Associated Press partners with blockchain media startup Civil

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Civil Media Company, a blockchain journalism startup, has teamed up with the Associated Press (AP) to improve efficiency and protect content creators from plagiarism, according to Digiday report.

The partnership involves two aspects. The first will see AP licensing its content to Civil’s network of 14 newsrooms. The deal will also pave the way for the creation of a blockchain-type ecosystem where Civil and AP can keep a record of their content.

In an interview with Digiday, Civil founder and CEO Matthew Iles said their partnership with AP will ensure publishers and creators are receiving name credit and compensation for their content. The deal will also make it easier for both companies to track down those who will attempt to plagiarize their content.

Data showed that between 50% and 70% of content published by media outlets like AP are being republished without permission. According to Iles, “People who are creating content aren’t in control of it in any way,… What this all boils up to is content creators should be able to get credit for their work wherever its published and more efficiently track the chain value and ensure people are getting name credit and compensation.”

Jim Kennedy, SVP of strategy and enterprise development at AP, said although the media company is interested in finding new customers, they also want to ensure that content creators get fair compensation and credit for their efforts. He explained, “Right now, we send something out on the internet, and we can’t really track it in all the ways it’s consumed.”

The problem, according to Kennedy, has been going on for a long time now without a solution, although AP is hopeful that the partnership with Civil will improve the landscape for content creators.

“When you’re licensing content to a legacy media company, you can pretty well track it. But on the internet, it’s never been easy. When we do contracts with people, we establish their rights to use it, and they’re generally followed. But when it’s published, it’s freely available for people to scrape and cut and paste. It used to be, we just worried about people using it for free. Now there’s this whole element of people using it for fake news and misinformation. This presents an opportunity to have a real track record of who’s allowed to publish content and how it’s being used,” Kennedy said.

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