Blockchain for Digital Rights Management of Design Works

Abstract

A design work not only has a complex functional composition, but also has special trading needs. These all result in the difficulties in content protection, copyright protection and the trading of works. To solve these problems, this paper proposes a scheme for digital rights management of design works using blockchain. Unlike existing digital rights management methods, this scheme binds the off-chain design work and its copyright record in the blockchain. The display of design effects, the confidentiality of design details and the compatibility with relevant laws are all taken into account. A new proof-of-delivery method is also proposed to ensure the fairness of the trade. By using smart contracts and public key cryptography, it has no need for active operation from participants in the trade. The scheme is evaluated, analyzed, and compared with other methods from multiple respects to demonstrate its rationality and effectiveness. Finally, a proof-of-concept experiment is described by taking digital garment design as an example.