GB2607026A

GB2607026A - A smart contract based blockchain application using non-fungible token for authorized asset sharing

Info

Publication number: GB2607026A
Application number: GB2107343.2A
Authority: GB
Inventors: Elmon Jacob; Elmon Brandon
Original assignee: Individual
Current assignee: Individual
Priority date: 2021-05-23
Filing date: 2021-05-23
Publication date: 2022-11-30
Also published as: GB202107343D0

Abstract

The authentication of digital assets in the form of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) in a blockchain network 507 to allow authorised digital assess sharing. Allowing buyers to purchase and access original digit assets such as audio, video and e-book for example via a blockchain network 507. The digital assets are tokenized into NFTs, which are embedded with an audio file 511 as a unique identifier. Smart contracts in the blockchain network verify, identify and update the digital asses. The process also gives the buyer and owner access to a unique audio sound or music that validates the transaction. the originality of the NFTs.

Description

A SMART CONTRACT BASED BLOCKCHAIN APPLICATION USING NON-FUNGIBLE

TOKEN FOR AUTHORIZED ASSET SHARING

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

[00011The invention relates to secured method and system of non-fungible tokens into a blockchain network by embedding audio code for authorized and genuine digital asset sharing. The application provides buyers to purchase and access original digital assets (as non-fungible tokens) such as audio, video, e-book, and other collectibles as per the choice in a blockchain network.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

100021 The improvement of technology has had a great effect on the creation and dissemination of digital media. Digital assets such as music, audio, video, e-books, and others improve the efficiency of media dissemination and reduce costs in the industy. With the Internet, everyone in the world can enjoy music, audio, videos, etc from a digital platform which makes large-scale propagation possible. The emergence and development of digital assets such as music not only increase consumption but also creates new problems about how to protect these intellectual property and artists incomes in the Internet era.

100031 The digital age has caused a massive expansion in the ways that people consume digital media: music, video, and other art forms of digital services. It is no longer feasible to license digital medias and compensate rights holders -such as composers, recording artists, publishers, and record labels -using the paper-derived processes that are still prevalent in the music and film industry.

Rights and royalty management processes have struggled to keep pace with developments in access models and the scale of consumption worldwide.

[0004] A growing trend in the music industry is the rise of NFTs or non-fungible tokens. NFTs are non-fungible tokens issued on a distributed ledger such as a blockchain. They are similar to cryptocurrencies like bitcoin in that they can be identified individually and are authenticated through a decentralized system of nodes via a consensus protocol. However, they differ from cryptocurrencies in that they are each unique, indivisible, and "non-fungible." [0005] NFTs are stored in "smart contracts, which are automatically executable code that run on top of the distributed ledger on which the NFT is recorded. They provide a method of "provable uniqueness" and ownership for pieces of digital art, images, music and other content. NFTs are provably unique because each image and piece of content is linked to a single token stored in a smart contract on the distributed ledger and its ownership can be irrefutably established. While others may have copies of the same content, only one person can own the specific token authenticating ownership of the content. Currently, most, but not all, NFTs operate on the Ethereum blockchain.

100061 The invention disclosed uses NFTs that are built using a consistent standard known as ERC721. However there are other standards like the ERC-1155 standard allows for semi-fungible tokens which are particularly useful in the realm of gaming and more recently, ETP-2309. Transactions using NFTs allow audiences to participate in auctions for unique content from the artists they love. Currently, these tokens and the transactions that involve them empower the artists who sell them and build trust on the side of buyers.

RELATED ARTS

100071 NFTs may help realize the long-touted but practically elusive goal of making blockchain technology a powerful tool to protect artists' rights to benefit from their creations without the need of intermediaries and to protect investors by helping establish provenance of art works.

100081 There have been recent studies and patent applications that disclose system and method for tokenizat on of digital or physical assets, and few uses non fungible tokens on the blockchain technology for converting the digital assets in trade. Instances of such application or prior arts are taught in patent application W02018222222A1, US20210097508A1, AU2018901546, LU102335A1, J1P6837185B2, CN107464111B, US10915874B2 and US20200213121A1. The patent application by Hodgson et al.. W02018222222A1, discloses a method of securely authenticating a recording file from initial collection through post-production and distribution. It employs meta-hashes into a blockchain network, applying an alignment and hashing procedure described in a smart contract.

