Acknowledgments

This whitepaper is the outcome of more than six years of work. Since the initial application to a Google-funded grant for the Content Blockchain Project in 2017, it was my personal goal to create a tool that utilises blockchain and web3 technologies to help the creative community and rightsholders monetise their works more securely and efficiently by attaching human and machine-readable metadata and rights management information to a content-derived identifier. Liccium is the result of these efforts and continuous input from stakeholders and potential users of the app during these years.

Credit for most of the ISCC-related content goes to Titusz Pan, the inventor of the ISCC system and author of exhaustive technical documentation on the foundation's websites and GitHub repositories. He deserves all the honour and credit for the development of the ISCC system as it stands today.

This whitepaper is intended to address a broader, non-technical audience. Unless noted otherwise, the content of the whitepaper was written and compiled by Sebastian Posth with valuable input from the Liccium team. I am grateful for the advice, editorial and development work. ChatGPT was used for editorial polishing on some paragraphs for better articulation and language.

In 2022 and 2023, Liccium B.V. (former Posth Werk B.V.) received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No. 957228) for the technical specification and actual development of the MVP of the Liccium app. The TruBlo.eu program also triggered and advised on a proper analysis and documentation of project drivers and product-to-market fit. I am very grateful for this support! The views in this whitepaper do not necessarily reflect those of the TruBlo consortium or the European Commission, and they are not liable for any use made of the information contained herein.

Supported by the Institute for Internet Security, I had the chance to work on key concepts of SSI, such as decentralised identifiers (DIDs) and verifiable credentials (VCs), which are a key component of the project.

The author is also grateful for a small grant and valuable coaching from the Media-Lab Bayern in Munich in 2019.