Leading Indonesian Newspaper Harian Kompas to Release Archive Photos as NFTs on Tezos
The newspaper has selected 57 photographs, one for each year it has been publishing, and is releasing them as NFTs on Objkt.com.
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‘Story of Life’ by Penangkapcahaya - one of the 57 photographs released by Indonesian newspaper Harian Kompas as NFTs.
The Harian Kompas newspaper serves a readership of almost four million people across the Indonesia archipelago, and with a photo archive going back to 1965, the paper’s existence has spanned a period of incredible change and growth for the region and the wider world. Harian Kompas went online early, in 1995, and now it’s entering the world of Web3. The newspaper has selected 57 photographs - one for each year it has been publishing - and is releasing them as NFTs on Objkt.com, a major NFT marketplace on Tezos. Each of the 57 photographs is being turned into an edition of 57 NFTs, making 3249 NFTs in total. The drop started last month and will continue through December of this year.
Each NFT will be worth one ‘point’ and points can be exchanged for limited edition custom printed merchandise including postcards, T-shirts, a photography book, and a full-sized acrylic print of the original photograph. The drop will be accompanied by an exhibition at the National Museum in Jakarta, opening October 28th. Printed postcards of the 57 photos will be on sale at the exhibition, and purchasers will also receive a NFT.
At its core, a media company is actually a massive congregation of creators. There are photographers, content writers, and designers. Web3 is something that can empower media too, allowing us to tap into a global ecosystem of creators, and audiences. - Helman Taofani, Commercial Development Manager at Harian Kompas
One of the advantages of NFTs to photographers and artists in general is their potential to create a more equitable revenue model. Royalties agreements can be written into smart contracts, guaranteeing a revenue stream for the creator in perpetuity, when NFTs are resold. Harian Kompas is splitting the revenue from sales of its photo archive evenly with the original photographers, giving them 50% of the proceeds from NFT sales.
TZAPAC recently published an in-depth article about Harian Kompas’s move into Web3, featuring commentary from Helman Taofani, Commercial Development Manager at Harian Kompas and Ruanth Chrissley Thysson, renowned sound designer, videographer and web developer, and founder of Metarupa, the first Indonesian NFT Community, who advised Kompas on the NFT drop.