Kodak may bring crypto coin to India

As Bitcoin-driven crypto craze goes on an overdrive, commercial printing and imaging company Kodak now plans to launch its recently-announced KodakCoin cryptocurrency in India in the next couple of years.

Talking to BusinessLine on the sidelines of the Consumer Electronics Show, Matthew Walker, President of KodakOne platform, said, “India is a big opportunity for us since there’s a large photography community in India that we would like to target. However, we are focussed on the US, Cananda, the UK and Germany at the moment and would look at launching in India in the next couple of years.”

The KodakCoin cryptocurrency is a part of Kodak’s effort to offer a service platform for photographers wherein registered photographers will be able to increase their revenues by letting Kodak check for copyright infringement and then ensuring that the photographer gets paid for it through legal means.

Once launched in India, it’ll allow photographers to register for few and get paid for their work in digital currency KodakCoin to make sure they receive their payments quickly regardless of what geography the client is in.

“Photography industry is somewhat opaque where the revenues are declining for photographers and they have no control over their IP and images anymore.

They see their images going out being used over the web and they don't end up earning from it. A large part of infringement and stealing photos and photographers have very little recourse,” Walker said.

KodakOne is trying to solve some of these challenges by building a distribution platform for rights-cleared images where buyers (licensee) as well as licensors can buy and sell images based on the licensor’s terms and conditions.

The service will also continually crawl the web, seeking to protect the IP of its members. The platform also manages the post-licensing process if unlicensed usage is detected.

But why can’t people just use Bitcoin if they just need a faster way to transfer money across the seas? The answer is they can. But Kodak hopes their additional offerings will make KodakCoin a more attractive proposition for photographers.

“People could use Bitcoin for transfers but in addition to rights management service that we offer, we will have marketplace and communities where photographers will be able to buy whatever they need in order to live as a photographer — when it comes to booking flights, buying hardware and accessories —this is how we are trying to close the circle and trying to make it attractive for copyrights holder to keep the coin because what they'll learn is that it is from a financial standpoint it is beneficial for them because they can get things cheaper, faster as compared to fiat,” Walker said.

According to him, the crypto coin will come with other attributes such as easy sharing of revenues on the platform, ability to earn additional revenues by ensuring a photographer is paid every time someone tries to use his IP(images, videos, artwork etc) on the internet. “We plan to launch more attributes over the next couple of years that’ll make KodakCoin more appealing,” Walker said.