[0009] In yet another patent application, US20210097508A1, Sean teaches about the system and method for creating, tracking, and transferring non-fungible tokens in the ethereum blockchain. It doesn't use any code that is embedded into the tokenized asset forms. Another Australian patent application, AU2018901546, by Peters teaches a method for referencing frames of a film and further transfers it into a non-fungible token based asset. The patent application, LU102335A1, teaches about the systems, methods, and storage media for managing digital liquidity tokens in a distribution ledger platform.

100101 Another granted patent application, CN107464111B, teaches a kind of blockchain wallet address generating method based on audio and a payment mechanism based on the audio file. However, it doesn't disclose the use of non-fungible tokens and any of the embedding method into the tokenized assets.

100111 Also, another prior art, a granted Japanese patent bearing no, JP6837185B2, discloses a method for analyzing blockchain based originality of music file or library node. But it neither teaches the use of unique tokens called non-fungible tokens (NFT) in the blockchain nor uses any encrypted code into the tokenized tokens for analyzing the originality of assets. None of the prior arts discloses embedding of any unique identifier as music code in the non-fungible assets for securing, authenticating and validating the assets of digital media industry.

SUMMARY OF INVENTION

100121 The embodiments described herein relate to an application that has a user interface that tokenizes the digital assets such as music, audio files, video etc using non-fungible tokens, which is accessible both to the owner of the asset and to the buyer without any intervention of a third party.

100131 According to one embodiment of the present invention, the system uses non-fungible token on the blockchain network for tokenization of digital media assets such as audio, music, video etc. 10014] In yet another embodiment of the present invention, it discloses a method of tokenization of digital media assets employing non-fungible tokens on the blockchain network.

100151 In another aspect of the present invention, it discloses a method of embedding an audio/ music medium as unique identifier on the blockchain platform, thereby validates the originality of the digital asset or file transferred.

10016 The digital token may be a string of bytes that define a set of rules or instructions associated with the base media file. The tokenized media file may be cryptographically secured to facilitate exchange and trade between two parties.] In an exemplary embodiment of the present invention, the invention discloses a method to converts a digital media file into a digital token.

100171 According to yet another embodiment of the present invention, the system discloses a validation rule for the non-fungible assets in a blockchain platform that is difficult to change. This ensures the ownership and originality of the digital asset.

100181 In yet another embodiment of the invention, the disclosed technology provide a system and process for modifying a digital media file, adding a layer of security to the modified media file, and adding a unique identifier to the modified file for distribution within a blockchain network.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF DRAWINGS

[0019] Figure I illustrates the basic diagram of network processing on which the subject invention is disclosed.

[0020] Figure 2 illustrates a flowchart of an embodiment that illustrates the client-server architecture of the application.

100211 Figure 3 illustrates an embodiment of the invention that discloses how an audio file interacts with the relevant databases to generate tokenized audio files by authenticating and validating the digital media file or asset.

100221 Figure 4 illustrates an architectural view of the disclosed subject invention. It basically depicts what occurs at each of the architectural layer of the disclosed application.

00231 Figure 5 illustrates an overall view of how the disclosed system is implemented in the blockchain network..0ther aspects of the present invention shall be more readily understood when considered in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, and the following detailed description, neither of which should be considered limiting. Each of the objects stated above will be described in further detail in the next sections.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS

[0024]Unless otherwise defined, all terms (including technical and scientific terms) used herein have the same meaning as commonly understood by one of ordinary skill in the art of this disclosure. It will be further understood that terms, such as those defined in commonly used dictionaries, should be interpreted as having a meaning that is consistent with their meaning in the context of the specification and should not be interpreted in an idealized or overly formal sense unless expressly so defined herein. Well known functions or constructions may not be described in detail for brevity or clarity.

10025IThe terminology used herein is for the purpose of describing particular embodiments only and is not intended to be limiting. As used herein, the singular forms "a", "an" and "the" are intended to include the plural forms as well, unless the context clearly indicates otherwise.

