Information
recorded on “blocks” is linked on a shared, public, and continually reconciled
database that isn’t stored in a central location that would be vulnerable to
hacking. The data in any block can’t be modified without altering every
subsequent block, which would require a consensus of the majority of users on
the network.
“The
blockchain lets people who have no particular confidence in each other
collaborate without having to go through a neutral central authority,” observed The Economist. “Simply put, it is a machine
for creating trust.”
In a
post updating a 2016 prediction on his Personanondata blog, business strategy
consultant Michael Cairns noted that one area where blockchain could be applied
is publishing, where it might be employed to identify copyright information and
form a new method for buying, selling, and licensing intellectual content.
“Once
a transaction occurs,” he wrote, “the user is supplied with a unique key for accessing
the content. If the user subsequently wants to sell or lend the item, they pass
their unique key to the next person for their use. This process eliminates the ‘residual’
copy issue which arises when someone tries to sell a secondhand e-file.”
He went
on to list a host of companies and organizations that are already developing
solutions for applying blockchain to publishing, peer review, licensing,
royalty accounting, and micro-transaction payments. One of these is Publica, a platform
that uses blockchain and cryptocurrency tech to facilitate direct transactions
between authors and readers and enable any author, publisher, store,
institution, or business to use digital keys to buy, sell, trade, or lend
digital books or print on demand locally.
Such
a solution could certainly be used for academic course materials, including
obvious intersections with the open educational resources movement.
