Posth Werk has been selected to receive funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No. 957228 for the VeriSimpleDC project.

VeriSimpleDC aims to define a protocol and create an exemplary user application that supports verifiable, simple declarations of content ownership, metadata and rights management information – based on the ISCC, a new standard for decentralized digital content identification. 

To verify claims to the content and create trust in assertions, the project wants to introduce publicly accessible, verifiable, simple credentials that can help to identify creators and rightsholders based on social or institutional authentication.

This is the recording of my presentation of the ISCC in the context of the World Intellectual Property Organization – WIPO Webinars on the the Copyright Infrastructure.

Protocols and technologies such as blockchain, cryptographic hashing and public key cryptography make it possible to digitally sign and thereby appropriate certain rights and identities. The digital signature is the act of digital sovereignty, a new authority and control over a persistent and indissoluble bond that is able to link identities and self-descriptions, works and metadata.

Licium is a search engine for verifiable metadata and rights management information of digital media content. It allows rightsholders in a decentralized way to digitally sign their works, creating trust in assertions, claims and the authenticity of the original content.

Freely accessible standard identifiers, which are specifically designed to manage digital content, are a fundamental prerequisite for efficient transactions in a decentralized and increasingly heterogeneous media environment. The ISCC (International Standard Content Code) is the first open, generic identifier designed for digital media content. In November 2021 the ISCC was accepted as new work item ISO/AWI 24138 by ISO TC 46/SC 9/WG 18.

The decentralised publication of cryptographically verifiable metadata and rights management information, the use of decentralised identifiers for rightsholder and digital media assets, and the use of content certificates will allow decentralised and automated transactions peer-to-peer or machine-to machine using verifiable credentials (VCs).

The DE:PICT framework suggests the use of ISCCs, DIDs, VCs and blockchains for verified and verifiable decentralised digital content licensing at scale.