Blockchain technology offers exciting opportunities for authors and the publishing industry. In this interview, Simon-Pierre Marion and I discuss copyright protection, smart contracts, estate management and faster, more transparent payments, as well as how digital scarcity could expand the revenue potential in the digital supply chain. Plus, I add some extra commentary on the potential of NFTs for authors since they are in the news a lot at the moment. Simon-Pierre Marion is the CEO and founder of Scenarex, a Canadian company that builds blockchain publishing solutions. Their site, bookchain.ca, enables authors and publishers to publish on the Ethereum blockchain. You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and full transcript below. Show Notes * What exactly is blockchain technology? (although you don't need to understand it technically to appreciate its potential!) * What's the difference between blockchain and cryptocurrency? * Copyright protection with blockchain * Smart contracts — payment splitting at transaction, reduction in back office overhead, estate management * Resale of digital products, and payment through the whole chain of transactions * The opportunities of digital scarcity and NFTs — plus, I add some extra commentary around NFTs for authors [27:12 mins] * When will blockchain technology go mainstream? You can find Simon-Pierre Marion at bookchain.ca and on Twitter @bookchainapp You can also listen or read episode 519 on Copyright Law and Blockchain for Authors in an Age of AI, an excerpt from my book, Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain, and Virtual Worlds: The Impact of Converging Technologies On Authors and the Publishing Industry. Transcript of Interview with Simon-Pierre Marion Joanna: Simon-Pierre Marion is the CEO and founder of Scenarex, a Canadian company that builds blockchain publishing solutions. Their site, bookchain.ca, enables authors and publishers to publish on the Ethereum blockchain. Welcome, Simon-Pierre. Simon-Pierre: Thank you, Joanna. And thank you for your invitation. I'm super happy to participate. Joanna: It's very exciting to talk about this. Tell us a bit more about you and why you decided to focus on this intersection of publishing and technology. Simon-Pierre: It started in 2013, a long time ago already. I started my MBA at that time, specializing in technology. So during the course of my MBA, I've learned different technologies, and, of course, I've learned blockchain at that point. I was very interested in the digital publishing world because I'm a big reader, a big fan of books, of course, but I'm a very tech-savvy guy. I like digital books a lot more than the regular book, maybe I'm the opposite of a lot of people of my generation. But that's what I am. So being interested in that, I started to study that domain, because I was wondering why digital books were not more advanced than that. I was comparing that market, to the music industry, to the movie industry. And I was seeing that they were far more advanced in the digital world compared to books. I realized that blockchain could bring a lot to the digital world of the book publishing in...