Sony Files a Patent for Digital Rights Management On Blockchain Technology
Sony, a Japanese technology firm, is making a step towards the usage of blockchain to store digital rights information.
In an application distributed Thursday by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, Sony notes that current advanced rights administration (DRM) solutions that aim for interoperability “may not be very reliable and rely on one unique point of failure. If the rights locker provider or system goes out of business or otherwise fails, the user loses all the acquired content.”
A blockchain could store the required identification proof data to guarantee clients to watch the items they buy, according to the statement.
DRM systems allude to technologies that confine access to copyrighted materials just to the individuals who buy access. Sony refers to UltraViolet, a cloud-based locker for advanced rights, as one example.
The application was filed together by Sony and subsidiary Sony Pictures Entertainment, and the report particularly cites movies as an example of the kind of media the system could be connected to.
However, Sony also argues the blockchain-based system could manage rights to “various types of content or other data, such as movies, television, video, music, audio, games, scientific data, medical data, etc.”
The application depicts a few potential usages of the technology. In one, every client’s rights are encoded on a devoted blockchain. This record starts with a beginning square, which stores distinguishing data about that client. At the point when the client gains rights to certain substance – by acquiring a film download, for instance – those rights are focused on the blockchain.
Also, a “DRM computer system would verify the rights in the blockchain and then decrypt the media when needed. This computer system can take different forms, including a “DRM agent” residing on a user’s device, according to Sony.
