It’s a wrap!

This weekend marks the closing of the film festival pilot with the Helsinki International Film Festival – Love & Anarchy, so this is the last chance to watch the films!

For me, our work with Helsinki International Film Festival is proof and validation that media distribution can finally run on creator controlled infrastructure, where ownership, data, and value are transparent, verifiable, and programmable.

So how is this achieved? At its core, cyon.media uses blockchain technologies, delivering programmable IP, global streaming and secure rights management. Traditionally, these functions and the associated data are in separate systems (owned by 3rd parties) making it difficult to track and prove provenance of content.

Every piece of content is linked to a wallet that represents the rights holder. Usage, access, and monetisation are governed by smart contracts, meaning transactions are automated and traceable end-to-end, essentially, content that carries its own terms.

It’s a big shift from legacy platforms, instead of handing over content to gated subscribers, producers and creators publish directly to their own audiences through a tokenised framework that embeds the licensing and payout logic into the content itself. Wherever that content travels, a festival site, their socials, or a distributor’s catalogue, the economics follow it.

This pilot demonstrated a working example of ‘IP-aware’ content delivery, powered by blockchain and delivered through an encrypted link providing direct audience access and automated settlement to the creator’s wallet.

So as the festival closes (48hrs left, go watch!) and we are one experience wiser, I’ll ask the same question I’ve been asking in every meeting lately:

What do you want to do with your content when you truly own it?