Story Protocol Explained: Tokenizing Intellectual Property

Intellectual property (IP) laws can be tricky to get around. Imagine spending millions of dollars producing a movie only to get sued by an artist for copyright infringement on an artwork you knew nothing about.

That’s what happened when the comedy film The Hangover Part II was released in 2011. If you remember, in the film, actor Ed Helms sports a tribal art tattoo on his face identical to the one boxer Mike Tyson has in real life.

Producers Warner Bros were sued by Tyson’s tattoo artist S. Victor Whitmill who claimed that the studio used his original design in the movie without his consent. The two sides settled the case before trial, and the movie was released without any major hiccups.

Today, in an attempt to revolutionize this outdated legal procedure around IP usage, a blockchain-powered platform called Story Protocol is creating a repository system to make it easy to manage, monetize, and recreate IP.

Table of Contents Table of Contents

1. Key Takeaways
2. What is Story Protocol?
3. How Will IP Tokenization Change the Creative Industry?
4. Story Protocol and AI Industry
5. The Bottom Line
6. FAQs
7. References

Show Full Guide

Table of Contents

1. Key Takeaways
2. What is Story Protocol?
3. How Will IP Tokenization Change the Creative Industry?
Show Full Guide
4. Story Protocol and AI Industry
5. The Bottom Line
6. FAQs
7. References

What is Story Protocol?

Story Protocol first appeared under the spotlight in September 2023, when the company announced that it raised $54 million in a funding round led by venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz.

Notable investors such as Balaji Srinivasan (former CTO of Coinbase), Sanghun Kim (former CEO of Naver) and Roham Gharegozlou (founder of Dapper Labs) also participated in the funding round.

But what is Story Protocol and why is it generating all this hype?

Story Protocol is an EVM-compatible layer one (L1) blockchain that specializes in tokenizing IP, covering everything from literary and artistic works to artificial intelligence (AI) models and gaming assets.

Essentially, Story aims to be the base layer that hosts an ecosystem of creative applications. This ecosystem will be powered by Story’s permissionless IP repository.

Imagine you are one of the creators of a Marvel superhero character and you tokenize IP licenses on Story as ERC-721 or ERC-20 tokens. These tokens will give holders the rights to reproduce and commercialize superhero characters that you created and hold copyrights to.

You can set licensing terms and royalty fees that smart contracts automatically enforce, ensuring that you, as a creator, are always compensated for the use of your work.

The power of blockchain will also allow you to track the lifecycle of your IP and every recreation ever made, ensuring that legitimate content is verifiable among a sea of duplicates.

How Will IP Tokenization Change the Creative Industry?

Story is not only helping creators protect and monetize their IP but is also aiming to create a new system that unlocks the “full creative power of the internet.”

“Our current IP infrastructure is too unwieldy to support remixing, community lore, and co-creation as foundational pillars of creativity. Instead of leaning into the fundamental force of the internet — openness — most IP models emphasize a defensive stance, adding friction to the creative process,” said Story.

Story aims to lay the foundation to create a new IP system suited for the internet age.

Its permissionless platform will allow anyone to remix sounds, spinoff stories, and distribute licensed content. Artists will no longer have to negotiate on a one-to-one basis for copyright licenses. Code will be the law of the land and will enforce terms and agreements when conditions are met.

Story expects the advent of generative AI to supercharge “a new paradigm of networked creation” as the world embraces lower content production costs and instantaneous replication.

Story said: “In a culture where replication is instantaneous, and remixing is inevitable, we need a new IP regime that respects the rights of creators while acknowledging the fact that creation on the internet is an endless, recombinant, and fundamentally social process.”

Story Protocol and AI Industry

Story has collaborated with crypto AI firm Ritual to create a framework that will enable AI models and their outputs to be registered as IP.

As we mentioned earlier, Story enables IP to be tracked through their life cycles, across every recreation. This will be beneficial for AI model developers who want to see how their AI models are evolving with each new iteration and learn how they are being used.

“Imagine being able to license your image model and monetize it, not just by allowing users to pay for inference, but also by taking royalties on the use of generated images, all in a trustless and transparent manner,” said Ritual.

Announcing our partnership with @ritualnet

We are bringing crypto and AI together. AI models on Ritual can be registered seamlessly as IP Assets on Story Protocol

Programmable IP ?? AI

Learn more below ?? pic.twitter.com/9pKf6KM2AR

— Story Protocol (@StoryProtocol) March 14, 2024

The Bottom Line

Story Protocol has the potential to change how we look at IP today.

Traditional IP culture is known for its protectionist stance that tends to gatekeep creative assets from artists and fans. With the power of blockchain and programmable smart contracts, could we see a modern foolproof IP legal system that protects creators while fostering collaboration?

FAQs