Universal Music Rights Platform

Hackathon Journey

Inspiration

The music industry faces a critical challenge: creators lack a secure way to prove ownership of their work without risking exposure of their creative content. Traditional copyright systems are cumbersome, expensive, and offer little protection during the early stages of creation. We recognized that musicians often share their work prematurely, risking theft or plagiarism, because there was no better alternative. The rise of Web3 presented an opportunity to create a system that could leverage cryptography to solve this age-old problem.

Our team was inspired by the potential of zero-knowledge proofs to revolutionize intellectual property protection. We envisioned a world where creators could establish proof of ownership for their work without ever having to reveal what that work actually is - protecting them from theft while still providing verifiable proof of authorship.

What it does

Creative Works Mint provides a comprehensive solution for music creators to securely register and manage their intellectual property:

• Private Registration: Artists can register any type of musical work (lyrics, melodies, chord progressions, full compositions, arrangements) using cryptographic commitments
• Zero-Knowledge Ownership Proofs: Creators can prove ownership of their work without revealing the actual content
• Version Control: Track and manage revisions of all work types over time
• Collaboration Tools: Manage partnerships and joint ownership with other creators
• Licensing System: Enable others to license works under specific terms while maintaining ownership
• Privacy Preservation: All content remains completely private while still enabling verification and ownership claims
• Cross-Media Integration: Link different types of creative works (lyrics with melodies, samples with source material)

The platform operates on the Midnight Network, leveraging its unique zero-knowledge capabilities to ensure both transparency of ownership records and privacy of creative content.

How we built it

We built Creative Works Mint using the Midnight Network's ecosystem and modern web technologies:

• Frontend: React v18.2 with TypeScript, using Vite as the build tool for fast development
• Smart Contracts: Developed using Midnight Compact language for zero-knowledge functionality
• ZK Proofs: Implemented with Midnight's private witness primitives to enable ownership proofs without revealing content
• Wallet Integration: Seamless integration with Lace wallet for authentication and transaction signing
• Local Proof Generation: Utilized Midnight's proof-server running in Docker for client-side proof generation
• State Management: Leveraged Midnight Network's indexer for tracking ownership records and work relationships
• UI Framework: Custom-built components with modular architecture following best practices for DApps

The architecture follows a client-side ZK workflow where witnesses are constructed in the browser, proofs are generated locally, and only commitments are stored on-chain. This ensures that creative content never leaves the creator's device while still enabling verifiable ownership claims.

Built With

• midnight