Partnership Between Envision and Curtin University’s Blockchain Lab Is Set to Overcome Harsh Middle-Man Fees On Stock Media Images

Envision, a Web3 solution that seeks to give stock media creators power over their own creations, has recently announced a partnership with Curtin University’s Blockchain Lab. Its purpose is to overcome legacy Web2 partnerships in which middle-man platforms take high percentages away from the creator’s income, revolutionizing the stock media market. 

The blockchain infrastructure that will be used by Envision will be exclusively tested and developed by Curtin’s Blockchain Research and Development Laboratory. Alongside the construction of the blockchain’s infrastructure, Curtin will be setting up the ERC-1155 tokens, the token behind NFTs, giving users further control over content as their work won’t be able to be duplicated. Instead of forcing users to go through middle-man platforms, this partnership ensures that blockchain will return the power to the creator, providing pathways for peer-to-peer sales of stock media content. 

Additionally, Curtin will be managing the associated blockchain nodes, smart contracts, and decentralized file-sharing systems, like the IPFS. Each smart contract on the platform will be optimized, with scalability options within the infrastructure ensuring that gas fees are drastically reduced. Alongside this, the smart contracts will be exposed to integration testing, unit testing, whitebox penetration testing, and acceptance testing.

Curtin offers a confluence of blockchain knowledge, drawing from the research units of Curtin University as well as Natsoft Consulting, which is the company that supported the development of the laboratory. The director of the Blockchain Research and Development Laboratory, Vidy Potdar, has a Ph.D. in Digital Image Watermarking and Steganography, a bridge between cryptography and stock media which makes him an apt addition to this project.

Envision’s blockchain infrastructure will be an end-to-end technical solution, with Curtin covering everything from attracting news users to enabling a more efficient blockchain-based stock image platform. 

Envision aims to use this infrastructure to give power back to its creators, using blockchain to provide an advanced stock media platform. Typical stock media platforms offer their creators very low shares of the revenue for their creations, with some getting as little as 20% of total sales. Additionally, the creator has no control over the revenue or pricing, meaning that their own stock photos are completely out of their control.

Commenting on the absurd market balance between creators and distributors within Web2, Potdar comments that “The revenue that Web2 solutions can generate via stock media creators suggests that the market is ripe for disruption. With the knowledge and experience Curtin’s Blockchain R&D Lab brings to the table, Envision will be strongly positioned to be a market leader.”

By integrating NFT systems on the blockchain, Envision allows for ownership to become directly tied to the creator, streaming the paperwork process by relying on smart contracts within the blockchain. Additionally, as the creators will be afforded a much higher degree of control on their own digital assets, they’re able to decide prices and revenue percentages. This represents an important step in creator-owned content, driving the power back to creators on this blockchain-ran platform.

Co-Founder and CFO at Envision, Miles Bradley, stated that he is excited to see that the project will help to “bring mass adoption to the blockchain space,” with leveraging Curtin’s Blockchain Lab is a phenomenal opportunity to “fast track our development and adopting, making sure we are in the best position possible to achieve our goal of supporting the creators who have succumbed to greedy Web2 solutions for too long.”

With the development and launch of this infrastructure, the integration of Envision with Curtin’s research will allow NFTs to provide peer-to-peer stock media content exchange, overcoming the prohibiting barriers of third parties and returning power to the creators. 

Once this technology launches, long gone will be the days of Web2 contracts causing creators to take home a fraction of the income on their own work. This is a vital step towards creator-owned media in the stock media industry. 

Disclaimer: This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice