Microsoft & EY Are Deploying a Blockchain To Manage Royalties

The cryptocurrency market may be bearish, but the number of blockchain projects being started continues to increase on a daily basis. In fact, big tech giants are pouring in millions of dollars to fund large scale blockchain projects. One such notable blockchain project is being deployed by Microsoft in partnership with EY to process rights and royalties of the game publishers.

The blockchain network was initially intended to serve only gamers. However, Microsoft is now considering widening the scope of the project to any business sector where licensing of intellectual property is involved and royalties accrue based on contracts.

Microsoft expects the blockchain network to handle millions of transactions each day. It will be probably one of the largest blockchain networks used by an enterprise. The network users could be developers of any kind, music publishers, production houses, and authors who generally receive a regular stream of royalty income.

EY’s global innovation leader for blockchain, Paul Brody said the use of decentralized ledger makes it a better system than any other off-the-shelf technology. Brody pointed out that the network offers tools to process transactions between multiple parties without depending on a centralized party.

Brody said

“There are two reasons why a blockchain is a much better solution for this particular challenge. The first comes from smart contracts themselves, which allow for a much more flexible approach to business logic. Smart contracts are much more flexible tool for handing lots of unique business agreements while ingesting lots of transactions and preserving the privacy between parties. Secondly, this isn’t just about Microsoft and their business partners–it is ultimately intended to be a general tool set for any company to do digital rights and royalty contracts with any other. That means no centralized control and each company being assured of its own operational privacy.”