Exploring Blockchain's Potential To Transform Media

October 2021
Exploring Blockchain’s
Potential to
Transform Media
Zoltan Vardai and Jeanhee Kim
October 2021
Exploring Blockchain’s Potential

to Transform Media
Zoltan Vardai and Jeanhee Kim
Authors About ` 3
Zoltan Vardai
Foreword 4
Jeanhee Kim
Executive summary 7
Contributor Chapter 1: Introduction: Blockchain 11

Michelle Palmer and the future of news media
Jones
Chapter 2: How news media companies are 15
leveraging blockchain
Editors A. Blockchain and content rights management 15
Paula Felps B. Case study: South China Morning Post 19
Dawn McMullan C. Democratising content creator revenue 21
Chapter 3: How blockchain will change 24

Design & Layout monetisation models
Liz Wallace A. Redefining the media supply chain 24
B. Enabling new monetisation options 25
C. Case study: Time magazine 26
D. Optimising advertising revenue 29
E. Using blockchain to boost audience engagement 29
F. Case study: Decrypt 31
Chapter 4: Takeaways for 33

media companies
© INMA 2021 The contents within this report are the exclusive
domain of the International News Media Association (INMA) and
may not be reproduced without the express written consent.
INMA | EXPLORING BLOCKCHAIN’S POTENTIAL TO TRANSFORM MEDIA 2

About
About the authors
Zoltan Vardai is a writer at Forkast.News with a deep passion
for storytelling and blockchain. Prior to joining the team, he
worked as a marketing and content writer, focused on software
and technology. Zoltan holds a master’s degree from the Ludwig
Maximilian University of Munich and is interested in the future of
global financial decentralisation.
Jeanhee Kim is a senior editor at Forkast. She has edited

marquee features such as the Crain’s New York Business
“40 Under 40,” “Fast 50,” and “Most Powerful Women.” As a
contributing editor for Forbes Asia in 2021, she edited the debut
of the 100 to Watch. Earlier she worked as a producer at Oxygen
Media and Meredith Interactive and as a writer and editor at
Money and Working Woman magazines.
About the International News Media Association

The International News Media Association (INMA) is a global
community of market-leading news media companies
reinventing how they engage audiences and grow revenue in a
multi-platform environment. The INMA community consists of
more than 19,000 members at 900+ news media companies in
77 countries, representing tens of thousands of news brands.
INMA is the news media industry’s foremost ideas-sharing
network with members connected via conferences, reports,
Webinars, virtual meetings, awards competitions, and an
unparalleled archive of best practices. INMA leads the news
industry with initiatives dedicated to better understanding digital
subscriptions, smart data, product, advertising, and the emerging
relationship with Big Tech platforms.

Foreword
Buried deep in this report is an anecdote about how traditional media companies
initially looked at social networks. As high-level media executives scoffed at tweeting
what they had for lunch, the truth is they never got around to understanding social
media until they rolled up their sleeves and started experimenting with it — personally,
directly, not staffed out to someone else.
Blockchain may fall into the same category. We will be slow to understand it without
diving in ourselves.
The impact of blockchain is that, for the first time in modern human history,
economic power is being returned to the individual. Blockchain allows individual
creators to monetise their work without an intermediary — in some ways, similar to
how social media impacted the value exchange.
Blockchain technology was first conceived in the early 1990s as a way to create and
record timestamps on documents that could not be changed or tampered with. But
it wasn’t until the birth of Bitcoin in 2009 that the technology found use in the real
world. And while blockchain is often (rightfully) associated with cryptocurrency, it has
much wider applications.
Blockchain is, simply, a type of database. What differentiates it is that the data is
collected and stored in groups, or blocks, and then connected to the previous block
of information — thereby creating a “blockchain.” Unlike other types of databases, this
creates an irreversible timeline of data with a specific timestamp. This record-keeping
technology has the potential to transform health care, IT, and supply chains. And,

although it has the potential to disrupt the news media industry, at the moment it’s
not clear exactly what that will mean.
“Exploring Blockchain’s Potential to Transform Media” doesn’t come at you in a

straight line. It started with a nudge from some INMA Board members. Then came
NFT experiments from two key INMA members, South China Morning Post and USA
Today. The idea was galvanised by a July 28 INMA Webinar with Forkast News CEO
Angie Lau, who explained how blockchain can serve media. More importantly, she
humanised an otherwise techie subject (view coverage here and Webinar here).
As we connected the dots, INMA reached out to Angie shortly after her Webinar and
asked if Forkast could work with us to produce a report that establishes a baseline for
conversation among news media companies about blockchain.
What makes Forkast so interesting to us is that it’s a B2B media company that
focuses exclusively on blockchain, distributed ledger technology, cryptocurrency,
and emerging technologies. They are one of the world’s leading authorities on the
subject and being based in Hong Kong provides Forkast a front-row seat to the Asian
blockchain tech market that is accelerating at a faster rate than anywhere else in the
world.
In a nutshell, Forkast bridges the gap between the blockchain industry and … us.
Mainstream audiences. Everyday people.
Forkast writer Zoltan Vardai and senior editor Jeanhee Kim, the primary authors of this
INMA report, paint a hopeful picture of blockchain possibilities for media. Their story
is augmented by INMA interviews with key media industry decision-makers.
The blockchain opportunities that stand out to me in this report include combating
disinformation, content rights management, democratising content creator revenue,
simplifying payments, rethinking subscriptions vs. a la carte, combating advertising
fraud, and boosting audience engagement.
Zoltan and Jeanhee tease out even more: Could blockchain potentially change
the business structure of media companies? Could it disintermediate advertising
companies? Is blockchain slipping into the mandatory lexicon and even hiring
practices at media companies?

From a product perspective, a quick-win and easily visualised deliverable is
monetising iconic moments — perhaps auctioning digitised covers, photos, video,
audio, and news articles.
I have spent a career with a behind-the-curtain street view of media companies.

