Jamaine Punzalan

Article (news)

Agence France-Presse

<p>In 2008, scriptwriter Ed Bennett-Coles said he experienced a career &quot;death moment&quot;: he read an article about AI managing to write its first screenplay.</p><p>Nearly two decades later, he and friend Jamie Hartman, a songwriter, have developed a blockchain-based application they hope will empower writers, artists and others to own and protect their work.</p><p>&quot;AI is coming in, swooping in and taking so many people&#x27;s jobs,&quot; Hartman said. Their app, he said, responds &quot;no... this is our work.&quot;</p><p>&quot;This is human, and we decide what it&#x27;s worth, because we own it.&quot;</p><div><a href="https://www.abs-cbn.com/news/technology/2025/4/3/ai-could-impact-40-percent-of-jobs-worldwide-un-2137">AI could impact 40 percent of jobs worldwide: UN</a></div><p>The ever-growing threat of AI looms over intellectual property and livelihoods across creative industries.</p><p>Their app, ARK, aims to log ownership of ideas and work from initial brainchild to finished product: one could register a song demo, for example, simply by uploading the file, the creators explained to AFP.</p><p>Features including non-disclosure agreements, blockchain-based verification and biometric security measures mark the file as belonging to the artist who uploaded it.</p><p>Collaborators could then also register their own contributions throughout the creative process.</p><p>ARK &quot;challenges the notion that the end product is the only thing worthy of value,&quot; said Bennett-Coles as his partner nodded in agreement.</p><p>The goal, Hartman said, is to maintain &quot;a process of human ingenuity and creativity, ring-fencing it so that you can actually still earn a living off it.&quot;</p><div><br/></div><div><strong>CHECKS AND BALANCES</strong></div><div><br/></div><p>Due for a full launch in summer 2025, ARK has secured funding from the venture capital firm Claritas Capital and is also in strategic partnership with BMI, the performing rights organization.</p><p>And for Hartman and Bennett-Coles, its development has included a lot of existential soul-searching.</p><p>&quot;I saw a quote yesterday which really sums it up: it&#x27;s that growth for growth&#x27;s sake is the philosophy of the cancer cell,&quot; said Bennett-Coles. &quot;And that&#x27;s AI.&quot;</p><p>&quot;The sales justification is always quicker and faster, but like really we need to fall in love with process again.&quot;</p><p>He likened the difference between human-created art and AI content to a child accompanying his grandfather to the butcher, versus ordering a slab of meat from an online delivery service.</p><p>The familial time spent together -- the walk to and from the shop, the conversations in between running the errand -- are &quot;as important as the actual purchase,&quot; he said.</p><p>In the same way, &quot;the car trip that Jamie makes when he&#x27;s heading to the studio might be as important to writing that song as what happens in the studio itself.&quot;</p><p>AI, they say, devalues that creative process, which they hope ARK can reassert.</p><p>It&#x27;s &quot;a check and a balance on behalf of the human being,&quot; Hartman said.</p><div><br/></div><div><strong>&#x27;RISE OUT OF THE ASHES&#x27;</strong></div><div><br/></div><p>The ARK creators said they decided the app must be blockchain-based -- with data stored on a digital ledger of sorts -- because it&#x27;s decentralized.</p><p>&quot;In order to give the creator autonomy and sovereignty over their IP and control over their destiny, it has to be decentralized,&quot; Bennett-Coles said.</p><p>App users will pay for ARK according to a tiered structure, they said, levels priced according to storage use needs.</p><p>They intend ARK to stand up in a court of law as a &quot;recording on the blockchain&quot; or a &quot;smart contract,&quot; the scriptwriter explained, calling it &quot;a consensus mechanism.&quot;</p><p>&quot;Copyright is a pretty good principle -- as long as you can prove it, as long as you can stand behind it,&quot; Hartman added, but &quot;the process of registering has been fairly archaic for a long time.&quot;</p><p>&quot;Why not make progress in copyright, as far as how it&#x27;s proven?&quot; he added. &quot;We believe we&#x27;ve hit upon something.&quot;</p><p>Both artists said their industries have been too slow to respond to the rapid proliferation of AI.</p><p>Much of the response, Bennett-Coles said, has to start with the artists having their own &quot;death moments&quot; similar to what he experienced years ago.</p><p>&quot;From there, they can rise out of the ashes and decide what can be done,&quot; he said.</p><p>&quot;How can we preserve and maintain what it is we love to do, and what&#x27;s important to us?&quot;</p><div><strong>© Agence France-Presse</strong></div><div><br/></div><div><strong>MORE STORIES: </strong></div><div><strong><a href="https://www.abs-cbn.com/news/health-science/2025/4/4/can-ai-help-solve-ph-s-tuberculosis-problem-1507"></a></strong><a href="https://www.abs-cbn.com/news/health-science/2025/4/4/can-ai-help-solve-ph-s-tuberculosis-problem-1507"></a><a href="https://www.abs-cbn.com/news/health-science/2025/4/4/can-ai-help-solve-ph-s-tuberculosis-problem-1507">Can AI help solve PH&#x27;s tuberculosis problem?</a><a href="https://www.abs-cbn.com/news/health-science/2025/4/4/can-ai-help-solve-ph-s-tuberculosis-problem-1507"></a><strong><a href="https://www.abs-cbn.com/news/health-science/2025/4/4/can-ai-help-solve-ph-s-tuberculosis-problem-1507"></a></strong><br/><a href="https://www.abs-cbn.com/news/technology/2025/4/2/ai-coming-for-anime-but-ghibli-s-miyazaki-irreplaceable-son-says-1759">AI coming for anime but Ghibli&#x27;s Miyazaki irreplaceable, son says</a><br/><a href="https://news.abs-cbn.com/news/technology/2025/3/31/computer-pioneer-microsoft-turns-50-in-the-age-of-ai-1021">Computer pioneer Microsoft turns 50 in the age of AI</a></div>

<p>The ever-growing threat of AI looms over intellectual property and livelihoods across creative industries. The app ARK aims to log ownership of ideas and work from initial brainchild to finished product: one could register a song demo, for example, simply by uploading the file, the creators said.</p>

The ever-growing threat of AI looms over intellectual property and livelihoods across creative industries. The app ARK aims to log ownership of ideas and work from initial brainchild to finished product: one could register a song demo, for example, simply by uploading the file, the creators said.

New app hopes to empower artists against AI

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New app hopes to empower artists against AI

Agence France-Presse

Published Apr 07, 2025 10:01 AM PHT

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