Traçage du contenu visuel, droits de propriété intellectuelle & blockchain : de l'abstraction des processus à l'interopérabilité fonctionnelle

Abstract

The emergence of the web3 paradigm and the proliferation of application-oriented blockchains opened new perspectives to the field of visual content and the management of underlying Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) by providing a level of trust and immutability previously unmatched. Yet, this novel association remains vulnerable to discovered flaws and highlights shortcomings endemic to the blockchain space. This thesis addresses five such issues relating to the two fundamental concepts of applicative blockchains, namely tokens and Smart Contracts, and of their interoperability (i.e., as the ability to seamlessly share data).The first two issues deal with tokens, i.e., the blockchain representation of assets, which have been under heavy fire from experts and the public due to their (1) centralized distribution and (2) general disregard for Intellectual Property Rights. While some issues tokens have faced result from a fundamental misunderstanding of what they are, severe technical limitations in their use and distribution have surfaced over the years. These limitations were also accompanied by regulatory pain points resulting in some of the biggest scandals of the past decade, generating an overall negative perception of web3 technologies.The following two issues relate to Smart Contracts, i.e., immutable blockchain software that notably power decentralized applications (dApps). Although they have fed into problems through human oversights and errors, their main issues lie in their (3) technical knowledge requirements and (4) limited on-chain computation capabilities. Indeed, the relative novelty of the concept makes these programming languages less developer-friendly than their web2 counterparts, and users must accept that the Smart Contract paradigm is not a substitute for legacy software and answers to its own rules.We begin by addressing these first four pain points by abstracting processes and designing, specifying, and implementing methodological frameworks that answer requirements stemmed from the gaps identified in our state-of-the-art study. The first four contributions are:• A zero-trust, systematic distribution means for sensitive Internet of Media Things (IoMT)-produced content powered by an automatic broker with escrow functionalities.• A zero-trust, rule-enforcing, marketplace-agnostic framework revolving around a paradigm shift putting Smart Contracts at the abstraction level of tokens.• A workflow enabling the systematic, blockchain-agnostic generation of Smart Contracts via formalized ontologies.• A methodology enabling the mutually beneficial association of web2 and web3 by allowing usually prohibitively expensive visual fingerprinting to occur in blockchain environments.Finally, we address the overarching issue of (5) applicative workflow versatility by demonstrating the interoperation of all four previous methodological contributions into an architecture supporting the entire lifecycle of visual assets in blockchains, from their authenticated creation to their tracked and IPR-compliant distribution. This combination not only demonstrates the ability of our technologies to be integrated into larger frameworks but their capacity to answer real-world challenges. Our parting words constitute a macro analysis of our methodologies and put our efforts into perspective with the blockchain space, opining on its short and long-term directions.