For all the talk of opportunities, to what degree should blockchain be prioritised?
Is a total focus on blockchain worth a 5% reduction in head space on, say, digital
subscriptions? If you are a bigger company, where does a strategic look at blockchain
opportunities reside? At the chief technology officer level? Chief product officer
level? CEO level?
Consider INMA’s “Exploring Blockchain’s Potential to Transform Media” a down

payment on a subject worth exploring. An opening salvo.
Now, let’s see what comes next in the emerging relationship between blockchain and
news media.
Earl J. Wilkinson
Executive Director and CEO
International News Media Association (INMA)
October 27, 2021

Executive summary
Although blockchain has the potential to disrupt the news media industry, at the
moment it’s not clear exactly what that will mean. And, although the majority of
publishers polled recently say it has potential to transform the news media industry,
less than 10% have incorporated it into their strategy.
Yet at these beginning stages, news media companies around the world are dabbling
in the technology. In this INMA report, “Exploring Blockchain’s Potential to Transform
Media,” we look at the beginnings of what looks like a transformational moment in
media content rights management and changing monetisation models.
Most efforts around blockchain are still in an experimental phase, and there remains
a significant amount of confusion about what it is and how the technology works.
Using the same technology as Bitcoin, blockchain allows for transactions that are
secure and trustworthy, which means it has enormous potential to help restore trust
in the media and combat disinformation.
Authors Zoltan Vardai and Jeanhee Kim at Forkast, a Hong Kong-based digital media
platform covering blockchain and emerging technologies since 2018, see that news
media companies already are eyeing the blockchain infrastructure’s potential for
tracing every piece of digital media, whether that’s a story, video, audio, photo, or
something else. And it could also help in areas of revenue generation, funding, and
copyright protection. But before that can happen, news media companies must
better understand blockchain’s many applications and opportunities.

Two of the most important areas where blockchain can break through challenges
faced by publishers and content creators are in content rights management and
content creator revenue.
Content rights management: Blockchain holds the ability to enforce a greater degree
of accountability and transparency in the media industry, as the technology provides
a greater sense of control and security. With the use of non-fungible tokens, or NFTs,
publishers can counter copyright infringement as well as attract revenue. NFTs allow
any unique, individual asset to be converted to a digital unit that can be bought
and sold — and that digital ownership can be tracked, providing a potential way for
publishers to reduce online piracy.
Publications including Vogue Singapore, The Economist, and USA Today are already
experimenting with the use of NFTs as a revenue-generation tool. And South China
Morning Post has embraced blockchain, launching an initiative known as Artifact
that can directly impact digital content rights management by creating tokenised
news stories that become speculative long-term investments. Along with that
initiative comes a second advantage: the use of DAOs, or decentralised autonomous
organisations, that allow organsiations to trade the traditional company hierarchy
for community-controlled organisations. As a result, holders can vote on business
development proposals, creating a new collective type of media organisation that is
centered on creator/journalist owners.
Content creator revenue: Just as social media has engaged content creators and
their readers, blockchain drives the Internet to Web 3.0, where the middlemen —
such as advertising agencies — are eliminated and the revenue flows directly from
consumers to creators.
If this seems futuristic, it’s important to note it’s already being leveraged by
decentralised social platforms including Audius, Sapien, Mirror.xyz, and SocialX. The
emergence of such platforms is changing incentives for writers and transforming
how they interact with readers. And many, including Brian Morrissey, founder of the
e-newsletter The Rebooting, see great opportunities for publishers in this: “It should
enable the publications and brands with the strongest connection to the community
to do really well.”
Given blockchain’s association with cryptocurrency, it’s no surprise that it also

could reinvent how news media companies manage money. It holds the promise of

simplifying payments, decreasing copyright infringements, and streamlining royalty
payments. It could provide new monetisation opportunities, including pay-per-use
pricing models that would be more cost-effective for consumers and could attract
customers who don’t want to pay for a subscription.
In this report, we look at three case studies:
South China Morning Post is leaning on its 118-year history to lead it into the future.
By tokenising historical documents and images, it is creating a new standard for
how history can be recorded on the blockchain. By enlisting blockchain developers,
art curators, historians, researchers, journalists, and archivists, it is creating a
comprehensive structure that will include minting some of its archives as NFTs —
allowing millions of people to own part of this history.
Time, a traditional U.S. magazine that debuted in 1923, is leading the charge in
experimenting with its own monetisation model. TIMEPieces is a new initiative that
offers NFTs from 40 different artists and allows readers to become community
members by purchasing an NFT from the collection. Of course, the payment is made
with cryptocurrency and the membership gives them access to Time’s content,
invitations to special in-person events, and access to exclusive digital experiences.
The company also allows subscribers to buy traditional digital subscriptions on Time.
com using cryptocurrency.
“I think that’s really important because what we’re signaling to people is we believe
and acknowledge you. ... And unless a company is willing to do that, no one’s going
to take their move into this space seriously at this point,” Time President Keith
Grossman told INMA.
While publishers start looking at how to embrace blockchain, it’s notable that it can
also be used to optimise advertising revenue and to boost audience engagement.
Decrpyt Media, a 3.5-year-old company, was formed to explain the crypto world
to traditional media companies and provide the bridge to reach it: “Publishers, in
particular, have a really strong opportunity to come in and find new audiences,” said
Alanna Roazzi-Laforet, Decrypt’s publisher and chief revenue officer.
But with most blockchain-powered use cases still in their infancy, most media
companies are still stymied as to how to apply the emerging technology. The first
step, experts say, is to start understanding it. That’s where we hope “Exploring

Blockchain’s Potential to Transform Media” comes in. And don’t worry: The report
includes a glossary to help us all get used to the terminology.
Learning a lesson from news media’s reluctance to move to the World Wide Web
and social media, publishers should start looking at it now and spend time in the
blockchain ecosystem. This emerging, disruptive technology is ready to change the
landscape — whether news media companies are ready or not. n

