We’ve seen the world of crypto shake hands with the gaming industry in different ways this year; it seemed as though the world of geek couldn’t get enough of it! In fact, earlier this year, Epic Games’ Unreal Engine’s game developers (of Fortnite fame) bumped fists with blockchain-fuelled games platform The Abyss.
Other entertainment ecosystems have blockchain in their DNA, too. One ocurity, share founder Nitin Narkhede and co-founder Deepak Jayaram.
After a presentation of the platform along with a beta version at Cannes Film Festival in May, the mobile launch was just last month in June. The platform offers more than 200 films (a number which keeps growing). With the number of world cinema film festivals in our cities, it is appropriate that a platform be solely dedicated to international talent which have been featured at Cannes, Tribeca, Sundance and Berlinale — as done with myNK.
ADVERTISEMENT
Deepak adds that most of the content has never before been released into India. Additionally, MinersINC has partnered with leaders in film distribution to bring this content to our devices.
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
Then and now
Nitin started thinking of myNK in mid-2017, having incorporated MinersINC in October of that year. “We spent almost a year prototyping the model, and we saw a number of issues with the blockchain technology because it doesn’t have the ability to carry the massive size of these films (in raw form, they’re about 150GB) and we had to them accessible to consumers at just 3GB. But we figured out how to mitigate such challenges. In the last seven to eight months, we really pulled the packages together. The research doesn’t stop, in terms of security and performance.”
Filmmaker and recently-joined member of The Academy Anurag Kashyap is one of the first mentors for myNK. When Nitin got a buy-in from an investor, their condition was for an industry buy-in, given the whole process was, in essence, disruptive to the existing foundations. The investor wanted to know if the industry would accept this or not. That’s when Anurag hopped on board; when Nitin explained the process of leveraging the technology for the good of the film, the filmmaker was immediately enraptured, expressing his long-time wish to bring global cinema to Indian audiences.
- Fish Tank: 15-year-old Mia lives with her mother and sister in the housing projects of Essex. Andrea Arnold’s film won the Jury Prize at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival.
- Mea Maxima Culpa: Alex Gibney exposes the abuse of power in the catholic Church and a cover-up that runs from Wisconsin to Ireland all the way up to the Vatican.
- The Student:A high school student in the midst of a crisis becomes convinced that the world has been lost to evil, and begins to challenge the morals and beliefs of those around him. Kirill Serebrennikov’s film won the Francois Chalais Prize at the Cannes Film Festival.
- Burma VJ: Oscar-nominated Burma VJ documents the 2007 uprising of Burma through the camera of its independent journalists.
- Departures: Academy Award Winner for Best Foreign Language Film, Yojiro Takita’s Departures deals with Daigo, a cellist, whose dream is shattered when his Tokyo orchestra suddenly closes down.
Nitin observes Anurag as “a designer of what myNK is today”. Specifically, Anurag provided a lot of insight on how to showcase the technology to film distributors. For something as complicated as blockchain, the front-end and user experience we see are fairly simple. The orange and peach hues of myNK app aren’t harsh, nor are you bombarded by advertising, emphasising the strength of the P2P concept.
The USP
Transparency is the name of the game here. Given MinersINC is Peer-2-Peer, there’s no intermediary, and standard film distribution models have multiple entities down the line, explains Nitin, adding, “In some cases, content sits with intermediaries and filmmakers have no visibility or clarity as to what happens on the other end. myNK is solving this problem by providing visibility and transparency of the content. As an independent filmmaker, if you want to release your film and see how the consumer is interacting with your artwork, this secure zero-cost distribution model, as we call it, is a solution. The filmmaker can use the data to reposition his film or to help shape future productions.”
Deepak adds that he jumped in last August. His role is largely in reaching out to global entities. “Within the blockchain community, there are people who work with the promise of what could be. We approached people with a solid use-case in a market with many issues from a global standpoint. What we presented was how their concerns would be addressed, which led us to being among five blockchain companies presenting our models at at Berlinale, ultimately leading us to Cannes.” The duo shares they were indeed met with incredible optimism and interest at Cannes, which has led to more link-ups and development.
Why blockchain?
According to Nitin, blockchain technology has a remarkable ability to implement ‘smart contract’ systems to streamline transactions, provide better clarity between the consumer and the content provider and the platform supervisors, and also to overall improve processes. The cryptography serves as a layer of assurance for the filmmaker that his work is secured, cannot be copied and/or pirated. Tacking on the concept of transparency, the filmmaker is once again privy to every transaction his film is making. “I’ve been in the blockchain space since 2015,” says Nitin, “so the perception of blockchain back then was so different. But the questions that arose were around the potential benefits to the community with respect to micro-payments and micro-distributions, especially.”
It’s clearly a data-oriented model, with not just filmmakers understanding which of their content is being viewed but also how many times and even which parts are being rewinded and fast-forwarded. While most film industries wait for financial quarters for their cheques, myNK eliminates that, too.
For the user, the model is saddled with a rewards incentive to retain engaged loyal customers.
Safety is key
MinersINC have taken every safety threat into consideration when structuring myNK. “The technology thrives on security and transparency,” comments Nitin. “The security is in-built, protected by cryptography and the highest standards of security available today. The data is encrypted and you require a private key to decrypt it. For example, Udta Punjab (2016) was leaked from the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC). We could see it was a CBFC copy. That said, by adopting a blockchain-based platform, which is myNK, I can give CBFC the ability to watch that film with certain login credentials; one cannot pirate or copy that version. This is an ever-evolving realm and practice, and new methods will come up, though. We reduced the possibility of piracy and leaking.”
The second factor of the P2P model; myNK doesn’t consider itself as an intermediary but as a protected platform, thus implying that a great deal of effort to break the blockchain protocol protecting each film would be needed. myNK is actually structured in such a way that malicious entities would be demotivated towards leaking or pirating content.