Wemark: Revolutionizing Photography Industry

I was turning the pages of a local magazine when I came across an ad featuring an attractive girl. The ad was of some cosmetic cream or treatment. But what caught my attention was the self-professed claims the ad made about the product along with the testimony of the girl. A close look and I was horrified to find my model friend, Emilia smiling a benign smile through the pages. I called her to find amazement and wrath on the other side of the receiver, "Who the hell is claiming that I had pimples on my face and got them rubbed through a filthy cream?" This huge outcry was enough to make me realize that her photograph had been illegally used. And the sorry part - She had no control over the misuse of her images.

This is just a single case out of thousands of others where digital and intellectual content was plagiarized or misused. The market for digital content is flooding with photos and media with creators virtually having no rights or control over where their content might be used. To add salt to the wound, the digital content market is highly centralized with a few big names such as Getty Images and Shutterstock. The distress lies in the fact that the hard work or creativity of photographers is never realized. It is almost usurping the morale when about 85% of the fees slide to the marketplaces. The idea of self-marketing though lucrative and in sync with every benefit is out of the reach of lesser known names and only a luxury for a few. Wemark, a VC based startup offers a decentralized marketplace for digital content to tap the 4 billion huge photography industry.

Now the photographers are no longer required to be at the mercy of the main agency; through blockchain mechanism, they can reach a global audience and still keep the rights to themselves. On the other hand, the customer can easily license curated photographs or discover new content whenever they need.

The whitepaper is an honest take on the project while the makers talk about another interesting disruption that talks of parity, transparency, and viability to the creators and customers alike. They talk of partial decentralization in the initial stages and decentralizing the complete marketplace slowly and progressively. They boast of a few collaborations as well with Wibbitz, an editing portal, and Gurushots, a leading photographer community. Wemark's distributed approach works through a simple mechanism.

It is a set of smart contracts, developed to empower distributed exchange of digital content. The protocol replaces the core responsibilities of today's content marketplaces: licensing, payments, revenue distribution, and storage access.

How does it work?

The agreements contain the price of licensing and other such terms and conditions. Once entered on the public ledger they become immutable. The middlemen so removed through smart contracts further automates the process of payment through the platform's token (WMK). The creators are required to submit a 15% fee and keep the rest. This will ensure trust and transparency between parties and unauthorized duplication and misuse can be easily checked. The images are stored on an external server and are represented on the blockchain through hashtags.

Benefits:

The platform invests in the rights of both its creators and customers:-

• Photographers

They get to keep all the rights of their content while licensing the use. In this way, they can keep a track where and by whom their content is being utilized. They are able to control the price and get to keep much of their revenue. Add on benefits of transparency to track their deals.

• Customers

The customers would benefit from better control over their subscriptions and use of the WMK token. The platform extensively curates relevant stuff easing the choice procedure. The prices will drop by half and several payment options will be made available to the customers. As such community spirit and trust will also be enhanced further.

WMK token and ICO details:

All payments on the marketplace will be made using WMK tokens. The tokens can be purchased through credit cards, wire transfers, Bitcoin, Ethereum etc.

The total supply is fixed at 135,000,000 tokens. The token is ERC20 based. The soft cap is fixed at 1.5 million USD and hard cap is fixed at 8 million USD.

The token sale will start from May 7th and end on May 21st, 2018.

Concluding Verdict:

Wemark, if successful could change the norms of the game. Photographers need not suffer and thereby have an extra impetus. It could be a budding ground for new talents as well. Also, embedded and predefined contracts, automated procedures and many other sophistications for the benefit of the customers and creators will help in creating mass appeal for the marketplace.

From the investor's point of view, putting money into such a venture with huge potential for popularity and growth can be worthwhile. It may appeal to those dealing directly in digital content more. The stage is set, the success needs to get clicked. The honest approach appeals to me and the step by step progression and blockchain command trust as well.

For more details log on to:

Website: https://www.wemark.com/

Telegram: https://t.me/wemark

ANN Thread: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3347524.new#new

Whitepaper: https://www.wemark.com/whitepaper.pdf

Blog By: Lanirm Knayam

BTT Profile: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=1308391