What is WEMARK?

Wemark is an ever-expanding collective of independent photographers who are dedicated to licensing their photographs directly to clients, without the intervention of any agency.

Wemark is also characterized by being a group of creators, marketers, designers and engineers, with a great passion for transforming the way creators distribute their content and how they are paid for it.

The blockchain technology that is being implemented on our platform makes it possible to carry out real peer-to-peer transactions between users and creators, which guarantees security, authenticity and, above all, transparency.

Wemark is supported by leading global investors, and its advisory board includes some of the world's leading names in stock photography, Blockchain technology and online markets.

The problem: Content markets.

Content market platforms bring together and distribute material from a variety of creators. They impose distribution rights or have a certain profit margin in relation to the royalties received by creators. Although the creators take a smaller share of the revenue from each sale, it is these markets that make it possible for their content to reach a wider audience and thus obtain more sales than if they were distributing it themselves.

Today, in order for content creators to have the opportunity to enter the large content markets, they must not only sacrifice a significant part of their revenues, but also forego a large part of their rights. These include controlling their prices and who is entitled to obtain the licence. A great lack of transparency has become the norm in the operation of these places.

With limited alternatives, creators continue to give their content and rights to markets.

Annually, many of the markets are transforming the rules and as a result content creators are becoming less and less advantaged, as they perceive fewer benefits and have fewer rights and control over their own content.

The WEMARK solution: The distributed market

At present, the regime for the dissemination of digital content is broken. Authors receive only a small part of the true value of their content and give up many of their rights. The content market is becoming increasingly dominant, while creators are lagging behind. The current system should be replaced.

Wemark's distributed approach to digital content is based on some principles:

• The authors authorize their content directly to the users.

They retain all rights to their content, know who licensed it and control its price.

• Delivery times and fees/royalties are irrevocable.

For their part, content markets gain the power to disseminate their content through the "subscription" of a digital marketing contract with creators. This contract will include a range of prices for the content license, the license to be granted to the different users and the sales price paid to the platform. Since the digital signature, the contract and its terms are unalterable and can only be modified with the consensus of all parties.

• Reference programs help creators and markets reach a wider audience

Sharing content and multiplying the number of users and acceptance of distributed content markets will be rewarded by the community.

It is worth noting that the vision of this interesting project, which is based on the desire to develop a digital content economy in constant evolution, and is based on development and innovation, implementing blockchain technology as a protocol, to ensure the security of the entire community (creators, customers and markets alike).

Wemark Protocol

It is a set of intelligent contracts, designed to facilitate a distributed exchange of digital content. The protocol replaces the core responsibilities of the current content markets, which are:

• Licenses

• Payments

• Distribution of income

• Access to storage

And how does all this work?

This whole process is carried out thanks to the implementation of:

• Immutable distribution contracts

Wemark's immutable distribution agreements allow content authors to cooperate with markets in a way that benefits both parties.

All agreements stipulate a range of price rates for the licensing of content, the terms of the license to be granted to users, the distribution rate to be paid to the platform and the percentage of each sale to be paid for the referrals. Once electronically signed, the contract and its terms will be displayed on the blockchain.

• Automatic distribution of payments

In addition to making traditional markets a content collector, they make payments easier. In other words, they have full control over how, when and under what terms money circulates between all parties.

With the use of WMK (cryptocurrency), customers who request the licensing of their products are paid according to a set of pre-established rules that do not depend on the market. A package of intelligent blockchain-based contracts automatically distributes payments to each of the committed parties under the unalterable terms that were originally agreed upon by all.

Why photos?

The archival photography sector is the most centralized industry. Shutterstock and Getty Images are the leading regulators in the market. Most of the rights and control over the content of both companies are vested in the photographers, are not transparent and hold up to 85% of the revenue simply because they can.

The benefits of Wemark for photographers

• Photographers retain all rights to their content

All certificates are issued through the Wemark protocol. Wemark has the right to broadcast the content, however, it does not have the right to sell or license it without the protocol. The times when authors have had to go to the market to license their content and report their profits are over.

• Photographers put a price on their work.

Various options and price levels will be introduced in Wemark. The content cannot be authorized without the photographer's approval as to price and level.

• Photographers receive a greater share of their income. No surprises.

With 85% of the royalties paid to photographers, Wemark sets a new standard 5 times higher than the industry average of 15-20%. In the event that we decide to lower our royalty rate in the future, this will never affect existing photographers without their consent, their terms of delivery are immutable as part of the Wemark protocol.

• Photographers benefit from greater transparency.

