"It’s difficult for authors to protect their images in the digital age. Pictia provides them with solutions through a variety of technologies!"
Creators have a hard time protecting their works in the digital age, with images being published on the Internet without authors’ permission or being misused to feed fake news.
The sheer number of images posted online every day and the high cost of protection tools currently on the market make this task even more difficult! “Authenticating an image costs €10 and a digital report to establish fraudulent use, made by a bailiff, is about €350,” explains Julie-Sarah Marguet, CEO and Co-Founder of Pictia. “Moreover, with hundreds of millions of images circulating the Internet, image banks, which manage copyrights, are unable to find the source of everything,” she adds.
It’s difficult for authors to protect their images in the digital age. Pictia provides them with solutions through a variety of technologies!
Authors therefore have no guarantee that their rights will be adhered to. Due to lack of evidence, they often prefer to abandon any legal proceedings.
As a result, Pictia created a platform that brings together all the protection and copyright management services available, thanks to blockchain technology. It is possible to certify images, sell NFTs, user licenses and have access to image protection services on the web. Authors can subscribe to benefit from a complete, secure and reliable service.
For example, for certificates of authenticity, each document shows the date and time and has an imprint containing the author’s name through a KYC (“Know Your Customer”) system. After a Pictia partner company verifies this identity, a certificate is registered in a blockchain. The author of images may choose to sell them through NFTs to collectors and market licenses for their use. Licensees obtain exclusive images with the assurance of copyright protection.
This platform also allows the sites where images are used without permission to be identified. “A formal notice is then sent to the site owner,” says Marguet. Pictia markets this digital report service, including to Orange’s legal department, via Chainote, a dedicated platform.
Starting next September, the start-up will market its marketplace to the general public, currently open in beta version to photographers.
Today, INA (‘Institut National de l’Audiovisuel’ — the French national audiovisual institute) wishes to use the services developed by Pictia to commercialize and protect its photographic content. Other stakeholders such as RMN (‘Réunion des Musées Nationaux et du Grand Palais’ — the organization for the national museums of France) or AFP (‘Agence France-Presse’ — French news agency) might even want to use them!
