"The ICO and the Global Copyright Register will be the last piece of the puzzle."
We've finally received the full transcript of the interview between Copytrack CEO Marcus Schmitt and Joe Blackburn from Crypto Coin Trader.
Crypto Coin Trader is one of the largest crypto coin communities with currently over 87.000 members.
In this interview, Joe and Marcus talk about Copytrack's existing business and its future plans, namely how the Global Copyright Register will allow creators to protect, track and monetize their work through a global, transparent and decentralized register.
Copytrack's main sale ICO runs until February 10, 2018.
Scroll down to see the full script from our interview with Crypto Coin Trader. Many thanks to Joe for taking the time to do the interview! If you have any other questions join us on Telegram.
Joe: What’s up, CCT? Back again, it’s your main man, Joe Blackburn. Got a special treat today, Mr Marcus Schmitt, from Copytrack ICO, will be here. He’s the CEO and the founder. I am really excited about this. I introduce all of my ICO’s the same exact way. I’m proud to do such… that light is kinda in the way.
Joe: I’m proud to do such because as you know, as a group, applicability to real world application is one of my number one things. It’s my criteria for me to bring on an ICO. And it gives me the opportunity to be fair, to be direct, and to be honest about these projects. You know, Copytrack fits, just like I wrote in the post, it fits all of those checkboxes that allows me to feel comfortable in regards to how this is going to be perceived in two, three, five years. Marcus Schmitt, I’ve had the pleasure of speaking to him before this and he’s been absolutely disciplined, he’s got integrity, he’s full of energy, and he’s German. So what else could you expect, right?
Joe: So I’m going to go ahead and bring him in folks, I was going to get a few watchers, real quick, but I’m going to go ahead and see if we’ve got this. Hey everybody, I saw everybody’s comments. So everyone welcome Marcus Schmitt, make sure you give him a lot of likes and hearts when he comes on. Don’t give them to him yet, make sure he gets on first. There he is!
Marcus: Hi Joe.
Joe: What’s up Marcus. Man, a pleasure to have you brother. What you up to today?
Marcus: Yeah, thanks for having me. I’m actually at the airport right now, but thanks for having me today in your interview.
Joe: Hey cool man. The pleasure is all ours. I’ve been talking about your ICO now, for probably two or three weeks and so it’s really cool to finally get you on and I know, you’ve got your travelling today, you’re making time for us, hanging out there at the Toronto airport. So we’re so grateful for that opportunity, thank you very much for coming.
Marcus: Thank you.
Joe: Alright, so let’s go ahead and start this off, go ahead and tell me a little bit about Copytrack, what it’s been, where you guys started from, early on.
Marcus: Actually, before Copytrack the founding team has already worked in this business for several years. It was a lucky gathering of experts and we just thought of which legal issue is a mass occurrence and can be solved with a high automization? It was the imaging sector, and this is how we started. First I started in this area on my own and our CTO also started in this area, already six years beforehand. He actually worked for one of our biggest competitors. After all, we found each other and then we founded Copytrack, so that was a very good coincidence.
Joe: Cool. Cool. So one of the things that we’ve spoken about is your desire to switch over to blockchain and what that meant for your company and the reasons why. Even in this group, as I presented your project earlier on, you know there are questions that come up. Why does a company that has already been in existence, why does the company need to go to the blockchain? Why do they need an ICO? Would you mind touching base on that a little bit for me Marcus?
Marcus: Ok. So what Copytrack is doing right now, our original business is copyright enforcement. Our clients are photographers, are image agencies, publishers worldwide, that have image rights and their images get stolen, every day.
Around 2 billion images are uploaded every day and over 80% of those images are actually used illegally. This is where we step in, so they can upload or let’s say create an account for free with us. They can upload an unlimited amount of images and our search engine finds where those images are used worldwide and reports it back to our clients and then the client can actually decide whether it is legal or illegal use and for that we also offer a lot of filtering and advanced features in order to lower the work balance for our clients.
Then once they have found an illegal use they just can submit a claim to us and then Copytrack has a network of lawyers in 140 countries. First of all, we approach the infringing party with a very friendly request, asking whether they can provide a proper license. Because it could happen that they have a license and it was a mistake of the photographer.
So then we usually get back a reply, either they supply proper proof like an invoice, but most of the time, to be honest, it is a stolen image and then we offer post licensing, which is also a very fair approach to this infringing party. Because some of them, they simply are not aware that they are doing something wrong. So instead of punishing them and going after them right away, we have this fair approach.
