Simon Waters on Web 3.0 and why the sea-change for licensing will come when the blockchain is translated into physical products, and the worlds collide.
Over the last 12 months, I’ve been fortunate to work with some very innovative web 3.0 companies. All of them are developing new IP worlds that could not have existed a few years ago. All of them believe they will change the world.
Some of them will. They’re just not sure how yet.
Web 3.0 is a bit of a bro-tech term that not everyone agrees on, but in its most basic form, it’s a world where users will all be connected via a decentralised network that gives us access and ownership of our own data.
If Web 2.0 was the era of social media, with the tech-giants controlling our data, access and content as centralised organisations like Facebook and LinkedIn, then Web 3.0 puts all of this into the control and ownership of the user. You, me and everyone.
It’s digital democracy in action.
The fundamentals of these new web 3.0 entertainment worlds being built today look and sound like what we are all probably used to: great stories, wacky ideas, fabulous products and super-creative brand experiences.
But how they scale and monetise, could not be more different.
The traditional world of licensing is a centralised, closed system. Transparency is limited (the consumer has no insight into how the sausage is made), security is vulnerable (we still send watermarked power-points and demand hard-to-enforce NDAs for our assets), processes are largely manual (excel forecasts), and scalability is limited (the reason there are few truly global licensors and licensees).
The blockchain, a key component of Web 3.0, is the opposite. Every transaction on the blockchain can be seen by anyone. Control sits with the end user. Security is (almost) tamper-proof, processes are entirely automated and scalability is high. There are no borders.
The blockchain is simply a ledger that facilitates the recording of transactions. The blocks are the records of data, and the chain are the links that each block has with each other, every time a transaction occurs.
Licensing, at its business model heart, is a sequence of transactions from the IP owner, all the way through to the retailer.
So, if that’s the case, what does this all mean?
Well, the more I study, the more my crystal ball gets less fuzzy by the day, and a heck of a lot more exciting. And although the focus for Web 3.0 today is on the digital side of IP licensing, the sea-change for our business will come when the blockchain is translated onto physical products, and these worlds collide.
Here’s a few Web 3.0 predictions to tease you with…
• Lawyers may no longer be needed because contracts will be embedded into the blockchain and executed automatically.
• A style guide may become a profit centre, because creators will be rewarded every time an asset transaction occurs, for as many times as those transactions happen.
• Licensing agents may disappear, because a decentralised market has been created by the IP owner, where licensees can buy a licence without an intermediary.
It’s hard to predict how much, how long and when change will come.
But we all know it will.
So, here’s to Web 4.0.
Simon Waters runs World Builder, a licensing and content brand accelerator, and is the founder of The Licensing Insiders, a connected collective of senior licensing executives who deliver incremental revenue and brand growth for their clients without the overhead of in-house or agency teams.
