SingularDTV: Be Your Own Economy!
Tokenize Anything, Tokenize Everything
By Zach LeBeau, CEO of SingularDTV
SingularDTV is launching a series of applications, platforms and entities — an 11 module entertainment ecosystem — designed to empower artists and creators to be their own economies by helping them manage and control the rights, revenue and royalties of their IP and tap into the funding power of a growing 60+ billion dollar crypto-community in a completely peer-to-peer, non-regionalized and universal distribution environment.
Decentralized computing makes it possible to consolidate a variety of functions and mechanisms into one user experience. The applications SingularDTV is rolling out in 2017 exhibit this. In order to better understand what we’re building, some are referring to it as a mix of iTunes, Kickstarter and a never-before-seen Rights Management System. Yes, our distribution portal will facilitate more than just film and television content, and yes SingularDTV will allow for artists and creators to administer token launch campaigns. But as you are about to read, SingularDTV is building something much more… an entertainment economy.
The following video not only illustrates the genesis of our mission and philosophy, but also includes footage from our token launch of Oct. 2., 2016.
It is my pleasure to unveil SingularDTV’s 11 modules — applications, platforms and an entity — designed to empower artists in the creation and management of their projects from development to distribution.
#1 TOKIT — Rights Management Gateway / Project Creation Application
When artists ask me how blockchain technology can impact their careers and how Ethereum can make them money, I tell them the first thing they need to do is “tokenize it”. Tokenize what? Their idea, their IP, their assets. In order to benefit from the power of decentralized computing and participate in this growing crypto-economy, you must tokenize.
Our first application is a Rights Management Gateway and Project Creation Application called “Tokit” — short for “Tokenize It”. The purpose of this gateway is to tokenize anything and everything. It is here artists and creators can onboard their ideas — their IP, their projects — and create their own tokens programmed with the smart contracts that give them control over their rights, revenue, royalties and rewards. By on-boarding your project with Tokit, you can participate in the power of decentralized computing and interact within the SingularDTV entertainment economy and any other compatible applications on Ethereum.
This first version of Tokit is powered with many of the smart contracts that run SingularDTV’s tokenized ecosystem. It took us a long time to build this technology and at a high cost, and we’re making it available for artists and creators to use these powerful smart contracts to start their own tokenized ecosystems and tokens within minutes and at virtually no cost.
Smart Contract System + Tokens = Tokenized Ecosystem
A “Tokenized Ecosystem” is a new kind of business structure, a blockchain company. The centralized legacy world has LLCs and corporations, the decentralized world has tokenized ecosystems.
Smart contracts are purposed together to make Smart Contract Systems (SCS). Smart Contract Systems are where the functions and features of a token are programmed and from where the tokens are generated. These components — the SCS and the tokens that orbit them— make up a tokenized ecosystem. For a further explanation of what tokens are, please read Tokens & Coins.
#11 EtherVision — A Peer-to-Peer Distribution Portal
Once your project is tokenized, and when it’s ready to be seen by the world, you can create your own channel on EtherVision, our decentralized distribution portal.
Because of the very nature of the smart contracts that give you control over your rights and revenue, and the inherent nature of a peer-to-peer distribution portal, EtherVision is non-regionalized and universal, with no intermediaries needed to increase your project’s reach into the various economic territories of the world.
Whereas many of the modules and applications of SingularDTV are intended to run on SNGLS tokens and ETH, we will make it as easy and convenient as possible for audience to access content. Sure you’ll be able to pay with SNGLS and ETH, but also with credit cards and other payment devices people are more comfortable with.
#4 — Project Funding Launch Pad
Our Launch Pad is a place where you can begin to develop a worldwide audience and tap into the growing 60+ billion dollar crypto economy when your project is still in development. Think of the Launch Pad as a decentralized Kickstarter or IndieGogo but more dynamic. It is here where you can manage funding campaigns, interact with your audience and use the tokenized ecosystem and tokens you created with Tokit to get your project going and begin your journey of expression.
#2 SingularDTV’s Decentralized Exchange for Artists
Ideally, Tokit will be creating millions upon millions of tokenized ecosystems and tokens that represent art and IP; films, books, podcasts, music, anything and everything. In order for artists to “Be Your Own Economy”, a place to buy, sell and trade these tokens is vital. We cannot expect centralized exchanges to list millions of tokens representing art, so SingularDTV is launching its own decentralized exchange for artists and creators.
#3 CODEX
Already made public is CODEX, SingularDTV’s research and design lab dedicated to the development and proliferation of tokenized ecosystems. It’s CODEX’s primary purpose to continually upgrade Tokit with Smart Contracts Systems and Tokenized Ecosystems that give more features and functions to artists and creators.
Roll-out Schedule, 2017
Aside from all being part of the same entertainment economy, the above 5 SingularDTV modules and applications all have another thing in common — they all launch this year in 2017.
Tokit and the Launch Pad will be technically ready this summer. SingularDTV’s decentralized exchange will be launching at the end of the summer. EtherVision will be ready at the end of the year. Codex is operational now and will begin generating revenue from its select group of enterprise clients later in the year.
Gravitating Value to the SNGLS Token
SingularDTV’s economic model focuses on gravitating value to the SNGLS token.
