AFM: Panel to Launch Blockchain Working Group for the Film Industry

By Patrick Frater

LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – A group of film executives and tech industry entrepreneurs are to establish a working group seeking to plan how blockchain technology should be applied to the creative industries.

The call will be made at the American Film Market on Tuesday in Santa Monica by Manuel Badel from Badel Media and Patrice Poujol from The Lumiere Project.

“To better understand the applications and potential impact of approaches, we need structures involving industry stakeholders,” said Badel in a statement, ahead of a seminar Tuesday at the AFM. “It would be a sort of sandbox without borders where collaboration in experimentation, sharing of expertise, but also access to financing and markets will be among the main benefits.”

The event will also involve New York-based lawyer Jesse Weiner co-managing partner of Yingke Law. Together they will announce “a common initiative to create a global roadmap and an internationally connected ecosystem for the development of blockchain and smart contract technologies in the creative industries.”

The first partners in the so-called digital bridge project hail from Montreal, Canada and Hong Kong, which is Asia’s leading financial center, a nascent home for fintech, and a still-significant film making hub. They seek to bring in other institutions in the U.S., Latin America, Africa, Europe, Russia, and other parts of Asia

This network hatch research, education and practical solutions for the creative industries and come up with an annually reviewed roadmap for the use of blockchain and smart contract technologies in creative industries.

Independent laboratory initiatives will work on research that covers blockchain convergence with AI (machine learning) and XR (AR/VR/MR), and its growing integration into the five key aspects sectors film, the music industry, publishing, video-games, and digital arts.