Microsoft wants to make use of blockchain for piracy issues
You could get rewarded for reporting piracy soon.
Published on 17th August 2021
Microsoft has come up with a neat idea to tackle the increasing piracy on the internet. The company intends to use a blockchain-based bounty solution called Argus. Likewise, Argus is an Ethereum-based transparent program that allows volunteers to report piracy in exchange for a reward.
Microsoft can easily be termed as an “old dog” when it comes to fighting piracy. The tech giant has enough experience and knowledge in the copyright holding and piracy department. This newly proposed bounty system seems promising.
Microsoft Argus – A Blockchain-Based Solution
Microsoft is part of the Software Alliance (BSA), which has decent authority on copyright infringements and is also known for its piracy bounties. The BSA is already rewarding whistleblowers for contributing towards anti-piracy measures. Hence, it only makes sense that Microsoft came up with the idea of an upscale BSA solution.
A few days ago, Microsoft’s research department published an article titled: Argus: A Fully Transparent Incentive System for Anti-Piracy Campaigns. The same article contains the details of Argus’ plan.
To clarify, Argus is an Ethereum-based, fully transparent system that rewards people who anonymously report piracy. The pirated content is traced back to its source using a unique watermark protected with a secret code. In simpler terms, you can get rewards in the form of a bounty if you anonymously report piracy on the internet.
Argus lets people report piracy anonymously and get rewards after successfully flagging its source. In the same vein, users can easily exploit a bounty system. Hence, to avoid abuse, the bounty will be reduced if the same content gets multiple reports.
Meanwhile, Argus benefits more as the open system relies on blockchain to function. Argus can function efficiently while maintaining low costs. However, there exist a lot of real-world and practical problems that Microsoft is yet to solve. Whether or not Microsoft has any plans to deploy the system anytime soon is unknown.
The tech giant plans to present the idea of Argus and its system at the 40th International Symposium on Reliable Distributed Systems scheduled virtually at the end of September. This new technology can be revolutionary if done right.
