CNN To Sell “Historic News Moments” as NFTs

By Robert Drage June 18, 2021 In Crypto News, NFTs

CNN is joining in the crypto space by sharing “moments” from its archives as non-fungible tokens (NFTs). The prominent news network has officially dipped its toe by minting these moments and selling them as NFTs.

According to a press release from CNN, “Vault by CNN: Moments That Changed Us” will house a select set of digital collectibles, called “Moments”, from CNN’s television archives, minted as NFTs using blockchain technology, to be sold on vault.cnn.com.

The NFTs will be minted from CNN’s 41 years’ worth of archived material and will available on the Flow blockchain, which is also home to NBA Top Shot, a basketball digital collectibles marketplace. The network has not revealed which specific historic moments will be tokenised, but examples may include what it describes as “key historical moments organised around specific themes including early CNN exclusives, world history, and presidential elections”.

The launch is scheduled towards the end of June, from when there will be six weekly drops. As the collector community grows, so will the Vault‘s content, adapting to its community, according to the release.

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CNN has also partnered with video framing firm Infinite Objects so users will have the option of rendering their NFTs onto a screen and displaying them physically while offline.

Can Anyone ‘Own’ History?

‘Owning’ historical events captured by news reporters, recorded and aired by CNN? Sounds like a bit of an ownership issue.

Until now, there has been no way to ‘collect’ these moments. Users can often find old footage online, or packaged up in documentaries, but they cannot ‘own’ them or display them in the way they can with a print newspaper or magazine.

CNN press release
Vault by CNN website

CNN’s online archive already boasts 700,000 hours of news content that can be purchased and downloaded without conferring ‘ownership’. Despite putting forward ‘ownership’ as a value proposition of the NFTs, the network notes that “CNN retains copyright and ownership over the content”.

What is CNN going to do to create value around its NFT offering? Is simply putting a ‘moment’ into a video frame enough to capture the interest of potential buyers?

Mainstream Media Using Blockchain Technology

This year, various businesses have started experimenting with blockchain and related technologies. However, organisations that operate in the public eye have also recently shown how they can apply these technologies to their own industries.

Fox Entertainment recently spent US$100 million on an NFT creator fund to support the entire development process of NFTs. Similarly, Marvel recently announced a launch of an NFT marketplace on the Binance Smart Chain (BSC).  The development is focused on Marvel comic fans and content creators can transmit assets into NFTs.

Robert Drage
Author

Robert Drage

Robert is a freelance researcher, with a background in information science currently interested in blockchain technology and technical developments in the field.

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