Now this is interesting.
Other than mentioning “blockchain” about a dozen times, this doesn’t actually explain anything. Blockchains track transactions, is that a problem for DRM now? What exactly does a blockchain do for DRM apart from that?
Well, the original vision of DRM was to guarantee rights to owners. See Stefik’s original books. The problem is that with digital files, there’s now way to verify ownership. So what we now call DRM is really just copy protection (which does help protect some rights, but only for the publishers). Bitcoin and the blockchain sort of upended this deficiency, by introducing a provable ownership of digital stuff.
But that doesn’t seem to be what they’re talking about here. I think the idea is that the creator of a work can register it with the blockchain, to…? Prove copyright? Prosecute plagiarists? But it could be used to transfer ownership of a digital copy to the purchaser, as well, along with various usage rights.