CHAPTER 1
Introduction:
Blockchain and
the future of
news media
Search the phrase “news media adoption of blockchain” and it’s clear the news media
industry widely recognises the potential for this emerging technology to disrupt the
industry — but is not yet sure how. In a recent survey of 33 media executives in 21
countries, 70% said they believe blockchain has great potential in the news industry,
but only 6% have a blockchain strategy in 2021.
There are multiple reasons strategies are lagging. To begin with, most efforts are still
in the exploration and experimental phase, and there is also some confusion about
blockchain technology itself.
Blockchain is a platform for digital communications based on an open, distributed

ledger — meaning the ledger is publicly available to anyone. It allows users to record
information that is next to impossible to hack, cheat, or alter because everyone has a
receipt. This is also considered a so-called “trustless technology” because parties can
interact without needing to know or trust the other.
Blockchain is not Bitcoin — the first cryptocurrency — but it is the same technology
Bitcoin was built on in 2008. Cryptocurrency transactions are recorded on ledgers
that form blocks that are then immutably stacked or linked, making a secure and
tamper-proof chain of blocks, or blockchain. But blockchain technology already has
uses and value far beyond Bitcoin and is the engine propelling the world to Web 3.0,
an Internet where transactions and communications are secure and true.
In the era of fake news, which coincides with and exacerbates a pandemic that
has caused the death of 4.55 million people, traditional media has suffered a 53%

drop in trust, according to the 2021 Edelman Trust Barometer. There is enormous
interest and potential for blockchain experimentation to accelerate and for trust to be
restored in the media.
Major companies such as The New York Times have been exploring how blockchain
can combat disinformation. Its now-concluded News Provenance Project, launched
in 2019 in partnership with IBM, explored using blockchain to secure image sourcing
information — that is, the who, what, where, when, and why remain connected to
a photo — even if the image is picked up by social media and shared without the
context of the original story. Now The New York Times is collaborating with the
British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC),
Microsoft, Twitter, and more than 100 other companies and organisations to further
explore ways to secure digital media.
This includes:
l Project Origin, a collaboration focused on developing an engineering

framework for authenticating video, images, and audio.
l Content Authenticity Initiative, a working group launched by Adobe, The

New York Times, and Twitter, focused on open-source solutions for securing
the provenance of digital media, starting with photos and videos.
l The Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity, an offshoot of the

Content Authenticity Initiative in which membership is free.
Some of these initiatives utilise blockchain, but others are powered by different
technologies.
Given the distributed ledger’s openness and immutability, blockchain represents a

promising infrastructure for news publications, eventually enabling every piece of
digital media — a photo, video, audio, story, and more — to be transparently traceable
to its original source, hence enforcing more accountability. The idea is similar to a
tamper-evident bottle: If the seal is unbroken, trust the contents.
The advent of blockchain technology can be transformative for the media industry in
many other ways, too. Given blockchain’s wider adoption by the financial and fintech
sector, many of the most exciting projects under way focus on revenue generation,
copyright protection, and even direct funding.

As with all emerging technologies and industry disruptions, there are fits and starts.
Promising ventures such as Civil, a blockchain-based publishing platform started
in 2017 that signed 100 media organisations as contributing members, ceased
operations after three years. Its mission was to develop a way for communities to
directly support journalists and for journalists to collaborate across publications. It
also had a mission to ensure trust in news.
One of the publications launched with initial Civil funding, Popula, successfully stored
an article on the Ethereum blockchain. Popula’s editor, Maria Bustillos, wrote on that
occasion: “And there it will remain, beyond the reach of any adversaries of the free
press, for as long as the Ethereum blockchain [persists]; a period which I venture to
guess will last as long as the current Internet, at the very least.”
This report is being written in the messy early days of blockchain exploration in
the news media industry. It explores interesting trends and even some successful
applications. Most importantly, it will provide ways for media executives to think
about the changes blockchain will bring and offer ideas on how publishers can start
experimenting with this potentially industry-changing technology. n

Glossary
Blockchain: A system of recording information based on a shared, distributed

ledger that makes it difficult or impossible to change, hack, or cheat the
system.
Decentralisation: The transfer of control and decision-making from a

centralised authority (ie: individual, organisation) to a network.
IP infringement: Intellectual property infringement.
NFTs: Non-fungible tokens. NFTs allow users to buy and sell ownership of
unique digital items and keep track of who owns them using the blockchain.
Smart contracts: Programmes stored on a blockchain that run automatically

when pre-determined conditions are met.
DAO: Decentralised autonomous organisation. An organisation with no

central leadership or management hierarchy.
Web 3.0: Also known as the semantic Web or decentralised Web, Web 3.0
refers to the latest generation of Internet applications, powered by Artificial
Intelligence (AI), blockchain, and shared ledger technology.
Consensus mechanism: A fault-tolerant mechanism that is used in blockchain

systems to achieve the necessary agreement on a single data value or a single
state of the network such as cryptocurrency transactions.
dApps: Decentralised applications deployed on blockchain networks.
Staking: The process of delegating or locking up crypto holdings to earn

rewards like additional tokens and voting rights.
Permissionless blockchain: Open networks available to everyone to

participate in the consensus process that blockchains use to validate
transactions and data. These are also known as public or trustless
blockchains.

