VANGUARD: A Blockchain-Based Solution to Digital Piracy

Online pirates and Intellectual Property (IP) holders have been in perpetual war over various products like music, movies, software, etc. since the popularity of the Internet. It is estimated that the US entertainment industry loses approximately 29 billion USD every year for pirates. Online piracy has since gone from bad to worse as growing internet users and better broadband connections enable people to share large files freely over the internet. The objective of this research is to investigate the causes and enablers for online piracy in movie industry and to come up with an anti-pirating solution. The primary outcome of the study will consist of a dedicated block chain based anti-piracy system, ‘Vanguard’. This system will provide all-round piracy protection from a built-in streaming service to a component to actively look through the internet for pirated movies and torrents. This system will greatly deter the piracy of movies since the IP holders can ensure their IP rights through this system and quickly act against illegitimate distribution of their media.