Celebrating the CES Convention in Las Vegas, a major innovation show where companies announce their new research and products, Kodak presented two new products with a clear new digital strategy. With KodakONE, the American brand launches a copyright management platform. As for KodakCoin, the firm has thought of a cyrptomonnaie on the model of bitcoin, for agencies and photographers.
For this latest announcement, the firm worked with Wenn Digital, a company specializing in block-chain technologies (informations sent in blocks, secure and encrypted), used in particular for the Bitcoin virtual currency. According to the company, the remuneration of photographers would be more balanced with this currency and their rights better insured. No specification was given.
As for KodakOne, the device should be a platform for photographers to register their works under license for immediate payment via its KodakCoin system. It is therefore understandable that the two technologies works together, making photographers dependents of their device. Kodak will also propose to scan the web to identify unlicensed uses of future photographs in its database.
Readers should remember that copyright is not framed legally the same way in France compared to the U.S. For the latter, copyright is still a fluctuating notion, photographers being less well protected. France has several copyright houses, such as ADAGP, to effectively protect the rights of artists and their works.