CHAPTER 2
How news media

companies
are leveraging
blockchain
Blockchain provides applications for the news media industry that can address
specific issues with content. Its very nature thwarts some of the challenges being
faced by publishers and creators.
Here, we’ll look at two of those important issues:
l Content rights management.
l The democratisation of content creator revenue.
A. Blockchain and content rights management
Copyright infringement is rampant online. According to blockchain consulting firm

ConsenSys, “digital piracy, fraudulent copies, infringed studio intellectual property (IP),
and duplication of digital items cost the U.S. film and TV industry an estimated US$71
billion annually,” based on data from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
Blockchain, with its immutable record of every transaction, can enforce a greater
degree of accountability and transparency in the media industry, as the Popula
example shows. No one entity holds the records. They are publicly available to
anyone who goes looking. And with more transparency comes a greater sense
of control and security — both directly applicable in combating copyright and IP
infringement.
One of the most exciting developments in blockchain, non-fungible tokens (NFTs),

could also lead to uses that directly counter copyright infringement and attract

Vogue Singapore published an NFT-themed issue in September. When scanned, a QR code on the cover
took readers to an online version, where they found two digital versions they could bid on as NFTs.
revenue, too. An NFT is the conversion of a unique, indivisible asset — tangible

or virtual — into a digital unit that can be bought and sold. NFTs are the ultimate
way to track and manage cross-platform digital ownership, and minting tokens of
media content could reduce online piracy by offering an accessible and affordable
alternative to pirated content.
Vogue Singapore collaborated with digital fashion house The Fabricant to publish an
NFT-themed September issue, which is typically the fattest edition with the most ads
of the year. The issue included a QR code for readers to switch to the online version,
where virtual gowns and two digital versions of the cover were converted to NFTs
and were available to bid on at the auction house Brytehall. The starting price of each
cover NFT was 12 units of the cryptocurrency Ethereum, or approximately US$38,000.
The proceeds of the auction were shared by the cover artists, Vogue Singapore,
Brytehall, and the cryptocurrency exchange Binance.
Gannett also is exploring the use of blockchain. In June, USA Today offered its first
NFT, consisting of multiple images of space coverage and featuring an image of the

Gannett offered its first NFT in June, consisting of multiple images from space coverage and an image of
the first newspaper taken to the moon.
first newspaper taken to the moon. In 1971, Apollo 14 astronaut Alan Shepard, the
first American in space, transported a special edition of Today (now known as Florida
Today and part of the USA Today Network) to the moon and back. To celebrate the
50th anniversary of Shepard’s visit, select stories from that edition were republished
and more than 300 photographs, graphics, illustrations, and front pages from five
decades of space coverage were used to re-create the cover as an interactive mosaic.
Auction proceeds went to the Air Force Space & Missile Museum Foundation and
the Gannett Foundation. During an INMA Webinar in September, Kris Barton, chief
product officer at Gannett, told INMA members it was more of a learning experience
than a fundraiser: “Our takeaway was, it was good, but the numbers weren’t huge,”
she said. “But we learned a lot in terms of the marketplace, ownership, and the
channel — how to use it and leverage it. We were reaching new audiences.”
In October, The Economist ventured into the NFT space, choosing to sell a cover as
an NFT. Appropriately, it chose an illustrated cover featuring an Alice in Wonderland
theme with Alice going “down the rabbit hole.”

The Economist auctioned off its October cover as an NFT. “By minting and selling our own
NFT, we are experiencing [blockchain technology] first-hand,” the company said.
The NFT was auctioned off with funds going to The Economist Educational Fund
(TEEF). It was, the company explained, “a useful pedagogical tool” to experiment with
the new technology.
“We have always written about the potential of technology to change the world,” the
company explained in an online article. “NFTs, and the crypto infrastructure they sit
on, could transform finance. By minting and selling our own NFT, we are experiencing
this first-hand.”
While most news media companies are still in that experimental mindset — or are
still learning about the capabilities of blockchain — the South China Morning Post
is among those that are embracing it. SCMP recently launched an initiative known
as Artifact that can directly impact digital content rights management. Artifact is a
standardised metadata structure that anyone can use to tokenise history as NFTs,
according to SCMP’s litepaper.

The rationale behind Artifact was similar to Popula’s: to create immutable records of
historical assets on the blockchain, hence assuring its permanence and decentralised
ownership. With more than a century of history as a news media brand, SCMP’s
tokenised news stories could attribute a new set of values to SCMP’s content.
Theoretically, digital-asset investors may want a share of the most significant news
stories as speculative, long-term investments. Buying a recorded piece of history in
the form of a news story could further inject capital into SCMP.
B. Case study: South China Morning Post
Breathing new life into old archives is the idea behind the South China Morning Post’s
foray into blockchain technology. Stef Lo, corporate communications manager for
SCMP, said the company is tokenising its 118 years of history as NFTs. The SCMP’s
NFTs are called Artifacts.
“We believe that factual accounts of history and authentic historical assets should be
immutable, and that ownership of these digitised and tokenised assets, which are part
of our collective human experience, should be decentralised,” Lo said. “Tokenising
history means that each of us can participate in collectively owning a shared
experience, regardless of where we come from.”
SCMP is looking to create a standard for how history should be recorded on

the blockchain. It has recruited blockchain developers, art curators, historians,
researchers, journalists, and archivists to co-develop a comprehensive metadata
structure.
“This standard will also enable collectors and users to easily discover and engage with
recorded history,” Lo said.
SCMP will share more details in a white paper, which will be published in November
this year.
“It will include a preview of the product, details on our blockchain partners, and the
council of experts,” Lo said.
Artifacts by SCMP will launch later this year and continue into 2022. Lo said the
company recently completed the prototype, which is getting great response so far.
Next, SCMP is building a marketplace to sell and trade the historical NFTs. SCMP

