The document discusses blockchain applications for media and entertainment. It provides an overview of blockchain technology and examples of potential use cases such as royalty collection, content transactions, and customer loyalty programs. The document also presents a case study of Custos Media Tech, a company using blockchain and watermarking to detect and prevent media piracy. Custos' technology embeds watermarks in media and uses a blockchain network to track infringements.

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Blockchain for Media &
Entertainment – Buzz or Real?
Usman Shakeel
WW Tech Lead for M&E
Amazon Web Services
M A E 3 1 5
Dr. Jonathan Shapiro-Ward
Sr. Solutions Architect
Amazon Web Services
Dr. G-J van Rooyen
CEO
Custos Media Tech

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Agenda
Introduction to blockchain
Blockchain applications/use cases in media
Analysis of the use cases with blockchain application
Case study: Piracy prevention and detection by Custos Media
Future trends

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Introducing blockchain
Linked transaction
data in encrypted, redundant
databases,
or ledgers, hosted
across the internet
What it is
Makes online transactions
across enterprises more
secure and trustworthy
Lowers cost by eliminating
the need for traditional
intermediaries
What it does
No single entity
controls the data,
further reducing
risk
Who
Encrypted, redundant
data prevents
destruction or
falsification of data
in any single ledger
How

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Lots of protocols, all “blockchain”
A
A
B
C
Block lattice: RaiBlocksBlockchain: Bitcoin,
Ethereum
A
Enterprise, private,
and permissioned
B
C
D
Graph: Hashgraph DAG’s: IOTA

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Blockchain – Buzz or real
Media & Entertainment Specific
Source: www.theiabm.org

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https://www.axios.com/corporate-america-blockchain-bitcoin-fervor-over-fb13bc5c-81fd-4c12-8a7b-07ad107817ca.html

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Blockchain
applications
examplesin M&E
Finance
Analytics
Consumption
Distribution
Production
Loyalty programs
Charge back
Content protection
CDN
Rights management
Delivery
OTT
Customer surveys
P2P funding/
direct distribution
Bookings
Distributed rendering
and transcoding
Distributed storage
Distribution and
usage tracking
Document discovery

9. © 2018, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
Blockchain
applications
examplesin M&E
Finance
Analytics
Consumption
Distribution
Production
Loyalty programs
Charge back
Content protection
CDN
Rights management
Delivery
OTT
Customer surveys
P2P funding/
direct distribution
Bookings
Distributed rendering
and transcoding
Distributed storage
Distribution and
usage tracking
Document discovery

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Use case Technical Commercial
Royalties collection/chargebacks ★★★★ ★★
Finance

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Use case Technical Commercial
Royalties collection/chargebacks ★★★★ ★★
Content transactions ★★★★ ★★★★
Finance

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Use case Technical Commercial
Royalties collection/chargebacks ★★★★ ★★
Content transactions ★★★★ ★★★★
Bookings and reservation contracts
(contractors, sets, production resources, and so on)
★★★ ★★
Finance

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Use case Technical Commercial
Royalties collection/chargebacks ★★★★ ★★
Content transactions ★★★★ ★★★★
Bookings and reservation contracts
(contractors, sets, production resources, and so on)
★★★ ★★
Peer-to-peer crowdfunding and investment – Leveraging blockchain to create
decentralized investments for audiences to invest in media productions
★★★★ ★★★★
Finance

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Use case Technical Commercial
Royalties collection/chargebacks ★★★★ ★★
Content transactions ★★★★ ★★★★
Bookings and reservation contracts
(contractors, sets, production resources, and so on)
★★★ ★★
Peer-to-peer crowdfunding and investment – Leveraging blockchain to create
decentralized investments for audiences to invest in media productions
★★★★ ★★★★
Customer loyalty programs – A medium of exchange within a media or gaming
ecosystem
★★★★ ★★★★
Finance

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Use case Technical Commercial
Royalties collection/chargebacks ★★★★ ★★
Content transactions ★★★★ ★★★★
Bookings and reservation contracts
(contractors, sets, production resources, and so on)
★★★ ★★
Peer-to-peer crowdfunding and investment – Leveraging blockchain to create
decentralized investments for audiences to invest in media productions
★★★★ ★★★★
Customer loyalty programs – A medium of exchange within a media or gaming
ecosystem
★★★★ ★★★★
E-discovery compatible record keeping systems
Event ticketing – Ownership tracking and ticket reselling/management, control resale
market for tickets, and prevent scalping
★★ ★★★
Finance

