Chinese fintech Ant Group — which is now poised to launch what could be the world’s largest initial public offering — has announced a new platform via its blockchain business.
Ant Group spun out from e-commerce giant Alibaba and is the parent company of China’s largest digital payments service Alipay.
Ant Group’s blockchain business, AntChain, has today rolled out a new digital copyright services platform. It combines blockchain technology with AI to enable creators to securely authenticate and verify all kinds of original content — whether video, image-based or written material.
The platform generates a unique, tamper-proof digital copyright certification and notary stamp for each work that is uploaded into its database. The certifications are designed to be valid for use in copyright infringement and tort cases. The company claims that these services can save their users 95% in costs typically associated with obtaining copyright registration and certification.
In addition, AntChain’s platform incorporates digital ID and search services to help creators more efficiently track and detect possible copyright infringement. Some 10 million original works are already being uploaded and certified each day on the new platform, according to AntChain.
One of the early partners in the new platform, which joined during its trial period, is the digital music score copyright distribution network, Shanghai C.C. Music Culture. AntChain’s platform generates smart contracts that record and automatically distribute revenue due to the network’s musicians and rights distributors.
Since 2015, when it began to work with blockchain solutions, Ant Group has developed its own increasingly sophisticated platforms that join the technology with AI and the Internet of Things, as well as backing blockchain research and development overseas.
Notwithstanding its serious commitment to blockchain, the company also has rebranded AntChain with a fair bit of humor and panache.