The publishing industry is prone to new technology, but it's also always playing catch-up with it. This time, the publishing industry is on the starting line with the new technology since the metaverse era. Whether the latter is just another pie in the sky or can take publishing along for the ride is a matter of opinion. The only way to know if the road is good is to actually try it.
CITIC Press has recently entered into an exclusive strategic partnership agreement with the Eggor Project, a subsidiary of the Ise Group in Japan, to collaborate in areas such as Web 3.0 (decentralized Internet running on blockchain technology), metaverse, digital artwork, and physical blockchain applications. As the head of the Eggor project, Asami Sakamoto will also serve as Vice President of CITIC Press’s operational entity in Japan.
In November 2022, the award ceremony of the First Global Metaverse Essay Contest, initiated by COL Digital Publishing Group, was held in Macau, China. Neal Stephenson, the famous American Cyberpunk writer, attended the ceremony. The first-prize author received RMB 1 million, and the top ten authors were also awarded RMB 100,000. This specification and amount of prize money stand out among the many essay contests in China.
On July 25, 2021, the "2021 First Metaverse Summit Forum and New Book Release of Metaverse Series", hosted by China Translation & Publishing House（CTPH） and Zhongguancun Big Data Industry Alliance, was held in Beijing, with a gathering of big names from the economic, financial, investment and technology sectors. In December of that year, CTPH, together with the China Education 30 Forum and the Zhongguancun Internet Education Innovation Center, launched the "Metaverse Education Lab". This series of initiatives all stem from the fact that CTPH is the largest, most explosive, and most sustainable publisher of books about the metaverse series in China. According to incomplete statistics from the Bookdao Book Influence Data Platform, no less than 150 books with the title "Metaverse" have been published in China, of which more than 30 have been published by CTPH.
CITIC Press is a domestic head book publisher, COL is a leading digital publisher, and CTPH is a black horse that has emerged in the field of financial publishing in the past two years, but they all have coincidentally chosen to invest more in the metaverse.
The metaverse is now a big box into which you can fit whatever you can think of.
As mentioned in the Metaverse Development Research Report 3.0 released by the Metaverse Culture Lab of Tsinghua University's School of Journalism and Communication, most of the metaverse is now initiated by tech giants because they have more tech R&D resources: Meta is working towards the Virtual Reality (VR) direction at metaverse; Microsoft is working towards the Mixed Reality (MR) direction; Apple is focusing on Augmented Reality (AR); Google is already sitting on OS and Android for VR and AR, and is also continuing to promote AR glasses ToB products, as well as holographic video; Nvidia is pushing the metaverse concept with its arithmetic power; Intel proposes that the arithmetic power should be increased a thousand times to make metaverse viable; Qualcomm promotes XR chips; IBM made a wave of a metaverse in 2006 but failed...
This report even illustrated from the aspects of young people, gamers, social management, single economy, disability protection, aging economy, online streaming economy, international communication, family harmony, social, people's basic needs, etc. It all boils down to one sentence: in the future, no one will live without the metaverse.
It is worth mentioning that COL is also one of the contributors to this Metaverse Culture Lab.
"Although the publishing industry has not fully caught up with the fast lane of digitalization, the advent of the metaverse era will bring all kinds of new opportunities for publishing." Qiao Weibing, President and Editor-in-Chief of CTPH, proposed a new future for the publishing industry and the metaverse with his years of observation in the field of technology and industry, arguing that the publishing industry is promoting the dissemination of new forms of digital knowledge by organizing and planning the publication of metaverse book series.
Taking this aforementioned Tsinghua University report and market feedback, specifically in the publishing industry, metaverse already has at least five tangible products and businesses.
First, the digital collectibles. According to the report of the third-party organization Moon Fox, in addition to the direct economic benefits brought by selling in the primary market of digital collectibles, the domestic market size driven by association with digital collectibles is expected to reach RMB 92.63 billion in 2026, bringing an increment of nearly 100 billion scale to the economy.
At this stage, at least in the primary market, digital collectibles do bring revenue to the distributors. However, under the policy of de-financialization of blockchain products in China, the digital collectibles that users buy into their hands are merely collectibles, and it is unknown when the securities value will be unfolded.