100261With reference to the use of the words "comprise" or "comprises" or -comprising in the foregoing description and/or in the following claims, unless the context requires otherwise, those words are used on the basis and clear understanding that they are to be interpreted inclusively, rather than exclusively, and that each of those words is to be so interpreted in construing the foregoing description and the following claims.

[0027] Various embodiments of the invention described herein include systems, methods and/or application that employ non-fungible tokens on blockchain network for secure transfer, trade of the digital assets by embedding unique identifier as music code.

[0028] Figure 1 illustrates a basic network diagram (100) upon which the NFT based application (105) is implemented. The system (100) includes parties (101,102,103) which represent either the owner of the asset or the buyer of the NET based asset who access the application (105) via their mobile devices. Each of these parties (101,102,103) may represent a holder of a digital token with a digital media file. The network (100) may include an application server (105) that stores a software embodiment of the disclosed invention and act as a host that provides the distributed ledger or blockchain environment for implementing the transactions within the system.

100291 Referring now to Figure 2, it illustrates the flowchart of the disclosed invention that occurs in the client-server communication (200) of the application. The input of the application is received as the digital form of artwork (201a), which is converted into tokenized form (201b) of artwork using non-fungible tokens. The disclosed technology provide a system and process for modifying a digital media file, adding a layer of security to the modified media file, and adding value to the modified file for distribution within an electronic network. The distributed ledger protocol may incorporate the use of smart contracts in the systems, which are evolving files whose status changes as conditions/rules are fulfilled during the existence of the digital media file within the system. The disclosed below generally exist within an electronic online environment. In an exemplary embodiment, a digital media file is converted into a digital token. The digital token may be a string of bytes that define a set of rules or instructions associated with the base media file. The tokenized media file may be cryptographically secured to facilitate exchange between two parties. The figure 2 further depicts the processes at the server and client side of the application.

[0030] At the server side of the application(201), the tokenized form of digital artwork or digital media (201c) is further embedded with a unique identifier or music code (201d) to generate a ciphered form (201e) of the digital art/media, which is identified only to the owner and the purchaser of the non-fungible asset On the client side of the application (202), once a buyer purchases a non-fungible form of digital art (202a) the application recognizes the buyer. It unlocks the encrypted form of d tal art (202b) and releases a unique audio/ music file (202c) which can only be heard at the buyers/owners end. This application checks the authenticity of the digital asset (202d) bought and validates it. The application is accessible to the buyer/purchaser of the asset, which can be heard only through the application exclusively for the purchaser/buyer of the non-fungible asset. And the application makes the original NET based digital media file or asset accessible to the buyer (202e).

[0031] Figure 3 illustrates the databases and their interaction in the smart contract based blockchain system for tokenization of digital media or assets It depicts an embodiment of the invention that discloses how an audio file interacts with the databases to generate tokenized audio files and to identify the authenticity of the IF asset. As an exemplary embodiment the invention discloses a system that uses standard music identifiers employed in the said application to enable digital music services. The audio file record (301) uses music identifiers that are necessary to identify digital music for the purposes of rights and royalty management and transaction processing. A system implementation of the technology disclosed includes one or more processors coupled to the memory. The memory is loaded with computer instructions to securely authenticate the audio file A standard unique identifier for sound recordings exists and is widely used among record labels the ISRC (International Standard Recording Code). Nevertheless, associating an ISRC with a digital music tile helps in getting basic information. An ISRC database (302) can usually be queried to get song title, artist and release year information. It can also tell other information like which compilations (albums) the track is included in. This information can then be used to look up the composition in a third party database or that of a Performing Rights Organizations databases, PRO. The figure shows how the PRO databases (303,304) store the audio file information's. The data retrieved from the ISRC and PRO databases is used in the algorithm to associate (305) the specific audio/music files with a unique identifier or audio code. The algorithm checks for the matching process (306) such as matching recordings which the purchaser wishes to buy with the unique audio identifier (307). This unique identifier acts as a private key at the side of the buyer, to unlock the non-fungible digital media or asset.