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Use case Technical Commercial
Royalties collection/chargebacks ★★★★ ★★
Content transactions ★★★★ ★★★★
Bookings and reservation contracts
(contractors, sets, production resources, and so on)
★★★ ★★
Peer-to-peer crowdfunding and investment – Leveraging blockchain to create
decentralized investments for audiences to invest in media productions
★★★★ ★★★★
Customer loyalty programs – A medium of exchange within a media or gaming
ecosystem
★★★★ ★★★★
E-discovery compatible record keeping systems
Event ticketing – Ownership tracking and ticket reselling/management, control resale
market for tickets, and prevent scalping
★★ ★★★
Payments for highly atomized tasks markets ★★★★ ★★★
Finance

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Use case Technical Commercial
★★★ ★
★★★ ★★
★★★★ ★★★
Production

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Use case Technical Commercial
★★★ ★
★★★ ★★
★★★★ ★★★
Story creation ★★★★ ★★★
Production

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Use case Technical Commercial
★★★★ ★★★
★★ ★★
★★★ ★
Distribution

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Use case Technical Commercial
★★★★ ★★★
★★ ★★
★★★ ★
★★★ ★★
Distribution

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Use case Technical Commercial
★★★★ ★★★
★★ ★★
★★★ ★
★★★ ★★
★★★★ ★★
Distribution

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Use case Technical Commercial
★★★★ ★★★★
★★★ ★★
Consumption

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Use case Technical Commercial
★★★ ★★★★
★★★★ ★★★★
Analytics

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Case study: Custos
Move Media Monitoring into the Crowd

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The ways in which media is
distributed and consumed are
changing rapidly in an age of
all-digital instant gratification
Digital demand
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Blockchain-tracked forensic
watermarks virtually
eliminate pre-release piracy
• 20-60% of films are leaked prior
to box office release
• A leak reduces lifetime revenue
by 19.1%
Customer story
Indigenous Film Distribution had
60% pre-release leaks. It’s now 0%.

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SaaS built on AWS
• Screener Copy is a web-based
version of Custos’ video
protection solution
• Filmmakers and distributors
use it to distribute and
protect movies during the
sensitive pre-release window
• White labeled for other
workflows (for example, “live
catalog” for buyer-seller
networks) in any AWS region
close to the client

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LightVAULT
• White label of Screener Copy
• Integrated with film post-
production workflow
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HOW CUSTOS’
PATENTED
TECHNOLOGY
PROTECTS YOUR
CONTENT
HOW AN
INFRINGEMENT IS
DETECTED
Marking a media
item for tracking
Detecting
infringement

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Core API
VPC
Bounties service
Core ELB
Client
Block explorer Bitcoin blockchain
• The Core API allows clients to create
cryptocurrency bounties and
associate them with media items
• A block explorer continuously scans
the blockchain for compromised
keys
• Automated client alerts

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Video watermarking
Upload bucket
Watermarked assets
Client
Client S3 storage
Video watermarking AWS
Lambda functions
VPC
Watermarking
Amazon SWF
workflows
Embedding spot
fleet
Concatenation
spot fleet
• Proprietary
imperceptible
watermark
• Computationally heavy
pre-processing
• Computationally light
creation of individual
copies (concatenation)
• SWF for orchestration
• Spot instances auto-
scale on workload

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What’s next for Custos
▸Grow the business
▸Video for entertainment / education / security
▸Document protection
▸Audio protection
▸Other crypto-enabled information markets
▸Optimizing AWS services
▸Continuing to replace dedicated instances with serverless solutions
▸Consider switching some modules to AWS Media Services
▸Machine learning may become more important in future

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Blockchain & media:
The future
• Identity and ownership are hard problems
• Auditing these are even harder
• Future solutions are likely to focus on
ways to couple the immutable truth of a
blockchain with the uncertainties and
ambiguities of the real world
• Participation in managing risk can be
incentivized, and cryptocurrency is the
ideal mechanism
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35. Thank you!
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G-J van Rooyen
g-j@custostech.com / @gvrooyen

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