The second is AIGC (AI Generated Content) creation. Before the concept of metaverse was up, there was already much novel creation software on the Internet, which could generate a novel by a few given keywords. The Internet's content production is going through stages from PGC (Professional Generated Content), UGC (User Generated Content), and PUGC (Professional User Generated Content) to AIGC. Contents that can be generated by AIGC have expanded to a variety of forms such as text, images, video, audio, code, and robot actions.
In response to investor questions, COL said the company has launched the AI painting function and AI text-assisted creation function. The AI text-assisted creation function is open to all authors of COL's 17K Literature Platform. The AIGC function allows authors to fill in keywords and auxiliary phrases and generates corresponding text content descriptions for different scenes which improves writing efficiency.
According to its 2021 annual report, GUOMAI's AI creation robot can generate smooth and readable quality content through machine learning, ensure the same meaning and similar content after rewriting, and easily achieve optimal conversion of the draft with the one-click automatic manuscript.
When iReader Technology released its third quarterly report in 2022, it also said that AIGC is a production method that uses AI technology to automatically generate content after UGC and PGC, and that AIGC technology is ideally capable of converting text stories into video and 3D content when it is developed and mature.
AIGC is still mainly used in the creation of fictional works by online literature organizations and platforms. However, as this technology continues to develop and upgrade, in the future, like the Driver-Assistance System, it will give content creators and organizations to further improve creation efficiency. Even in the world of the metaverse, AIGC can accelerate production by generating content instantly according to the characters.
Third, the copyright confirmation by blockchain technology. In nearly a decade of e-book business, authors, booksellers, publishers, and e-book platforms are suffering from the plight of e-book copyrights. In the early days, contracts on the copyright of e-books were not made clear which results in the current difficulties for copyright confirmation. In the world of the metaverse, this problem can be solved by the use of blockchain technology.
In March 2020, China National Press and Publication Administration issued a notice, which promotes distribution enterprises to make full use of new technologies such as artificial intelligence, blockchain, and digital printing. In November of the same year, the Supreme People's Court issued Opinions on Strengthening the Protection of Copyright and Copyright-Related Matters, pointing out that parties are allowed to preserve, fix and submit evidence through blockchain and other means, effectively solving the problem of difficult proof for intellectual property rights holders.
In 2010, the China Copyright Protection Center proposed a new model of digital copyright service to the public: the DCI system. Under the DCI system, a unique and permanent DCI code can be designated for each digital content after registration. Registration certificates (electronic version) encapsulating detailed copyright information and DCI code encrypted with an electronic signature can be issued to copyright owners. According to the statistics, by the end of 2021, there were more than 2.3 million digital copyright certificates issued by Beijing Municipal Copyright Protection Center alone.
If previously there were publishers who were dismissive of blockchain copyright confirmation, this year's taste of digital collectibles has been a powerful shot in the arm. The combination of physical books and digital assets gives each book a unique, tamper-evident, and original author's autographed "blockchain asset digital credential". The unique characteristics of blockchain technology, i.e., decentralization, open and transparent, and tamper-evident, play an effective role in the field of copyright protection.
For example, the Straits Publishing and Distribution Group's Blockchain Copyright Comprehensive Operation Center, which is under construction, integrates copyright content application, registration, transfer transaction, cross-authorization, traceability and evidence collection, evidence maintenance, pledge financing, etc. The applicant will first register the work at the copyright service workstation, upload the evidence to the system, which will be examined by the workstation, and confirm the right quickly through blockchain technology to form an irreplaceable digital collectible. The timestamp on the blockchain can be used as proof of the publication time and form a powerful basis for the maintenance of copyrights. On the blockchain, the detailed information and ownership flow history of each digital work can be clearly viewed, ensuring the authenticity and credibility of the information, thus realizing the whole process of copyright protection.
"The public service layer plays the core role to a publishing house. We have built the essential public service layer into all blockchains, with the qualifications and capabilities of copyright audit, content audit, online publishing, and asset evaluation." Liu Tianjiao, deputy general manager of Xinhua Winshare's Sichuan Digital Publishing Media Co. said at the 2022 World VR Industry and Metaverse Expo.
The fourth is on the content high ground. COL's Metaverse Essay Contest is a combination of technology and literature on the surface, but at a deeper level, it is about the discourse right of the metaverse content. In the words of Tong Zhilei, chairman of COL, "Science fiction is the 'outpost' of reality to the future and has inspired many of the world-changing technological inventions. The metaverse represents the future of application scenarios and lifestyles, and the breakthrough of its core technology is on the eve of an explosion, just when the imagination of 'landing on the moon with cannons' is needed."
