Good lord, Kodak's stock is up 120 per cent. How? New film? Oh. It launched a crypto-coin

Re: Professor of Cunning

"photographic copyright becoming very difficult to enforce"

and how is some cryptocurrency bollocks going to make the slightest difference to that?

Re: Professor of Cunning, and useful for audio?

Just like pixels, voxels need their fair representation.

We could call it The Professors Cunning-Voxels.

However it seems like we should make this much more I18N and replace Voxel with something that implies that it works in many languages. Any thoughts?

EktaChrome Blockchain

I've got this idea of using individual EktaChrome slides as proof-of-work. All that is required to run in steady-state is for my Mum to draw the curtains, my Dad to get the projector down from the loft and one of us to load up the carousel with the blockchain of images. To "mine" a new coin it will, of course, be necessary to take a picture of something notable (family member in shot optional), send the film off for processing (1 - 2 week) and then carefully insert the new slide into the carousel trying not to burn your fingers and also making sure not to put it in upside-down or back-to-front.

Re: Zombie brand

I think you might be thinking of "Polaroid" - which is now just a name for cheap tat to stick on earbuds etc.

Kodak do still make film, especially for movie and industrial applications - they just don't do much domestic photo stuff

Re: Zombie brand

"Yet Another Anonymous Coward" and "LDS" cover this fine. Yes, today's Eastman Kodak is still legally the same company as the one which went bankrupt in 2012 (#), since the bankruptcy proceedings didn't result in it being liquidated. On the other hand, they did- as mentioned- have to sell off their still film division and some patents as part of the process, and IIRC they'd already been selling off stuff before bankruptcy.

And as Brian Miller noted, they'd sold off everything that wasn't film for short-termist reasons (quite a while ago if I remember correctly- it's been argued that Kodak's sell-off-related decline started in the early 90s *before* digital exacerbated the problem). And they didn't move away from their once-lucrative film business until it was too late.

You don't see Fujifilm having to waste time with publicity stunt nonsense like this because they were better managed, moved on successfully, and don't have to pander to name recognition nostalgia to get a licensing fee from someone's random moneymaking scheme.

So, yeah, Kodak's still legally the same company, but ultimately, if they're reduced to little more than a nostalgia-exploiting, brand-whoring shadow of their former self it makes little difference anyway.

(#) Unlike- as noted- Polaroid, where the assets (including name and IP) were sold to form what was legally a new company.

If I look back on all the crap I saw on the Internet.

It's a wonder I can even think at all.

Good book, that

Re: What's the point?

The point is that- through their own short-sighted mismanagement- Kodak left it too late to move their film-based company into the digital age (when they could have been leaders- or at least contenders- if they'd played their cards right) and are now has-beens reduced to exploiting their own name recognition on "me too" bandwagon-jumping nonsense like this.

Oh... you meant what's in it for *you*? Not much, I'd guess, but please think of poor Kodak.

You need to be patient and wait to capture the moment.

"You press the button, we blockchain the rest!"

It just needs further developing.

Re: and inevitably

Fine, but the question remains: how is using a blockchain to do this better than the other methods of doing the same thing?

Re: and inevitably

"Furthermore, the blockchain could be programmed to only allow access to work once proof of payment is recorded."

How is that any different to literally every online store out there that sells digital products?

Re: Forget the Coin

an open, distributed ledger that can record transactions between two parties efficiently and in a verifiable and permanent way

Yes. The important parts are "open" and "distributed".

Closed and centralised ledgers recording transactions have been around since the invention of legal systems. The whole point of blockchain is to allow these ledgers to be open and decentralised. So, not owned by a particular company, or part of a particular service.

That is what 80% of these blockchain startup scams miss. It isn't an application for blockchain if the ledger is owned, controlled or operated by a single entity -- it is just an old fashioned business that wants to pretend to be something new to fool investors.

"I can't see why it wouldn't take off."

Because unless image use happens only inside the "exchanges", there's no way to limit easily an image use when it's in the wild. Bitcoins & C. are useless outside their own "networks", and you store them in some kind of vault until you use them - images are useful for several uses, and are published. Once I display it on my monitor, I've a copy of it.

Sure, Kodak may also use spiders to crawl for illegal usage, but such systems already exist, well before blockchains. Just as licenses and certificates (for limited editions prints).

Or it should develop an application or plug-in to show images only under specific conditions and hinder reproduction - good luck for it, and its acceptance.

Re: Forget the Coin

"This is quite an exciting development in digital rights management"

What makes it an exciting development? How is it better than the existing methods of doing the same thing with regard to photos? I know little about blockchains aside from implementation details, so to me this all looks like nothing more than marketing hype. How is it not?