What Pranah Is
An ebook publication and distribution platform where each ebook copy is an NFT, so that users own those copies outright and have property rights on them, similar to a physical copy of a book title.
What Pranah Wants
We want to bring property rights to ebooks: the current status quo doesn't give any kind of property rights on the ebooks that users 'buy'. Property rights on goods has been a cornerstone in the prosperity of modernity, and it is high time that we bring this to mass media content.
What Pranah Does
By making each ebook copy a unique entity and giving their full ownership to the users, we are enabling new ways of owning, distributing, and interacting with ebooks.
How Authors Benefit
In addition to the age-old revenue streams, the authors get royalties on every resale, as well as being able to hold auctions of limited editions and first copies.
How Other Creators Benefit
As a creator, you can buy virgin copies directly from the author(the plain old book purchase), add illustrations/annotations/additional text to it and resell them. As the first owner of that copy, you will get a small royalty on every further resale of that copy.
Annotation Engine We believe our annotation engine and the features built around it is going to set a new paradigm for books: Each book becomes uniquely augmented by the users and creators, and their uniqueness can be captured monetarily by the market. Book lovers will be enabled to interact with their books in novel ways, adding their contribution to the book and making their books their own personal works of art. While a 'vanilla' title would be set at a particular length, each of its copies would 'grow' over time: new pages of texts and illustrations added, side notes and signature messages incorporated to the original text.
This aspect could be a great way of passing knowledge and educating students: quality annotations from previous owners can be a great source of wealth in itself.
The Book Store The marketplace where users buy books from the authors and publishers. Lazy minting happens here.
Private Library A user's private library, to browse one's collections and interact with them.
Publishing Publishing a new book as an author/publisher. This process will need to be vetted by the community to ensure copyright and prevent plagiarism.
Secondary Market The secondary market, where a user can buy used books. This is in addition to auction events on special and limited editions. Each copy has an overview of its uniqueness highlighted.
Book Profile The profile of a particular book. All the unique aspects of the particular copy can be gauged and inspected here.
Renting books Another way of providing educational access to marginalised individuals is to give them the option of renting books: affordable for everyone, and a steady stream of revenue for the authors and book owners. This would also provide a way out of piracy: a cultural shift due to cheap options, rather than an insurmountable technological barrier to it.
Milestones so far
- Awarded 'the most promising NFT project' at EthOnline (2020)
- Part of Batch 3 of F10 Singapore's Incubation program (currently Tenity)
Roadmap
The roadmap for achieving future milestones:
Light Paper
A light paper can be found here for further reading on the project.
Prānah : Reading Redefined! History
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applied to the Web3 Community and Education 1 year ago which was rejected