EY and Microsoft launch blockchain solution for entertainment industry

By Elizabeth Robinson on 22 June 2018

Multinational professional services firm EY and Microsoft have launched a blockchain solution for content rights and royalties management for the media and entertainment industry.

The blockchain solution is expected to deliver reduced processing time and the faster tracking of royalties. It can also be used in other industries where intellectual property or assets are licensed to third parties.

The solution aims to provide near real-time visibility of sales transactions to the participants in the blockchain network and to help users react to market needs more effectively because they will get improved insights into the content that is being purchased.

The underlying network is built using the Quorum blockchain protocol and Microsoft’s Azure cloud infrastructure and blockchain technologies.

Game publisher Ubisoft is currently testing the solution. “We are always looking at how to leverage emerging technologies in all facets of our business,” said Loic Amans, senior vice president, Finance and Strategic Planning at Ubisoft. “The opportunity to collaborate with EY and Microsoft on blockchain use cases in the domain of digital contracts and royalties is truly exciting.”

Microsoft plans to deploy the rights and royalties blockchain network with interested gaming partners gradually over time. When fully operational, the blockchain network is expected to encompass thousands of Microsoft royalty partners and process millions of transactions per day.

“The scale, complexity and volume of digital rights and royalties transactions makes this a perfect application for blockchains,” said Paul Brody, global innovation leader at EY. “A blockchain can handle the unique nature of each contract between digital rights owners and licensors can be handled in a scalable, efficient manner with an audit trail for the participants. By deploying this on Microsoft Azure, we believe this will be highly scalable across thousands of royalties and content partners.”

EY and Microsoft are currently deploying the solution with Microsoft’s key business partners and will explore opening the solution to other partner organisations as a general exchange infrastructure for royalties-related transactions on everything from software to digital media.

“Powered by Microsoft Azure and blockchain technology, this solution helps demonstrate our ability to enhance trust with our gaming partners, and strengthen security, transparency and payment accuracy through the power of blockchain,” said Brad Wright, software engineering manager, Microsoft. “We’re thrilled to work with EY and our gaming partners to streamline this business.”