image, Copytrack will “check whether it is the original before registering it.” Photographers will be able to register their cameras with the GCR. In order to register an image with Copytrack, they must provide a camera JPG or Raw file. In combination with the meta data of the camera it is unlikely that someone else will have the same proof or data. In case where that occurs Copytrack will have a dispute handling system, but they expect the need to deal with disputes to be very rare.
When they talk of registering it is also unclear whether they intend to register every image in the GCR with the U.S. Copyright Office (which is a requirement to bring legal action in the U.S.) Such registration is not required to bring legal action in most other parts of the world.
When a
COPYTRACK.com search detects the use of an image supplied by one of its photographers, and the photographer has no evidence of ever receiving pay for that use, Copytrack sends the user a friendly note asking them to clear up the rights situation. Often the infringing party provides an agency license and Copytrack closes the case. But “very often”