Yesterday, Japan’s Media Do Holdings said it plans to use blockchain for distribution of ebooks, a Nikkei report said. Media Do is an intermediary between publishers and electronic bookstores and accounts for 34% of total ebook distribution in Japan, especially comic books. Its net sales in 2019 exceeded half a billion dollars.
The company will use blockchain for ebook distribution, starting with MyAnimeList, an anime and manga social cataloging site which has more than 11 million monthly users. Apart from fighting piracy, the key innovation is digital content can be re-sold. But digging into the company’s annual results presentation, it has a big vision beyond ebooks. For example, its digital asset model could be applied to live events.
Media Do recently reported its annual earnings, which showed that net sales of ebooks increased by 30% year-on-year to 64.5 billion yen ($601 million). The company deals with over 2,000 publishers and 150 retailers in its distribution channel. The COVID-19 pandemic has influenced the trends among content consumers, who are opting for digital copies.
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