In the early days of online literature creation, Jiangnan, together with a group of writers, created the "Jiuzhou" series, in which all the plots, characters, story development, and world background are unified under the grand worldview of "Jiuzhou". This so-called "Jiuzhou Universe" is similar to the "Marvel Universe" in the film and television industry. Likewise, in the early days of the metaverse, whoever seizes the relevant content high ground, from content creation, content promotion and reading aspects, gets the largest cake, and even "the right of final interpretation".
China Translation & Publishing House (CTPH) is also stepping up to launch more metaverse works, such as Metaverse Great Finance, Metaverse Education, Metaverse and Carbon Neutral, Industrial Metaverse, Metaverse Governance, Metaverse Power, Metaverse and Digital Economy, Top Ten Technologies of Metaverse. They are the first to put forward the concept of Light Metaverse Books, focusing on universal, easy, and effective content of metaverse. CTPH also actively promotes the substantial attempts of metaverse books, hoping to deeply promote the transformation and upgrading of reading habits and the digitization of the publishing industry with a metaverse approach and to make the CTPH a central base of ideas for frontier research, information collection, and dissemination of technology in the metaverse field.
As Chen Rui, the chairman and CEO of Bilibili, said, the digital world in the metaverse will be a content ecology that requires massive content in which several companies become insufficient, and users are both consumers and producers of digital content in the metaverse.
At the 18th Cross-Strait Book Fair, Xiamen Xinhua Bookstore's "copyright + virtual property rights" e-books and the Metaverse Cloud Bookstore were presented at the fair. It is reported that the company's patented technology and e-book publishing solutions feature a settlement mechanism that generates royalty according to the number of copies an e-book published and distributed. This solution protects e-books with complete property rights attributes, which can be used as permanent assets.
To better focus on the metaverse business development, COL established a "Metaverse Committee" in early 2022, consisting of executives from all business lines, and set up two main metaverse companies in Hangzhou and Haikou respectively to undertake subsequent metaverse businesses and projects.
Fifth, AR and VR. The application of AR and VR technologies in the publishing industry predates the concept of the metaverse, and domestic Chinese publishers have long launched various related books. For example, Jilin Audio and Video Publishing House launched topics in 3D modeling technology in the early 1990s.
After the introduction of the metaverse concept, publishing institutions have significantly accelerated in this area.
In March 2022, the tech firm Zhong Tu Yun Chuang (中图云创) introduced its business strategy to the public: to provide the publishing industry with a comprehensive solution based on digital content development, digital scene construction, and digital brand promotion with 5G, VR/AR, ultra-high definition and other digital technologies.
Zhejiang Publishing & Media co., Ltd. announced in November 2022 the establishment of Zhejiang Chunxiao Digital Publishing Equity Investment Fund, which focuses on corporate targets in areas such as metaverse and virtual reality. The company's publishing units are promoting AR/VR technology to empower educational and popular science publishing.
Red Star Media, a subsidiary of Chinese Media Group, together with other sibling companies has launched several AR picture books, such as The Wonderful Journey of Water Babies (《水宝宝的奇妙之旅》), Idiom Solitaire (《成语接龙》), Adventures in Punctuation (《标点符号历险记》), and VR literary books such as Yangming Course (《阳明课程》), Lotus Rhythm Stone City (《莲韵石城》), exploring the application of new media presentation methods such as VR/AR in publishing.
There were 50 innovative application cases of virtual reality news publishing released at the 2022 World VR Industry Conference Metaverse Publishing Integration Development Forum. The "Cell Biology 3D Resource Library System" and "Virtual Fusion Gesture Recognition Experiment System" of Science Publishing House, "Big Scientists Speak Small Science - Is There a Corner in the Deep Universe" of Jilin Science and Technology Publishing House, and "National Higher Education Planning: AR Teaching Materials for Chinese Medicine Industry" of China Press of Traditional Chinese Medicine have better explained the AR and VR product forms in the context of metaverse from the perspective of technology and publishing respectively.
To sum up, the metaverse is big, but can it really accommodate the "ambitions" of the publishing industry, or is it just a pie in the sky?