100321 In order to understand the smart contract based blockchain system for secure and authentic purchase of the non-fungible digital asset, it is essential to understand the architectural view of the application. Figure 4 illustrates the how the architectural view of the disclosed invention resides with. For the Network Layer (401), users are linked through the blockchain network Each user accesses the system through a node in the blockchain. A user can use services only when he has synchronized information of the whole chain. This confirms that the same ledger is shared among all users. For the Storage Layer (402), due to the limitation of the block size, it is impossible to store the audio files in the blockchain. In addition, each node needs to synchronize the whole data on the blockchain. If we store too many large files on the blockchain, it is a waste of network resources. External storage platform such as IPFS (Interplanetary File System) may be used for this purpose. It is a Peer-to-Peer storage platform which uses a content delivery protocol to retrieve and share objects. Each file has its own hash when uploaded to the file system platform as an identifier. People who have this value can retrieve files from the platform. Smart contracts in the blockchain are used to store the basic information, like the music title, copyright owner, and 1PFS hash which confirms this data is unchangeable and traceable. The Service Layer (403) contains functions that users need to operate. This layer encrypts audio files to protect the security of them. Key management is used to manage the decryption key. Digital signatures avoid the man-in-the-middle attack during the key exchange process. Access control limits the access permission of the user. To prevent illegal access, before uploading or downloading any media to the application, that media file should be enciypted to secure it.

100331 The audio file embedded in the tokenized asset using an encryption method so that it is identified only by the owner and the buyer of the asset. When a block chain node connects to the IPFS system, they can access any file if they have the hash address. It also prevent illegal download, before uploading the media file to the application platform, so that it should be encrypted to secure it, However, if we write the key to the smart contract, it is possible to be viewed by anyone. Therefore, we also introduce a third party, encrypted key concept, to help agree the key with the owner and decrypt the file by disclosing the asset only to the purchased customer. The key agreement uses the Station-toStation protocol which based on classic algorithm and can protect against man-in-the middle attack. This key will be input to the AES algorithm to encrypt the audio file.

100341 When a buyer/customer wants to purchase music or other digital media file, he can get the public value of the musician, and connect to the Key Protection Center to generate the full key. The audio file will then be decrypted by the key. The system uses the IPFS platform as our external distributed storage. We use JavaScript code to connect to IPFS, upload a file and return a hash code which is used to retrieve the specific file later. Once we have the hash value from IPFS, this hash will be integrated with other copyright parameters and stored in the smart contract. An access control mechanism is used for the audio file after it is purchased by the interested purchaser to protect audio/music outside the blockchain. At payment time, a buyer chooses how long he wants to use this file and this data will be detected by the said application. After the expiry date, the music will be no longer available.

100351 For the presentation layer (404), users can interact with the disclosed invention or the application From the Performing rights owners' perspective, they can upload, view, search, and play their assets. On the other hand, the buyers can login the application view, media files, purchase digital files, download the purchased files etc. For instance, Musicians can upload their musical works using this application Users can search, purchase, download and listen to audio files from the disclosed application. Information that musicians input on the application will be added to the smart contract (that may use the web3.js service, a Javascript API) which makes the interaction between Web application and Ethereum based blockchain nodes possible. After the audio file is purchased and downloaded by the buyers, they can play it locally without interacting with the blockchain.

100361 An overview of the implementation for the disclosed invention is illustrated in Figure 5. Both the users (501,502,503) and the owners (504) can access the digital 'artwork' (505) via the app-based market place (506) which works on a blockchain platform (507). The application has the option to extract digital assets (such as e-book, audio, music, video etc) through the database, Asset database (508).The asset database has all the information of the digital assets that the owners wish to sell in the application. For instance, digital media files that the owner or the performing rights owners own can register their original audio files via this application. The users can select the assets such as music or video files. The application at the backend works in such a manner that the selected digital assets are tokenized into non-fungible tokens (510). The tokenized digital artwork is then embedded with an audio file (5 I I) as a unique identifier. By the utilization of smart contracts in the blockchain, the programs verify, identify and update the digital assets. That is, it gets encrypted into a tokenized digital asset (512). The application validates (513) the originality of the tokenized digital asset, for instance, an audio file with the unique identifier of the owner. The application also gives access to the buyer and the owner to hear a unique audio sound or music that validates the transaction. Thus, the original digital asset is made available to the interested user without the intervention of any third party.