South China Morning Post is tokenising its 118-year history as NFTs with its Artifact initiative.
expects millions of people will own these Artifacts and be part of a marketplace that
provides the historical context needed to determine the NFT’s significance and value.
“The value raised by owning and collecting Artifacts by SCMP will be used to
sustain this newspaper’s objective and independent journalism, our soon-to-be
decentralised first draft of history,” Lo said.
For the launch, SCMP will issue randomised packs of five Artifacts that each get their
own card. Based on each Artifact’s historical significance, it will receive a rarity level.
Long-term, as SCMP opens up Artifacts to more participants, it would like to see
individuals create Artifacts using the standardised metadata structure.
SCMP also sees blockchain technology as a way to foster trust in the media.
“Blockchain enables greater transparency of the source and production of media

content, and this is crucial for readers to rebuild trust in the reputability of legitimate
news sources,” Lo said. “Blockchain offers immense potential to immutably preserve
journalism that witnesses and explains history.”
SCMP urges other media companies to align innovation and objectives with the

company’s mission. Lo said blockchain solutions are driving innovation and disrupting
traditional business models, but blindly following the trends won’t bring success.
“It is pushing the boundaries of what is possible, introducing a new paradigm of

dynamics between businesses and consumers that were previously unimaginable
because of the immutability of shared data transacted broadly across an ecosystem of
multiple parties,” Lo said.
C. Democratising content creator revenue
Artifact introduces another frontier of blockchain-based innovation, with DAOs, short

for decentralised autonomous organisations. DAOs completely ditch the classical
company hierarchy for community-controlled organisations that are regulated using
a governance token, enabling holders to cast their votes on business development
proposals.
Although not all blockchains are decentralised, this idea of democratisation is

powerfully associated with the technology. The South China Morning Post is
exploring the creation of a DAO to best serve its Artifacts holders and decentralise
the project’s governance for the long run. Industry experts believe this will change
the business structure of media companies in the long run: “The rise of DAOs
foreshadows the emergence of a new type of collectivist media organisation
structure, centered on creator/journalist owners and an overall flattened equity
structure,” said Troy Young, former global president of Hearst Magazines.
Flattening the hierarchy of content development is not new to the media industry.
Social media has for years been bringing creators in direct, two-way dialogue
with their audiences. As blockchain rapidly drives the Internet to Web 3.0, content
creator revenue will be increasingly democratised via platforms like Audius, Sapien,
SocialX, and other decentralised social platforms. These environments eliminate the
middlemen — for example, advertising agencies — thus giving the revenue directly
from consumers to creators.
Web 3.0 social media platform Sapien Network is one of the most promising
blockchain-based projects, aiming to democratise content creator revenue and even
fight the spread of fake news by introducing SPN, the network’s own cryptocurrency.
Sapien social network members are rewarded with SPN tokens for creating, sharing,

You’ll see people who adapt
and thrive because of what [the
technology] enables… It should
enable the publications and
the brands with the strongest
connection to their audience or
their community to do really well.
— Brian Morrissey, Founder, President, The Rebooting
and rating content, hence making the platform community-governed. Rewards

are calculated based on the amount of contribution and the value conveyed to the
network.
In the case of news, the community must unanimously agree that the news story is
true. Through the SPN token, users will be able to define the value of content and
their overall social experience.
In the long run, Sapien hopes to improve media consumption by paying creators
with cryptocurrency. This will incentivise creators to cater to their audience with
the best possible content while making users more mindful about the content they
consume. Rewarding the content creators directly will disintermediate advertising
companies that treat user data as a commodity, hence returning some of the
advertising revenue to the users.
Mirror.xyz is another promising project aiming to disintermediate digital publishing

by directly rewarding writers. In a nutshell, Mirror is WordPress 3.0, built on Ethereum
blockchain infrastructure and powered by cryptocurrency payments.
The user-owned, decentralised network aims to revolutionise the way content is

monetised. Every written piece on Mirror is automatically minted as an NFT, enabling
writers to auction off their work to readers or publications. Since the NFTs are

recorded on the blockchain ledger, copyright management is made easier, while the
chances of deleting or duplicating content decrease.
“[Mirror] is a nice evolution of rights management and certainly fits well with the
emerging creator space,” Young said. “The innovation here will open up new revenue
streams for media, particularly in moments where the brand is central to the creation
of a cultural moment. We have started to see this with the auction of Time and Forbes
covers.”
Mirror has already opened up a new revenue stream, enabling writers to crowdfund
their story ideas as NFTs. Early backers become stakeholders who gain a percentage
of the story’s profit. This incentivises writers to produce the best quality stories and
investors to find the most promising ones, hence recreating the dynamics of a digital
economy.
The widespread democratisation of content revenue will ultimately affect how

media content and media revenue are generated. While some fear traditional
media is being pushed aside by Web 3.0 platforms, Brian Morrissey, founder of
e-newsletter The Rebooting, which explores the future of media, believes that the
two can co-exist.
“You’ll see people who adapt and thrive because of what [the technology] enables.
… It should enable the publications and the brands with the strongest connection to
their audience or their community to do really well,” Morrissey said.
In his blog, Morrissey encourages both individuals and media companies to get out of
their comfort zone. Indeed, his blog is direct outreach to his readers, and he publishes
his e-mail address for all to see — something few journalists ever do anymore. Media
companies can meet their audience where they are, on Twitter, or in these emerging
social media networks like Sapien and Mirror. n

CHAPTER 3
How blockchain
will change
monetisation
models
Given that blockchain is best known for cryptocurrency, it should come as no surprise
that it can be used to reinvent the way news media companies manage money. Even
in these early stages of development, it shows promise for simplifying payments as
well as creating new pathways to monetisation.
A. Redefining the media supply chain
In today’s digital world, managing the digital rights, payments, and royalty collections
of a large media company is increasingly difficult. Blockchain’s distributed ledger
technology can create a more transparent and secure media supply chain and
decrease the number of copyright infringements. This can also help streamline royalty
payments, especially for companies with a large number of contributors.
FilmChain, for instance, is an automated collection service that collects, allocates,

and analyses revenue for movies, TV series, and digital content. It is the first collection
service to leverage blockchain technology to streamline payment automation
and lower revenue-collection and distribution costs. Incidentally, there are no
cryptocurrencies involved in the company’s operations, as FilmChain exclusively
accepts payments in fiat currencies, or money that is recognised as money but is not
backed by gold or silver.
With content consumption increasing exponentially, blockchain-powered fintech

solutions similar to FilmChain will likely gain more ground by creating a more
transparent and cost-effective payments infrastructure.