Tokit and the Launch Pad are two separate applications that work together. You’ll be able to operate them with SNGLS or with ETH. If you operate them with SNGLS, it will create a greater demand for SNGLS. If you operate them with ETH, then that revenue will be embedded into the SNGLS token for holders to withdraw via our consumption rewards model. When Ethereum’s protocol is upgraded so SNGLS can act as the gas that pushes SingularDTV’s smart contracts through its economy, then SNGLS will achieve absolute value and utility.
In addition to the revenue generated by Tokit and the Launch Pad, our decentralized exchange will be generating transaction fees and those fees will be embedded in the SNGLS token. The revenue generated by CODEX will be embedded in the SNGLS token. The transaction fees from content being watched on EtherVision will be embedded in the SNGLS token. Perhaps you can start to see why I sometimes refer to SingularDTV in my writings and presentations as one day being a multi-billion dollar enterprise.
More About #11, EtherVision
From “Television to EtherVision”… it’s quite poetic since television was birthed from such a centralized origin in 1948 with the launch of NBC, CBS and ABC. You needed a multi-million-dollar infrastructure with serious business and government clout to participate in the highly centralized game of television. And now, 70 years later you can have your own channel, completely decentralized, on EtherVision.
Tokit is where it all begins and EtherVision is where it is realized, the platform that closes the circuit and makes SingularDTV truly an economy. With EtherVision creators can start their own channels and curate it with whatever content they want.
While people are creating projects with Tokit over the summer and fall, they’ll be able to distribute them around the world by the end of the year. After Tokit and the Launch Pad become operational, every single week until EtherVision launches SingularDTV will be picking projects to fund that have been created in Tokit.
Again, our primary concern for the audience is making EtherVision as convenient and easy to access content as possible. Audience will be able to pay for content with crypto or credit cards.
#9 Digital Marketing
Within the interface of EtherVision resides SingularDTV’s Digital Marketing Application. This application was inspired by an experience one of our producers had with a past film when they gave a distributor $35,000 to implement and pay for a digital marketing campaign. This distributor hired a digital marketing company and paid them only $5,000 to administer the campaign. They pocketed $30,000! That’s quite a markup. If you’re an independent filmmaker that’s had to “beg, borrow and steal” for years to realize your film, then this type of behavior is tantamount to theft.
SingularDTV’s digital marketing application will put a stop to this type of theft. Our front-end interface connects to the backend of the digital marketing company, giving the creators a menu-like option of packages and territories to market your creations to. You’ll know exactly how much you’re spending, where your money is going and you’ll receive the metrics on how effective your marketing is so you can make informed adjustments.
#6 Production Services/Crew, #7 Equipment Rental, #8 Management
On the drawing board for 2018 are more applications that empower artists and creators. #6 is an AirBnB-style production services and crew hiring app. It allows you to connect directly with crew and services, see their ratings and reputations, determine an agreed price and hire them for your production.
Module #7 is for equipment rental. You’re hard-pressed to find an independent production out there that doesn’t rent production equipment. It’s much cheaper to rent equipment than to buy it. I’ve got equipment sitting at home right now not making me any money and I know there are filmmakers out there that want to use it. This app will put that equipment to work and into the hands of filmmakers that need it.
Module #8 is an application called SingularDTV Management. This application fields offers to talent within the SingularDTV economy. It is an automated, smart contract talent agent/manager.
#5 Legal Repository
Module #5 is a repository for smart contracts that contains legal agreements to add more specificity to the terms and conditions of projects created in Tokit. Because there may be a hand-holding process to cross from centralized dealmaking into decentralized dealmaking, this legal repository will help to facilitate that as our programmers and the community continually update the repository with legal add-ons. Lawyers who think this module will put them out of a job, it will not, it will evolve your profession and take it to the next level, whatever that may be.
#10 Union Interface
SingularDTV’s Union Interface is our effort for blockchain to receive its own signatory classification. A good deal of independent productions are affected by the many various union rules, processes and pay scales. A blockchain designation in SAG, AFTRA, DGA, WGA, IATSE, Teamsters, etc., will benefit independent creators with a lower pay scale for crew and talent while at the same time bringing in more money to the unions due to the many efficiencies this interface can create.
This is an endeavor that has many moving parts and a bit of politics so we do not expect this module to become operational until 2019.
In Conclusion…
Will there be Modules #12, #13 #14 and so on? Yes. A few more modules are on the drawing board and will be announced when we feel they are viable and can contribute to the SingularDTV entertainment economy.
What all of this comes down to for us, here at SingularDTV, is recognizing that every human being is a creative spirit with a creative expression. This expression develops in varying degrees in each of us. Due to a variety of factors — many environmental — some expressions rise to the top, while the vast majority are never fully realized. This is partly due to an elaborate system of gatekeepers in entertainment distribution that oppress and suppress creative expression. And when those artists are able to be heard, there is an even more elaborate system of intermediaries extracting value and profit from them, making it impossible for many artists to make a living from their expressions. Unrealized expression equals unrealized potential. We hope that what we are building will help more people find and develop their creative spirits within.
First published on Medium.com (https://medium.com/@SingularDTV/singulardtv-be-your-own-economy-f9cfb543b70d)
By Zach LeBeau, CEO of SingularDTV