Wemark- Blockchain-based Stock photo Platform

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Today, digital content, such as music, photos, and video, is at a high demand. But the distribution is driven by a centralized market with a few companies that control it. Wemark is a blockchain-based project that promises higher revenue for content creators and protects authors’ rights using its decentralized infrastructure. The project will be launched after the main token sale in May, and its stock photo platform is already functioning.

What is Wemark created for?

Unlike other digital content marketplaces, this project uses Wemark Protocol that is based on blockchain: it allows for organizing distributed platforms for all kinds of content and establishing a connection between them in a decentralized network. Therefore, an alternative distribution infrastructure without third parties is created. Wemark solves the following problems:

• Traditional stock photo marketplaces prefer working with agencies that pay content creators about 15-30% of the content cost, leaving the most of revenue to themselves. Wemark promises an 85% reward for authors. Payments will be made in cryptocurrency, or electronic currency and the smart contract technology will help to perform transactions quicker and safer.
• When content is purchased, authors don’t know who gets the license, which can cause some issues. Wemark allows controlling who gets the license, and authors can be sure that the copyright won’t be violated.
• Self-distribution doesn’t work because recognized agencies promote their products aggressively leaving no space for individual photographers: the marketplace is occupied by agencies. Wemark changes this scenario by simply removing middlemen from this process. In this platform, Client and Content creator can interact directly.

Therefore, Wemark acts as an alternative digital content marketplace where no middlemen are needed, and customers can get photos and other files directly from the creators.

Users

Wemark is designed to be used by two groups of people: Customers and Content creators. The second ones work to make photos, videos, or music, while the representatives of the first group buy the files. There will be no agencies and no third parties. Wemark will simply act as a platform for content distribution and money transfer to perform purchases.

Technical realization

Wemark is based on Ethereum blockchain: it utilizes smart contracts to control the distribution of content. The WMK token is used as the internal currency for performing all transactions. The principle of work is pretty simple:

• A content author uploads his files in Wemark system;
• A customer buys the files leaving 15% fee for Wemark;
• Author’s license is preserved: all information about copyright is stored in blockchain decentralized system.

Aside from the marketplace, Wemark offers tools for content creation and a collaboration platform for creators who can join the community and help each other.

At the beginning of its existence, Wemark will store the content in a traditional cloud solution – Amazon Web Services. However, when its protocol for decentralized storage will be fully developed, files will be stored in a decentralized system of nodes (some can be provided by individual users, as well).

About Wemark team

Wemark team unites developers from Israel and San-Francisco (Silicon Valley) who work together with experienced advisors from different industries. It is founded by Tai Kaish and Pavel Elkind, specialists in digital marketing and software engineering. Experts in the sphere of network effects, marketplaces, copyrights, the blockchain, venture capital, IT security, and photography are working together to elaborate the platform.

ICO details

Token sale starts on May 7th, 2018, and will last until May 21st, 2018. 135,000,000 WMK tokens will be available for sale. One WMK token equals $0.2, which is a sensible price. No new tokens will be generated further on, and after the end of the public sale, the rest of them will be burnt. The company has stated the soft cap of $1.5 mln, and the hard cap of $8 mln – these are pretty low numbers in comparison with other start-ups, so owners are likely to reach the hard cap if they manage to get enough attention from potential investors. No minimum or maximum personal cap was specified, which makes it hard to plan the amount of investment beforehand. No discount will be rendered for early investors, but early contributors who publish their photos before May 1st will get 100% of revenue.

Bottom line

Although the idea behind Wemark isn’t new, it can attract photographers and content makers thanks to a low fee and beneficial conditions of partnership. From investor’s point of view, the project doesn’t seem to be very attractive: WMK value won’t witness a huge growth if several payment options (BTC, ETH, fiat currency) will be introduced, as promised.

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