News media companies could learn from FilmChain, which uses a more transparent and cost-effective
infrastructure to make payments.
B. Enabling new monetisation options
Registering content on an immutable blockchain ledger allows content owners to

track the usage of their content in real time. The intricacy and transparency of the
shared ledger create new monetisation opportunities for media outlets, particularly
concerning subscriptions.
For several years, consultants and academics such as Deloitte, Consensys, and MIT
Sloan have imagined media companies using blockchain-based smart contracts
to make consumption-based pricing mechanisms possible, with payments flowing
directly from consumers to content creators. Smart contract algorithms would allow
users to order à la carte instead of having to pay prix fixe for a monthly subscription,
no matter how well-priced the subscription is. Pay-per-use pricing models would be
more cost-efficient than traditional monthly subscriptions, and the precision of smart
contracts could streamline these payments down to the smallest units of value.
The benefits to the reader are obvious, but publishers could see incremental benefits
from attracting paying readers who would balk at buying a subscription, particularly
because they are not in the publication’s coverage area, and could also cut the cost
of billing-office payroll. Despite the excitement of this use case, media company
exploration of smart contracts has been largely theoretical.

But Time Magazine is experimenting with an altogether different and simpler new
monetisation model powered by NFTs. TIMEPieces is a new NFT community initiative
that includes 4,676 NFTs from 40 different artists. Readers can buy any NFT from
the collection for 0.1 Ethereum — or about US$38 today — to become community
members. Members have unlimited access to Time’s content, invitations to special
physical events, and access to a variety of exclusive digital experiences. Time’s
initiative is basically a digital subscription with perks.
C. Case study: Time Magazine
As a self-proclaimed tech nerd, Time President Keith Grossman is focusing on Web

3.0 technology with a new community initiative called TIMEPieces. He sees the
technology as a natural evolution of the Internet and users’ needs.
“Web 2.0 is essentially the Internet plus social,” Grossman told INMA in an interview in
October. “Web 3.0 in its most simplistic form is the Internet plus financial ownership.”
The opportunity comes just as publishers, including Time, recognise Internet users
crave privacy and ownership over their online identity and data.
“People realise, ‘Wow, I’m spending a lot of time online. Why do I want to live as a
renter when I can live as an owner?’” Grossman said. “I have a verifiable source on a
blockchain that says I’m an owner; then what you’re allowed to do is ... buy a product
and you own it.”
In March of this year, Grossman announced Time would move into the crypto space
in several ways. All of the moves were precursors to the launch of TIMEPieces, a
community of digital art starting with what’s known as one-of-one NFTs. It went live
in September.
“One-of-one NFTs are the equivalent of fine art,” Grossman said. And, in using
one-of-one NFTs, Time was able to capitalise on an asset it has had for years and
essentially evolve it into what users want in 2021.
“The reason Time’s one-of-one pieces did so well is, on one end, we had a natural
extension from our cover story — people buy Time covers,” Grossman said. “We
chose 20 artists and told each of the 20 artists that they had one invitation that they
could extend to an artist that I did not know who would never have access to a brand
like Time.”

Our Future by Charly Palmert Spectrum by Edel Rodriguez
TIMEPieces, which went live in September, created a community of digital art with one-of-one NFTs.
Since the idea was all about building a better future, Grossman saw giving these
new artists a chance as a good fit. Each time an NFT is sold, which can be an infinite
number of times, Grossman says Time will donate 1% of revenue to a charity they
have yet to choose. The other 99% is split evenly between Time and the artist.
“I now have 40 artists who love Time, are advocates for Time, are telling their
colleagues to think about Time, and enjoy working with Time,” Grossman said. “They
don’t see it as a vendor/creator relationship, they see it as a collaboration and a
partnership. They’re part of the family now.”
One of the precursors to TIMEPieces was that Time started accepting cryptocurrency
for subscriptions on Time.com.
“I think that’s really important because what we’re signaling to people is we believe
and acknowledge you. We see you. And unless a company is willing to do that, no
one’s going to take their move into this space seriously at this point,” Grossman said.
Time now accepts 32 kinds of cryptocurrency, and users can buy an 18-month Time
subscription for the equivalent of US$49.

Grossman said another foray into crypto was doing a deal with asset manager
Grayscale. He had them pay in Bitcoin.
“I hold Bitcoin on our books, and everyone knows it,” Grossman said. “We do not keep
it a secret that we did that.”
He also made crypto a priority with staffing.
“We were looking for a new CFO and in the job description, I put in the last line, ‘must
be proficient in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies,’” Grossman said.
All of those steps led Time into its weeks-old success with the launch of TIMEPieces.
Grossman wants to ultimately see the community initiative as a larger ecosystem
where crypto and publishing work in harmony.
“One of the things we did with TIMEPieces is you can take your digital wallet, and
you can go to Time.com and connect your wallet to Time.com and it will remove the
paywall for you,” Grossman said. “Picture what that ultimately means for a subscriber
of multiple products: a better, seamless consumer experience.”
What’s most important to Grossman is allowing the TIMEPieces community to work

together and tell Time what they want to see and how they should continue to
evolve.
Brands have to take the future

very seriously. They might
dismiss it today, but this is
going to happen so fast.
— Keith A. Grossman, President, Time

“We can develop the community around the fact that we can provide them with
incredible access and we have incredible content,” Grossman said.
News media companies need to start looking at blockchain if they don’t already have
a strategy for it, Grossman said. “Brands have to take the future very seriously. They
might dismiss it today, but this is going to happen so fast.”
D. Optimising advertising revenue
The estimated cost of global digital advertising fraud is an alarming US$65 billion for
2021, according to Statista. Blockchain applications that combat ad fraud will likely
gain more traction as media organisations are looking to put a stop to ad fraud.
One prominent example is Lucidity, a blockchain-based digital advertising database.

