The world is becoming increasingly connected and dependent on digital technology. Record amounts of digital content, from videos, articles, photographs, music, art and more, are being consumed. Despite the increased consumption, the content creators are not able to capitalize, as the majority of the consumption is for free, or through ads-based platforms.

Creators have a bittersweet relationship with the digital ecosystem. The reach of a digital creation, gives a creator boundless accessibility to millions around the world. This boundless accessibility also plagues creators, as it makes it increasingly complicated to manage and track, the rights and ownership of their creations. The more their creations get distributed online, without proper attribution, the perceived value of their creation, decreases in kind.

Blockchain technology can help to address many of these issues creators face.

How does Blockchain help?

At a high level, a blockchain is an online record (database) public database, that is not controlled by a single entity. When data is put onto the blockchain, the data cannot be changed, but will forever remain publicly accessible. If you're interested to learn more about blockchain, check out these links: Link 1 Link 2 Link 3

The immutability that a blockchain provides, is important when considering the following aspects:

• Scarcity: When you upload artwork to the blockchain, you can define the number of editions available for release. The control and distribution of the editions is automated on the blockchain, so you can tightly manage the scarcity of your creations. No more than the defined number of editions, will ever be released.
• Authenticity: When you upload artwork to the blockchain, it cannot be changed thereafter. Buyers will know unequivocally that the artwork they are purchasing is the original, and has not been tampered with, because the publicly accessible data on the blockchain is always available to verify it. Even if other people copy it (as many tend to do online with digital content), the value of your artwork will not degrade, as long as the specific editions can be verified on the blockchain.
• Ownership: Every transfer/purchase of your artwork on the blockchain, is recorded on the blockchain. This means that there is publicly accessible ownership history for your artwork. Provenance is automated and accurate. Having a publicly accessible way to verify ownership, will create more value for your artwork, since it'll be easier to identify infringing use of it. It'll also make it easier for you to support any dmca takedown requests.

These unique properties lends itself nicely in enabling the sale/transfer/management of digital assets, resulting in the development and rise of Digital Collectibles. Digital creations can now be bought, traded, and collected, just like a physical collectible. CryptoKitties and the Forever Rose are a few examples of digital collectibles being bought/traded for large sums of money.

Forever Rose by Kevin Abosch — Sold for $1 million

MakersPlace

While leveraging blockchain technology can provide great benefits for a creator, the unfortunate reality is that, utilizing a blockchain is quite complex. MakersPlace was built to address this, by abstracting away the complexities, and making it easy to create and sell unique digital creations, using blockchain technology.

Empowering creators is our mission. We want to provide creators better ways to protect their work, and better monetize their work. We're offering the following to start:

1. Easy-to-use tools to publish creations to the blockchain.
2. Customizable storefront to sell your digital creations.
   
3. Distribution of your creations to other digital content marketplaces, and social media channels.

Here are some digital creations by featured creators who were first introduced to selling their digital creations on the blockchain, through MakersPlace.

Catriel Martinez Steve Johnson Martino Pietropoli

Jorge Ruiz Dueso Danilo Faria Mauro Maione

Dunja Jung Serste Weroni Art

Connect With Us

If you’re a creator, and would like to try out our invite-only service, you can reach out to us on Discord or email us at hello@makersplace.com.

To learn more about MakersPlace, check out the following links:

We are always looking to improve MakersPlace and try to keep you up-to-date whenever something changes. If you have any suggestions about what we should change or add to MakersPlace, then please drop by our Discord server and let us know!