If this doesn’t work, then we usually proceed with a commercial collection. If this doesn’t work well then we have the opportunity to follow up legally with our network of lawyers.
Joe: Perfect, as I understand it, that service is offered all in one, you get on there, you join that site, that’s actually offered… is there a way you have to actually pay with the Copytrack tokens?
Marcus: Well, as of now, that’s the existing business. So as of now, it has nothing to do with CPY tokens. The service we offer now is for free to use it. We only take a commission if we are successful.
Joe: Okay.
Marcus: And it is quite a small cut.
Joe: Cool.
Marcus: Your other question was, why do we need a blockchain attached to that. Why would we implement a coin and so on? What we experienced over these years is that whenever it comes to enforcement, we have to provide proof. Right now our engine already automatically collects all this evidence, like screenshots, when was the image placed on the website, and so on.
However, if it goes to court we always have to prove somehow who is the owner of this image. And then this is, let’s say, the beginning of the idea of having a global register. Because some of the people on Telegram, for example, they were saying, ‘Yeah, in the US we have this copyright register already, so what do you want?’ But the US is one country in the world, and that’s it.
The world is much bigger and we have to do that worldwide. This is why we need a register which is global but at the same time be central so that, let’s say these proofs are not reversible, you know? So they can’t cheat around.
Joe: Perfect.
Marcus: And this is how we came up with that idea.
Joe: Perfect. And you know I look at this… one of the things that attracted to me so much to just your project and your team was the desire to implement something that is needed, it’s necessary right now. As the world becomes more digitalized, as the world becomes more connected, as the world becomes closer, because that’s what technology has done for us, it’s brought us closer.
There are certain things that still keep us so spread apart, and to introduce something you want now. I’m not a photographer, my wife is interested in photography, she’s an aspiring photographer. In fact, I saw her comment earlier. And then there are other people that I know a little bit that has mentioned to me, some of the issues they might have with this as a photographer for a newspaper or a magazine. This has been a problem from day one.
Since the camera was created, this has been a problem, right? And to hear this, and to get other input from people outside of cryptocurrencies and people who want to invest in ICOs, this is something that is very interesting to them. So I applaud those efforts, okay? So, let’s kind of transition a little bit into the implementation of your project and where you stand right now. Tell us a little bit about the actual token structure and how you guys are going to integrate that with the ICO and into post-ICO action.
Marcus: Actually the ICO and the global copyright register will be the last piece of the puzzle. This will be the beginning of the whole process. A photographer signs up with us, he’ll be authenticated. Then he uploads his images, they will be registered. Once they are registered, they will automatically be in our tracking engine and people will be reported back the users worldwide and then we have the enforcement in the end.
So from that time on we can offer the whole process end to end. Where the coin comes in is, if we have a rights holder in the US, for example, and we have an infringing party in Japan. Our issue is, let’s say we make a post-licensing at a very low fee, let’s say 150 Euros, which is like $200 US, then the infringing party pays about $20- $30 of bank fees to transfer the money to us. Then we pay another 34 Euros to transfer the money to the US rights holder. So in the end, what’s left, the banks earn money and the rights holder sees almost nothing.
Joe: Absolutely.
Marcus: This is one of the reasons why we implement this coin because then the whole flow of payment will be almost without any fees and the rights holder will have much, much more left in their pocket. Later on, we’ll attach not only the register but also a marketplace for these images to license them directly.
And that’s another issue because nowadays, the image agencies, they got the photographs from the photographers and they see maybe $2 per image or less, if they see it. With our register and the possibility to track those licenses and sell them directly, in the end, the photographer is able to earn 70%, not on 5%.
Joe: Oh wow. I don’t mean to interrupt you Marcus, but I need to interject something though. You know there is not a photographer on this planet that shouldn’t be excited about hearing that. What you just said, it just fired me up. I’m pumped up now. I was ‘Man, that’s the nail on the head right there. Why wouldn’t a photographer want something like this?’
And you know, it really does cut out that middle man and that’s the digitalization that we’ve been trying to find in all these projects. People, that’s why I like Copytrack right there. What he just said. Alright? I understand very little about photography. But I recognize the importance of that. So I’m sorry Marcus, I had to stop you there. Keep going!
Marcus: Good. I think I said it, for photographers I think it’s changing the industry, more or less.