In 2018 it announced a pilot project with Saatchi & Saatchi and Toyota, resulting in a
21% performance lift in Toyota’s programmatic ads using blockchain optimisation.
In a nutshell, Lucidity blacklisted sites and apps with high levels of impression and
click discrepancy. This shifted the advertising budget to higher-performing sites.
Creating greater transaction transparency between media companies and advertisers
can optimise ad revenues by eliminating ads with sub-par results.
E. Using blockchain to boost audience engagement
Media outlets are starting to recognise the potential to boost their engagement rates
using blockchain and cryptocurrency.
One of the best examples of this comes from Decrypt, the popular media outlet
covering the decentralised Web. Decrypt is incentivising its users to read, share, and
interact with their content in exchange for DCPT, Decrypt’s utility token.
According to the company, it has more than 4 million readers a month and grew its
audience by 2,000% in 2020. Rewarding the audience with digital assets bearing real-
world value can enhance audience loyalty while returning a portion of the advertising
revenue to consumers.

Decrypt Media was created to help novices navigate the crypto world.
Media companies can reap the benefits of blockchain by following Decrypt’s example
and creating a custom-branded readership token. Similar incentives can open venues
to loyalty and reward programmes for the top readers and incentivise them to engage
more with the content.
Cryptibles, an Ethereum-based app, enables media outlets to easily design their own
cryptocurrencies to harness the benefits of blockchain. The tokens can be used as a
digital incentive to increase user engagement. It is not clear that there is a financial
reward to this, but with the right marketing, it could be incentive enough for readers
to receive these branded tokens.

It’s a community-building
world and publishers, in
particular, have a really strong
opportunity to come in and
find new audiences.
— Alanna Roazzi-Laforet, Publisher and Chief Revenue Officer, Decrypt
F. Case study: Decrypt
At just 3.5 years old, Decrypt Media is helping decrypt crypto. And in doing so, the
company is creating new solutions for publishers.
In 2018, founders Josh Whittner and Ryan Bubinksi teamed up with Consensys, a
company that launched a programme to create projects with the potential to become
stand-alone companies. Decrypt stems from that programme.
Alanna Roazzi-Laforet, publisher and chief revenue officer, told INMA that Decrypt’s
ultimate mission is to help explain what it means to be in the crypto world and
become the bridge between the layperson and the experts.
“The whole notion of Decrypt is that we are here to translate the difficult into the
easy,” Roazzi-Laforet said.
Decrypt doesn’t just educate others on the crypto world; it uses Web 3.0, which are
decentralised platforms that run on a blockchain.
In early 2020, Decrypt launched a token on a blockchain that runs parallel to the
more popular blockchain Ethereum. It was a big success, Roazzi-Laforet said. Users
earned tokens by interacting with the app, reading or sharing a story, and then it
progressed into Decrypt’s first reward programme.

“Our first reward programme was NFTs. We commissioned artists to create NFTs for
Decrypt,” Roazzi-Laforet said. “You’re creating content and art that has a blockchain
ID, and that alone solves a problem we’ve been having in the media for years.”
That problem is fraud. Roazzi-Laforet’s background is in advertising standards, and

she understands the benefits of blockchain because it can track ads across the
ecosystem and follow their lifecycle.
Blockchain also offers traditional media companies a tremendous opportunity to

create communities using Web 3.0, she said.
“It’s a community-building world and publishers, in particular, have a really strong

opportunity to come in and find new audiences,” Roazzi-Laforet said.
But she also sees traditional media companies being overly cautious about diving into
this new world.
“They’re afraid of tokens and tokenomics. I think that needs to be dispelled and we’re
happy to help there,” Roazzi-Laforet said. “Tokens and crypto are not the enemy. They
are not scary. They’re a new way of thinking about the world. Approaching the market
with fear and trepidation, especially right now because it’s growing so quickly, is just
going to be a non-starter.”
Roazzi-Laforet wants media companies to look at tokens not only for compensation,
but for activities like building, communicating, governing, and showing value: “At the
end of the day, all it is you’re controlling supply and demand and you’re giving value
to activities.”
Looking into Decrypt’s future, the company just announced a DAO (decentralised
autonomous organisation) that Roazzi-Laforet said they’re thinking about like a wire
service. It’s called PugDao, and Decrypt is its first client.
“It’s basically open to everyone. Open to content creators, publishers, to publish

their content on a decentralised wire service,” she said, adding it is a call to action
to empower publishers to help Decrypt build it. “We are actively talking to traditional
publishers, crypto publishers, crypto journalists, and traditional journalists to come
and contribute articles to this new wire service.” n

CHAPTER 4
Takeaways for
media companies
Led by initiatives like Decrypt’s reader token, the South China Morning Post’s
Artifact, and Mirror.xyz that create immutable tokens of historical assets, blockchain
technology and NFTs are slowly entering the media industry as companies recognise
the benefits of decentralisation and censorship resistance. In October, the Associated
Press tweeted it is auctioning digitised versions of its photos and news articles
representing 10 key historical moments — such as Nelson Mandela’s inauguration —
as NFTs on the Binance crypto exchange.
Yet, as most blockchain-powered use cases are still in their infancy, how should
media companies consider applying this new technology?
According to The Rebooting’s Morrissey, exploring blockchain technology is the

first step: “For non-technical people, [blockchain] can be very overwhelming, but I
think that makes it really important to get involved and understand what is going on
tangibly versus reading endless VC blog posts.”
Morrissey was the president and founding editor in chief of Digiday, a digital media
company that covers the business of media. Now the blog he started has become a
soapbox for him to explore how to build sustainable media businesses and overcome
the excesses of digital media, which he says includes advertising systems focused too
much on data mining and targeting that lead to “horrific” user experiences.
But with the lesson of the World Wide Web in the not-too-distant past, Morrissey
argues that taking action, even if small, opens one’s mind to technological innovation.
“[Blockchain] kind of reminds me of the Web 2.0 era and the social networking
technologies, where people at the top of publishing are like ‘Why would I want to

