Spaceport: An IP Licensing Launchpad to the Future
Bits of Signum | 04.25.24
We are in the early days of a digital asset explosion - it's a perfect storm of more indie developers, more advanced and accessible game developer tools, all resulting in richer UGC (User Generated Content) gaming and entertainment content, with AI pouring gasoline on the fire.
Signum Growth Thesis: We believe that IP rights protection will be baked into the technology at some point in the future. Currently, we are in a period of early experimentation, and we are seeing a lot of cool AI creations. We are also in a sea of IP rights infringements. The industries of video games and entertainment depend heavily on rights, which generate a lot of value - $350 billion as referenced by Le Zhang, CEO & Founder of Spaceport, in our Bits of Signum Creator Stories Podcast. Blockchain technology is uniquely suited to solve this problem. We are deep in the Polkadot ecosystem so please ask us about this. Bottom line: If we thought that Cambridge Analytica was scary, AI will take the level of fake news and inauthenticity to a national security threat level. Why wouldn’t we seek a cryptographic backing of truly authentic digital IP?
Bits of Signum, Creator Stories Podcast - Le Zhang, Spaceport CEO & Founder
We had an enlightening conversation with serial entrepreneur Le Zhang, Founder of Spaceport, who sits at the intersection of our areas of exploration. We discussed the changing nature of how we value physical and digital items as we spend more time online. We also touched on the ways in which DMCA takedowns are evolving, and finally, stay tuned for Spaceport news on democratizing IP rights creation across Roblox and Fortnite!
Spaceport was started to build tools for brands and IP owners to monetize by connecting them with other creators around the world and allow them to license content legally, starting with Roblox and Fortnite UEFN. As he explains, if a creator wants to build a game using Pikachu, they will be able to do this legally. The vision of Spaceport is to become the IP licensing layer of the metaverse, not just for UGC platforms, but for all gaming applications, digital applications and even real world applications. Spaceport is using web3 technology to tackle IP rights. We would love reactions to it after you listen to our conversation with Le.
It was interesting to hear Le’s take on the well-known concept of the DMCA takedown – the de facto standard for UGC platforms to allow individuals to upload content which may infringe on the rights of others. By following safe harbor rules, platforms can limit the liability that they face with respect to IP infringement. The challenge is that this safe harbor was passed just after Google was founded and the world has changed with 20x the number of people on the internet! Without the ability to license IP officially from the holders, we will see an explosion of unlicensed IP content. Even if this activity is not happening due to nefarious reasons, we need to fix it to bring value to all creators.
Finally, we dove into a fun example of a physical Pachimari keychain, which is valued lower than an identical digital version in Overwatch 2! Le pointed out that the physical keychain was selling for $5, or about half the price of the digital item. This is a perfect demonstration of the evolving value of physical and digital items as we spend more time online. Together, we mused over whether the audience value impacted the price. Compare being in a game, often with millions of players, to my typical daily exposure to colleagues, friends and strangers in the real world.
On this point, please also tune into our show with Matthew Dubit, CEO of Dubit, who is aiming to create a digital fashion house for UGC platforms. Imagine the fast fashion clothing company Shien, only at a higher speed, and at almost zero marginal cost of production.
Thanks and please reach out to catch up with us anytime!