OpenIP, A New IP Paradigm Initiative

Created
October 9, 2023
by
Van Wang
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OpenIP, A New IP Paradigm Initiative

Expanding the Definition and Scope of IP

In today's digital landscape, the concept of intellectual property (IP) has evolved beyond its traditional definition in the era of print media. While copyright, trademark, and patent remain common forms of IP, we now witness the emergence of new types such as software, algorithms, user-generated content (UGC), social graphs, and more.

One broad form of IP is massive user data, but it often lacks proper rights protection. The fundamental conflict between the complex and open user scenarios of Web2 and its closed organizational structure hinders finding a clear solution to this problem.

The Disparity in NFT's Current State, Vision, and Reality

While there is no comprehensive solution, the Web3 network offers inherent advantages such as openness, transparency, efficient rights protection, and flexible authorization. It presents a technical possibility that surpasses the system framework of Web2.

The recent NFT frenzy can be seen as an initial attempt to commercialize Web3 IP form. NFTs, based on the ERC721 standard, have gained popularity through projects like PFP (Profile Picture) and have become a phenomenon in the crypto world.

However, the NFT community has faced unprecedented difficulties, including the decline in prices of blue-chip NFT collections and the depletion of market liquidity.

Crypto markets are subject to strong industry cycles, but apart from the overall cyclical impact, typical NFT asset models have unique problems:

  • Limited Profit Model

    • Typical PFP NFT projects heavily rely on dumping NFT tokens onto the market as their primary source of development funds. This model suffers from severe information asymmetry, as there is often a lack of community consensus before the release of IP content. Unsustainable sales and profits based solely on community FOMO exacerbate this problem, especially in blue-chip NFT project sequels. The aggressive sales model creates a binary opposition between the project party and the community users, deepening the conflict and potentially leading to project failure.

  • Limited User Scale

    • Unlike infinitely divisible and fungible ERC20 tokens, ERC721 tokens are non-fungible and indivisible. Their unique on-chain data attributes are essential for NFT functionality, allowing for recording associated yet differentiated asset information within the same smart contract. However, this becomes an objective constraint on the development of the NFT community. The high issuance cost and limited number of 721 tokens per community result in typical PFP NFT communities having only a few thousand users, in contrast to communities with tens or hundreds of thousands of ERC20 tokens.

  • Officially Defined Content Boundaries

    • Officials play a significant role in the production of IP content, but the scarcity they define often lacks market recognition.

  • Lack of Incentives for Content Creators

    • Opaque royalty-sharing mechanisms lead to a lack of sustained royalty incentives for early IP content creators, while community users lack effective participation channels.

Beyond NFT: Seeking a More Open and Inclusive Form of Web3 IP

To address these challenges, we need to explore a more open and inclusive form of generalized Web3 IP. Let's reexamine the IP system of Bitcoin, which has achieved great success, and study its organizational structure and information boundaries.

Bitcoin

Bitcoin is a protocol that implements a public, permanent, and decentralized ledger.

  • Bitcoin system owns itself.
  • Bitcoin is created and maintained by Satoshi Nakamoto, core and community developers, ecosystem builders, and Bitcoin holders. Participants receive incentives from the bitcoins generated each block.
  • The Bitcoin system does not have a predetermined future goal for its on-chain information or core code.The community jointly constructs the IP content and consensus-based information boundary of the system in an emergent manner, similar to the evolving information form of DNA.
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Inspired by the elegance of Bitcoin: Introducing OpenIP, a New IP Paradigm Initiative, a Web3 native, generalized IP framework.

Definition of OpenIP

OpenIP, A New IP Paradigm Initiative, A emerging generalized IP form for Web3 infrastructure setup.

  • Self-Owned, as an informational entity, an OpenIP owns itself and is not affiliated with any other entity.
  • Self-Incentivised, in the OpenIP community, all participants are incentive-compatible through intrinsic incentive mechanisms.
  • Self-Emergent, an OpenIP does not have a predetermined future goal, similar to DNA, has an evolving IP information boundary, are constructed by its creators, distributors and users in an emergent way.

The Difference between OpenIP and the Old Paradigm

  • The core difference between OpenIP and traditional IP lies in its self-ownership. In some ways, OpenIP resembles a living organism in the information world, achieving a kind of self-bootstrapping or “freewill." From a certain perspective, we do not own an OpenIP; an OpenIP owns us.
  • Unlike open-source software, OpenIP has clear intrinsic incentive mechanisms.
  • Through self-emergence, the community from bottom to up builds the direction of IP, defines its information boundaries, and naturally involves user data as part of the IP entity. Intrinsic incentive mechanisms incentivize the production, authorization, and use of IP to achieve sustainable development.

Opportunity of OpenIP

  • Community Co-Creation
    • Tokenize royalties and establish a fair profit-sharing mechanism to incentivize content creators. Provide market tools for community users to support co-creation.
    • Encourage fan creations such as novels, comics, movies, music, games, etc., while maintaining the openness of the IP and providing flexible rights and incentives for IP contributors.
  • Web3 New Organizational Structure around OpenIP
    • By adopting an open IP self-organization structure, we can reduce the barrier to entry and allow a wider range of Web3 startups to flexibly leverage seed users and funding.
  • DeResearch & DeScience
    • Provide a long-term, incentive-compatible adoption infrastructure for a broader form of OpenIP.
  • DID
    • In the process of OpenIP interaction, accumulate on-chain behaviors to create an IP proof DID with social attributes.

Embracing New Opportunities with AIGC

AIGC greatly improves the productivity of ordinary users from the bottom-up. Through the utilization of CC0 copyright, NFTs, and tokenized royalties, The OpenIP enhances the productivity of user-generated content and addresses the integration challenges presented by conventional copyright frameworks.