Why did Disney patent a blockchain movie distribution system?

It has been reported that Disney has obtained a patent for a movie distribution system based on blockchain.

Disney has a lot of competition with other movie studios, but the biggest threat is copyright infringement. Disney’s internal anti-piracy team is active 24 hours a day and is also participating in The Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE), an international coalition launched with the aim of reducing online copyright infringement.

Disney has supported the removal of dozens of infringing sites and services through efforts such as its team and ACE. It is said that the patent for the movie distribution system based on the newly acquired block chain is also part of the effort to infringe copyright.

The patent acquired by Disney is called “Blockchain configuration for secure content delivery”, and it focuses on delivering contents about movie theaters, etc.

Movie data needs to be delivered to movie theaters that show movies around the world, but in the process criminals can make copies of the data for security reasons. Disney is taking steps to prevent movie leaks, such as requiring movie theaters to follow strict rules or watermarking movies. But Disney doesn’t think the structure is good enough to stop piracy. For example, if you add a watermark to content, you can quickly track down the culprit after a copyright infringement has occurred, but it cannot prevent copyright infringement itself.

However, by using blockchain, the distribution process can be more tightly controlled and content playback can be prevented from being played outside of a preset location. It’s also possible to track the number of times content has been played and combine reported and actual hits to determine if it’s playing outside the intended recipient. In addition, content transmission using blockchain can be applied not only to movie theaters but also to other playback environments including video streaming services.

It is currently unknown whether Disney will actually implement a copyright protection system using blockchain. Related information can be found here.