As promised this Summer, High Fidelity just announced the opening of a virtual shopping experience which -- in a first for VR/virtual world platforms -- uses a blockchain-based registration system so that content creators can control the IP rights of their assets. As explained by HiFi COO Thomas Schofield:
These items are the first digital assets to be certified on High Fidelity’s blockchain service, the Digital Asset Registry (DAR), a decentralized, publicly auditable ledger that serves as a record of transactions made by High Fidelity users. Each item is uniquely identified with a digital fingerprint (a hash algorithm) and can be purchased using High Fidelity’s blockchain currency, High Fidelity Coin (HFC).
The launch of Avatar Island is a major step toward building a thriving virtual economy in High Fidelity. It’s also a major milestone for virtual worlds more generally: The DAR is the very first blockchain used for virtual world commerce, one that could even become a bridge to the real world.
More about it here. Ambitious to be sure, though the key question now is how many content creators will be comfortable using the registration system -- and how many consumers will be comfortable using it. High Fidelity founder Philip Rosedale discussed those points with me in August:
“In the client you will just have a simple 'balance' and an 'inventory' of things you own," he explains. "If you are asked to pay for something, you may have to enter a password. You won't have to do any fancy cryptocurrency things. The differences with using a blockchain are behind the scenes, and not visible to a casual user.”
And in a follow-up conversation:
How would your system protect items with multiple rights owners? To take your example, how would a pair of virtual sunglasses with a frame designed by one creator which uses virtual glass textures designed (and registered) by another creator be registered?
Philip Rosedale: Great question. When someone registers an asset, they will also have the ability to specify a fee (HFC$ or %) for including it in derivative works. When someone else registers a new asset, they can include a previously registered asset in their filing. And this will carry over to the marketplace, so that if someone sells an asset containing other works, those fees will automatically be paid whenever the new work is sold.
If High Fidelity becomes successful, there will inevitably be real life IP infringement lawsuits that some users file against each other (as they do in SL). How do you envision your system being used in RL court battles?
PR: I think that public information such as when an asset was first registered will be useful on those real life legal disputes.
You mention the HiFI team will conduct a "review that the proposed asset is [not] too similar to other registered assets (or RL trademarks or copyrights)". How is doing such a review going to be scalable, especially when HiFi grows?
PR: We will build tools that will automate inspection, for example finding similar models or textures to a submission.
If you visit Avatar Island, either as creator or consumer, share your reactions in Comments below!
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