From a technical point of view, the core technologies of the metaverse, whether blockchain, AR, or VR, have long been applied in the publishing industry, and there are abundant product forms. The birth of these products has little to do with the concept of the metaverse. 2021 is the year of the metaverse, a later hat that covers the earlier concept and eventually lines up as a bigger hat.
Qiao Weibing said that the metaverse, as part of the digital wave as well as the new stage and form of the digital economy, can not only provide new technical support, new content creation tools, new content products, new book trading platform, new publisher image, new organizational process and new platform and ecology for the publishing industry but also accelerate the digitalization, platform transformation, and upgrading of the publishing industry, as well as promote the convergent development of the publishing industry.
For the publishing industry, whether it is physical books, e-books, audiobooks, or any other forms, "the original intention" has not changed: quality content means everything. Therefore, solid and quality content is a sure winner in any-verse.
The same as digital publishing, what the publishing industry really needs is to change the concept and reposition for the change that is taking place with digital technology. With high-speed technological innovation, diversified reading products, fragmented reading time, changing content distribution platforms and media, and richer application functions, it is especially important to ensure that content comes first and is brought to readers promptly through new technologies, platforms, and applications, rather than holding on to old business models.
Under the metaverse, the subject of creation has changed dramatically. Now we can all be writers, expression is creation, and there are millions of creators on online literature platforms like China Literature and iReader. But in the future metaverse environment, AI becomes the subject of creation, and an avatar becomes the subject of creation. With the support of blockchain technology, the decentralization of knowledge production and dissemination becomes inevitable, and everyone can produce, disseminate, trade, and consume knowledge.
Taking the digital collectibles mentioned above as an example, the next issue in front of the publisher is twofold: Firstly, copyright determination. How to effectively divide the original content's copyright and the digital collection's copyright developed by technology, the ownership of rights, and the future rights and benefits? The second is the innovation and profit model of the product. The simple digitization of content, like e-books, is not enough to break through innovation in business. How should we develop suitable content according to the characteristics of digital collectibles? After issuing in the primary market, how to further revitalize the digital assets in the hands of users? After all, if the value of the collection cannot be preserved and increased, no one is willing to buy and keep a bunch of digital content just for fun.
Another example is the AIGC creation we discussed before in this article. No matter how powerful the AI creation gets, same as the intelligent voice system we commonly use now, it must learn through a lot of content to finally create a work that meets our needs. Will this final created work have copyright issues and any infringement? Just like the AI painting that is now wildly speculated online, there are already various debates about the copyright of the work. If we follow the traditional copyright idea, I am afraid it becomes difficult to defend the rights due to the massive volume of content. However, with the help of blockchain technology, the existing content can be copyrighted as early as possible, and a firewall can be built before the arrival of AIGC to avoid being caught off guard when the time comes.
At the same time, the scene of reading consumption will also undergo profound changes. In the future where reality and imagination are intertwined, readers can have a direct dialogue with the author in the metaverse, or even with characters of different times, like the ones written in metaphysical novels that travel through the long rivers of time and space. At present readers can take a book off the shelf in a bookstore, download one in a mobile app and start reading, and in the future readers click to open a virtual bookstore, a reading scene, or a metaverse launch. Physical books, e-books, audiobooks, film, and television content will face the transformation towards the "immersive" experience. In 2022, iReader launched the first reading promotion avatar, "Meta Yimeng", to recommend works to readers in a new way.
As Xu Shengguo, director of the Publishing Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Press and Publication, said at the 2022 World Metaverse Conference, "Personalized publishing, ubiquitous publishing, and intelligent publishing make it inevitable that publishing in the metaverse era will undergo fundamental changes. Publishing and reading will also be fully integrated with other fields. Production, consumption, finance, industry, digital twin, smart city, and smart education, all industries contain information and knowledge production and dissemination, just like the Internet and mobile Internet era, publishing and newspaper industries are increasingly deeply integrated with the information industry. In the metaverse era, all industries are knowledge industries, information industries, and all will become publishing industries, and the publishing industry will become more and more ubiquitous".
Metaverse is perhaps another big pie drawn by Internet technology outside of convergent publishing, but it is more pleasing to the publishing industry. Compared with products like e-books and audiobooks, the imagination space of the metaverse is much larger and wider, which greatly broadens the boundary of publishing.