The Associated Press began auctioning historical photos as NFTs in October.
tweet what I had for lunch?’ And the reality is it took them getting involved in order
to understand what it means to have a truly two-way relationship with an audience,”
he said. “But for a lot of publishing executives, that was very novel, and they couldn’t
really understand the power of that. And with crypto, it’s kind of a similar thing.”
Time’s Grossman is also urging news publishers to consider the benefits of

blockchain: “Spend time in the ecosystem to find out what’s taking place when,
where, and why,” he said. “NFTs provide a fundamental reset in the economics of the
media industry and in the creative industry, and people have to understand that.”
Initiatives like the Web 3.0 browser Brave make it easy for content creators and media
companies to start benefiting immediately from blockchain technology. Brave is a
browser that blocks invasive advertising and data-tracking software to empower the
user. Moreover, users can choose to view a set number of privacy-respecting ads and
be paid in cryptocurrency.
Meanwhile, verified content creators are rewarded with Brave’s BAT tokens based on
the time users spend reading their content on the browser. Any content creator can

register with Brave and receive its crypto payments whenever users read their content
on Brave. While there is a risk that these cryptocurrencies will not hold their value,
there is also no financial outlay to register.
This is the time for publishers to begin exploring blockchain, whether that means
joining a social network or opening a crypto wallet. These are small steps toward
exploring this emerging, disruptive technology that could lead to big outcomes. n

Exploring Blockchain's Potential To Transform Media

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October 2021

Exploring Blockchain’s Potential

Contributor Chapter 1: Introduction: Blockchain 11

Chapter 3: How blockchain will change 24

Chapter 4: Takeaways for 33

INMA | EXPLORING BLOCKCHAIN’S POTENTIAL TO TRANSFORM MEDIA 2

Jeanhee Kim is a senior editor at Forkast. She has edited

About the International News Media Association

INMA | EXPLORING BLOCKCHAIN’S POTENTIAL TO TRANSFORM MEDIA 3

INMA | EXPLORING BLOCKCHAIN’S POTENTIAL TO TRANSFORM MEDIA 4

“Exploring Blockchain’s Potential to Transform Media” doesn’t come at you in a

INMA | EXPLORING BLOCKCHAIN’S POTENTIAL TO TRANSFORM MEDIA 5

I have spent a career with a behind-the-curtain street view of media companies.

Consider INMA’s “Exploring Blockchain’s Potential to Transform Media” a down

INMA | EXPLORING BLOCKCHAIN’S POTENTIAL TO TRANSFORM MEDIA 6

INMA | EXPLORING BLOCKCHAIN’S POTENTIAL TO TRANSFORM MEDIA 7

Given blockchain’s association with cryptocurrency, it’s no surprise that it also

INMA | EXPLORING BLOCKCHAIN’S POTENTIAL TO TRANSFORM MEDIA 8

In this report, we look at three case studies:

INMA | EXPLORING BLOCKCHAIN’S POTENTIAL TO TRANSFORM MEDIA 9

INMA | EXPLORING BLOCKCHAIN’S POTENTIAL TO TRANSFORM MEDIA 10

Blockchain is a platform for digital communications based on an open, distributed

INMA | EXPLORING BLOCKCHAIN’S POTENTIAL TO TRANSFORM MEDIA 11

l Project Origin, a collaboration focused on developing an engineering

l Content Authenticity Initiative, a working group launched by Adobe, The

l The Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity, an offshoot of the

Given the distributed ledger’s openness and immutability, blockchain represents a

INMA | EXPLORING BLOCKCHAIN’S POTENTIAL TO TRANSFORM MEDIA 12

INMA | EXPLORING BLOCKCHAIN’S POTENTIAL TO TRANSFORM MEDIA 13

Blockchain: A system of recording information based on a shared, distributed

Decentralisation: The transfer of control and decision-making from a

IP infringement: Intellectual property infringement.

Smart contracts: Programmes stored on a blockchain that run automatically

DAO: Decentralised autonomous organisation. An organisation with no

Consensus mechanism: A fault-tolerant mechanism that is used in blockchain

dApps: Decentralised applications deployed on blockchain networks.

Staking: The process of delegating or locking up crypto holdings to earn

Permissionless blockchain: Open networks available to everyone to

INMA | EXPLORING BLOCKCHAIN’S POTENTIAL TO TRANSFORM MEDIA 14

How news media

Here, we’ll look at two of those important issues:

l Content rights management.

l The democratisation of content creator revenue.

A. Blockchain and content rights management

Copyright infringement is rampant online. According to blockchain consulting firm

One of the most exciting developments in blockchain, non-fungible tokens (NFTs),

INMA | EXPLORING BLOCKCHAIN’S POTENTIAL TO TRANSFORM MEDIA 15

revenue, too. An NFT is the conversion of a unique, indivisible asset — tangible

INMA | EXPLORING BLOCKCHAIN’S POTENTIAL TO TRANSFORM MEDIA 16

INMA | EXPLORING BLOCKCHAIN’S POTENTIAL TO TRANSFORM MEDIA 17

INMA | EXPLORING BLOCKCHAIN’S POTENTIAL TO TRANSFORM MEDIA 18

B. Case study: South China Morning Post

SCMP is looking to create a standard for how history should be recorded on

INMA | EXPLORING BLOCKCHAIN’S POTENTIAL TO TRANSFORM MEDIA 19

“Blockchain enables greater transparency of the source and production of media

INMA | EXPLORING BLOCKCHAIN’S POTENTIAL TO TRANSFORM MEDIA 20

“It is pushing the boundaries of what is possible, introducing a new paradigm of

C. Democratising content creator revenue

Artifact introduces another frontier of blockchain-based innovation, with DAOs, short

Although not all blockchains are decentralised, this idea of democratisation is

INMA | EXPLORING BLOCKCHAIN’S POTENTIAL TO TRANSFORM MEDIA 21

— Brian Morrissey, Founder, President, The Rebooting

and rating content, hence making the platform community-governed. Rewards