Web Monetization for Authenticated Content and Rightsholders — Grant Report #1

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Project Update

Glad to report that we leaped ahead towards our goals.

2021 has brought has shown a significant traction in content monetization though the Non Fungible Token (NFT) ecosystem. NFT’s reached sales of over $10 Billion in Q3 2001. In spite of their financial surge the current NFT marketplaces bear many deficiencies; rely in large degree on unsubstantiated (blind) trust that leaves participants exposed to loss from: (i)unauthenticated assets, (ii) actors who's identity are not independently verified, (iii) lack of persistent or verifiable bindings between the NFTs and the assets, to name a few. We have demonstrated solutions for these issues and some others and will feature those to the community in our SkillShare presentation this month (to be announced).

Note: In May 2021 Stefan Thomas CEO of Coil has announced Rafiki: An All-In-One Solution for Interledger Wallets. The implication of this development freed up resources from our end and enabled us to extend the application of our project to the NFT ecosystem.

Progress on objectives

Legitimate commerce relies on identifying and authenticating the products, buyers, authorized sellers and providing record of the transaction. There are no globally accessible tools for open commerce for online content that address authentication and details of ownership or usage rights conveyed with digital objects. It is the ambitious - may be even perceived as monumental - mission of CLink Media, Inc. (CLink) to create these tools.

The project has three stages:

(1) Implementation of the forthcoming standard being development by developed by the Coalition of Content Provenance and Authenticity (C2PA). "C2PA unifies the efforts of the Adobe-led Content Authenticity Initiative (CAI) which focuses on systems to provide context and history for digital media, and Project Origin, a Microsoft- and BBC-led initiative that tackles disinformation in the digital news ecosystem." CLink is an active contributing member of C2PA. The public draft specification was released on September 1, 2021. We are in the process of implementing the draft specification.

(2) Metadata integration. To ensure rightsholders’ content is properly attributed, and its uses tracked, content and rights metadata will be connected to the CLink platform. The platform provides a comprehensive interoperable identifier and metadata framework using the DOA ledger technology - powering perhaps the largest content registry network DOI today, and a schema implementing the models of the Linked Content Coalition (LCC). Together these can integrate metadata from any source.
Infrastructure
We have created a Distributed network for the CLink platform with clusters in Austin (TX), Hillsborough (OR), Montreal (CA) and Strasbourg (FR). The clusters are combination of on-premise (Austin), hosted bare metal (Hillsborough, Montreal) and public cloud (Strasbourg) infrastructures.
Metadata and identifier framework
Successfully demonstrated the integration of “external” JSON schemas (a/k/a type objects) for Value Sets and JavaScript validation for the objects in their lifecycle. This task was essential for a highly scalable interoperable ledger.

(3) CMS integration. To make these services easily available, integration through the CLink plugin to the WordPress CMS (powering over 42% of the Web today).
All features of our platform is accessible though our WordPress plugin which has been regularly updated during the course of the project.

Note: Will request a (no-cost) extension due to the timeline of Rafiki and due to the complexity of C2PA implementation.

Key activities

C2PA participation
Contributed to the C2PA working group task forces and to the public draft of the specification.

JPEG participation
We are a member of JPEG AH Groups on Fake Media and NFT.

Communications and marketing

Our fist application related to images. Accordingly, we have focused our communications and marketing in the imagery domain.

We have become the member of the world largest trade organization (CEPIC) in the imagery industry.

We wrote an article tilted "On the path to build trust in online content" that is published by CEPIC.

We are giving a presentation titled NFT Issues and Solutions at the JPEG NFT Workshop on October 12, 2021
Note: JPEG stands for "The Joint Photographic Experts Group". JPEG is a joint working group of the International Standardization Organization (ISO) and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC).

I was invited in the panel discussion at IPTC Photo Metadata Conference on November 4, 20210
Note: IPTC stands for "The International Press Telecommunications Council"

What’s next?

(a) Implement C2PA specification. Technology oriented readers may appreciate that this task involves fairly advanced skills for handling JPEG Universal Metadata Box Format (JUMBF), Core Deterministic Encoding Requirements (CBOR) implementing tools for facilitating CBOR Object Signing and Encryption (COSE) for digital signatures.

(b) Full implementation of the JavaScript validated “external” JSON schemas.

Note: CMS implementation is integral parts of all three steps above therefore it is not broken out separately.