Blockchain publishing technology can be used for rights management.
An individual's contributions to the development of publishing can be tracked and linked permanently using blockchain.
Benefits to using blockchain:
- It automatically adds timestamps and person stamps to published materials, which can provide a basic level of security for publications.
- It’s significantly more effective than traditional methods of marking books, such as by using watermarks.
- It can also protect rights for both authors and businesses.
- Authors are able to trace the ownership of their property back through the record of ownership with the help of smart contracts.
- It’s immutable, meaning that records of transactions can't be manipulated or deleted.
An example of a blockchain publishing platform is ARTiFACTS, which provides a free dynamic citation and intelligent linking service that maintains the provenance of files as they evolve.