Joe: Absolutely. Okay, so let’s go into this. So the ICO’s complete, you finish up the ICO, first off, as I understand, the pre-sale is going on right now, so people get in, if this is something that interests you, if you’ve done your research, if you’ve read the white paper, and you like this project, if you’re going to get in, get in before pre-sale is up.
Because eventually, the pre-sale is going to be over and then we’re going to be in a situation where the regular ICO is going on. So you’ve got a chance to get into pre-sale now. But once the pre-sale is complete, once the ICO gets in, hopefully, we’ll have you on again soon, but post ICO, what is the implementation? Once the ICO is over, what do you start, what’s next?
Marcus: Well actually we’re already starting parallel, and we are planning to have the register started end of Q2, early Q3 and of course we have a lot of features in our mind we want to build in, so like the Copy track portal right now, it will be constantly enhanced and in the marketplace for the licensing could start in 2019 I guess.
Joe: Cool, cool, cool. So if we back up a little bit, I kind of skipped over the ICO part itself. The ICO is scheduled to last for how long?
Marcus: The ICO will end February 10th and the pre-sale we have right now, we are at 37% discount still, will end January 10th, so in a few days. That’s actually a day and a half for most of us so, not a lot of time for pre-sale. Alright, and how many tokens are there?
Marcus: Altogether it will be 100 million tokens, of which we sell 60 million tokens or 60% to the community.
Joe:Cool. And what will happen to the other 40 million? Did you hear me? Marcus?
Marcus: Yeah, now the video it has…
Joe: Was it frozen?
Marcus: Yes.
Joe: Sorry about that. So what happens with the other 40 million tokens, the ones that won’t be sold?
Marcus: 20% of the token will be used to develop the platform over the next five years, so it will be a very low emission each year, and the other 20% go to the advisers and to the founding team.
Joe: Yep, cool. Now, people, it’s important to remember this. When a company does an ICO, remember this, they don’t get to do another ICO. They get one ICO and then that’s how it works. That’s how they fund and that’s how they provide payment for their employees, etc. There’s a lot that goes into this. The structure that Copytrack has shown me, the real world applicability, the opportunity to change an industry, this checkbox, checkbox, checkbox. I could not be more proud of you guys, Marcus. You’ve impressed me just in our personal dealings, but you’ve impressed me even more here, the ability for you to sit up and explain these things, to present yourself to the community. Is there anything else you’d like to address maybe that I missed out on that you’d like to talk about?
Marcus: Well there are many things. I think what some of your audience might want to know is why do we do it and why do we have to collect so much money. There are a few reasons. Of course, the development of this technology is quite expensive, quite frankly. We have to hire quite a lot of people to run that. That’s one thing. But something that most of the people underestimate, is we are right now running in 140 countries.
Joe: Ooph. That’s a lot.
Marcus: So in order to do that, of course, we need to have a huge legal team, a huge legal network, and for the register, we also need, let’s say the support of the legal systems of different countries. So we also have to do a lot of lobby work, travel around, get connected to courts, to legal systems, to governments and so on, and all this, of course, is quite intense.
Joe: Absolutely, absolutely. Alright, so I hear that and I think ‘140 countries’, and that’s not just 140 countries at this point, can use you. You literally, you have to go into these countries and legally set up what your company does, with the country’s laws, correct?
Marcus: Yeah. I mean we focus, of course, on certain countries where we have a high volume and that’s also we have a subsidiary in the US and one in Tokyo and we just opened up our subsidiary, not a subsidiary actually, it’s an entity, in Singapore, where we will develop the register. All the other countries we have the lawyers we incorporate with.
Joe: Absolutely, and it only makes sense what you guys are doing, I look forward to other industries doing what you’re doing for their niche. You guys are handling the photography section. I just think about how much opportunity there is, for anything from a magician to a restaurant. There is applicability in these things that somebody is going to do eventually and you guys just jumped on this, I’m so proud of you guys.
Marcus, it’s been a true pleasure to get to know you, man. I look forward to our next dealings and thank you so much for your time here on CCT man. It’s such an opportunity for these people to hear and put a face to you. To get the opportunity to hear from you personally. I just can’t thank you enough. Whether they decide to get into your ICO or not, they have at least got the chance to hear from the CEO. I mean, how many CEOs make time for a community like this? So thank you very much man, I truly appreciate that.
Marcus: It’s a pleasure. Thank you for your time.
Joe: Hey, for sure man. We’ll talk soon, and hit me up man, I’m interested to hear from you guys and how it progresses, okay?
Marcus: Okay, perfect, thank you. Bye.
Joe: Bye, bye.
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