100361 The system uses hashing algorithm in the blockchain technology. In one implementation, the system determines block-level hashes for the data. A meta hash is a decentralized network for digital asset exchange and designed to create a solution that allows blockchain systems to unite into a single decentralized network capable to recording each and every transaction. A hashing algorithm is a cryptographic hash function and a mathematical algorithm that maps data of arbitrary size to a hash of a fixed size. It determines meta-hashes for the data. This includes identifying meta-block boundaries by applying a function to the block-level hashes, defining meta-blocks using consecutive meta-block boundaries, and producing the self-aligned meta-hashes by group hashing the block-level hashes of the meta-blocks. For the digital asset the system implements this and then repeats the determining of the block-level hashes.

100371 Reference throughout this specification to "one embodiment,"an embodiment, or similar language means that a particular feature, structure, or characteristic described in connection with the embodiment is included in at least one embodiment of the present invention. Thus, appearances of the phrases "in one embodiment," "in an embodiment," and similar language throughout this specification may, but do not necessarily, all refer to the same embodiment.

100381 Furthermore, the described features, structures, or characteristics of the invention may be combined in any suitable manner in one or more embodiments. In the following description, numerous specific details are included to provide a thorough understanding of embodiments of the invention. One skilled in the relevant art will recognize however, that the invention can be practiced without one or more of the specific details, or with other methods, components, materials, and so forth. In other instances, well-known structures, materials, or operations are not shown or described in detail to avoid obscuring aspects of the invention.

Claims

WHAT IS CLAIMED TS: 1 A method of securely authenticating digital assets comprising: a. tokenization of digital art or media assets employing non-fungible tokens (NFT) on the blockchain network; b, modifying a digital art or media file by adding a layer of security to the modified media or art file, and adding a unique identifier to the modified file for distribution within a blockchain network; c, embedding a unique identifier in the tokenized asset as unique identifier on the blockchain platform for validating the originality of the digital asset transferred.
2. A method according to claim 1, wherein the digital token may be a string of bytes that define a set of rules or instructions associated with the digital art or media file.
3. A method according to claim 2, wherein the tokenized media or art file may be cryptographically secured to facilitate exchange and trade between buyers and sellers.
4. A method according to claim I, wherein the unique identifier is an audio code embedded in the tokenized media or art file.
5. A method according to claim I, wherein digital assets include audio, video, or various art forms including but not limited to painting, architecture and sculpture.
6. A method of authorized digital assets sharing in a blockchain network comprising the steps of: a. generating a digital non-fungible token having a digital asset file; b embedding an audio code into the tokenized form of digital asset; c, purchasing of digital assets by a plurality of buyers; d. authenticating the transaction between the buyer and seller.
7. A method according to claim 6, wherein the digital token has metadata providing the source of the digital asset.
8 A method according to claim 6, wherein generating a digital non-fungible token includes conversion process by which the digital asset file is converted into the digital token associated with the digital asset;
9. A method according to claim 6, wherein authentication of the transaction is facilitated by embedding an audio code into the tokenized form of digital asset which further includes an encryption process that uses private key unique to the buyer and seller of the digital asset.
10. A method according to claim 6, wherein purchasing the tokenized form of digital asset includes a set of rules stored in distributed blocks of the blockchain.
11 A system including one or more processors coupled to memory, the memory loaded with computer instructions to securely authenticate a file that comprise instructions and data, when executed on a processor to implement a method comprising hashing algorithm in the blockchain for determining block-level meta hashes for the data.
12 A system according to claim 11, wherein the hashing algorithm identifies meta-block boundaries by applying a function to the block level hashes, defining meta-blocks using consecutive meta-block boundaries and making self-aligned meta-hashes by group hashing the block-level hashes of the meta-blocks.
13 A system according to claim 11, wherein meta hash is a decentralized network for digital asset exchange and designed to create a solution that allows blockchain systems to unite into a single decentralized network capable to recording each and every transaction.
14. A system according to claim 11, wherein a hashing algorithm is a cryptographic hash function and a mathematical algorithm that maps data of arbitrary size to a hash of a fixed size.*********