Wemark's distributed market approach ensures, by design, complete transparency in all payments, licensing and revenue distribution. The protocol will ensure customer privacy while providing a way for photographers to identify copyright infringement, excessive use of licenses, use of their photos that should be restricted, and other licensing violations.

• The photographer can trust the system.

This protocol is immutable and autonomous. You cannot manipulate the system, the encryption that operates it will be public and open source. In this way a new level of confidence in the distribution of digital content is achieved: we all trust everyone else because the system does not require confidence to operate.

Token Wemark

Wemark Tokens (WMK), aim to function as an indigenous payment system for the network, and to reward all stakeholders for the creation, distribution and promotion of digital content.

More about Wemark token (WMK)

• Token: WMK

• Price: 1 WMK = 0.2 USD

• Reward: Available

• MVP/Prototype: Available

• Platform: Ethereum

• Accepting: ETH

• Total supply: 135.000.000

• Type: ERC20

• Soft cap: $1,500,000

• Hard cap: $8,000,000

• Country: Israel

• Whitelist/KYC: KYC and Whitelist

The total supply of Wemark tokens is fixed and no new tokens will be created after the TGE event. All unsold TGE tokens will burn, reducing the total supply of tokens.

Wemark Project Partners

Map of the route

May 2017

• NFX GUILD ACCELERATOR PROGRAM. Wemark participates in the S17 class of NFX. 3-month accelerator program in Palo Alto focusing on markets and network effects. View our Demonstration Day presentation here.

September 2017

• EARLY ACCESS REGISTRATION FOR PHOTOGRAPHERS. Registration has begun so that photographers have early access as contributors to the Wemark market, resulting in more than 1,500 professional photographers from around the world registering in the first few weeks of registration.

January 2018

• THROWING WALLETS. Wemark's first live product is launched - photographers can now create their profiles, upload their photos and send them to the block chain. This is the exciting first step towards our entire block chain-based market.

February 2018

• WHITEPAPER PUBLICATION. The full white paper and more relevant information on mass marketing will be published on our website and sent to our growing list of subscribers.

Q1, 2018

• ALPHA VERSION. The Alpha version of the market will be deployed on the Ethereum, allowing our first users to discover and buy photos using WMK.

Q2, 2018

• BETA VERSION. A fully functional beta version of the market will be launched, including a large-scale marketing campaign for new customers.

The Future

• As a team that has developed markets and platforms in the past, we know it is a difficult challenge. Wemark will continue to invest its funds in R&D, marketing and business development to prosper in the marketplace and across the ecosystem. Our goal is to create a global network that enables the distributed exchange of all types of digital content, eliminating greedy intermediaries and creating a transparent, efficient and low-cost way to conduct direct transactions.

Workgroup of Wemark

Advisors and investors

• Lars Perkins - Former CEO and Founder @Picasa, Director @Google

• Keren Sachs - Former Director of Content Development @Shutterstock

• James Currier - Serial Entrepreneur & Investor, global expert on network effects and growth

• Gigi Levy - The most active investment angel in Israel. Entrepreneur and Serial Investor. Former CEO @888

• Lior Prosor - Managing Partner @ Elevator Fund, Investor in fast-growing Israeli startups

• Gilon Miller - Co-Founder and CEO @GuruShots

• Ran Oz - Serial Entrepreneur, Co-Founder of Wochit, 2 Exist, 2 IPO's

• Dr. Raphael Yahalom - Researcher of Chains of Blocking and Cybersecurity @MIT

• Dr. Dov Greenbaum - Director @The Zvi Meitar Institute for Legal Implications of Emerging Technologies

• Lee Torrens - Market Director @ Canva

• Michael C. Lesser - Former General Counsel / VP @ Shutterstock

• Amir Feder - Token Economics Advisor, Northwestern University

• Tai Kaish - CEO and co-founder

• Pavel Elkind - Technical Director and co-founder

• Roy Meirom - Vice President of Business Development and Co-Founder

• Tomer Gabbai - Frontend Lead

• Barak Simon - Head of Backend

• Ohad Peled - Lead UX/UI

• Shenhav Yehuda - Marketing Director

• Adam Wolski - Full Stack Developer

Links of interest

Website -- Whitepaper -- Twitter -- Facebook -- Github -- Reddit -- Medium -- Telegram -- Ann

AUTHOR

• Bitcointalk user: Cjota

• Profile: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=1640898

• Myetherwallet: 0x90b07af0aAA4A705bCC441c2B1D0B581F42bcDB4

BY CJOTA