iOwn.Me WHITE PAPER

Community of Trust:

A New Paradigm for Digital Ownership

The iOwn.Me Project

F. Scott Yeager

iOwn.Me

syeager@iown.me

The Problem

In the physical world, individuals possess clear ownership of themselves and benefit from well-established legal frameworks to safeguard and assert their rights. However, these protective measures are often absent in the digital realm.

In the digital world, individuals should ideally hold ownership of their personal data and digital identities.

The Basic Challenge

We have unwittingly relinquished these rights. This is clear in the absence of a robust governance mechanism to ensure data rights and the staggering combined market capitalization of $5.5 trillion for tech giants like Google, Facebook, Amazon, Apple, and Netflix, driven by the monetization of user data. Facebook, Google, TikTok, Instagram, and various other platforms have crossed all ethical boundaries and eroded public trust.

The Netflix documentary The Social Dilemma illustrates this loss of trust and illustrates how advanced AI manipulates individuals for financial gain.

Google envisions a dystopian future where users are not owners of their data but merely transient carriers of data to be exploited using AI to influence human behavior for the benefit of…Google.[1]

Individuals use social media platforms for leisure, while businesses leverage them to engage customers. Content creators, meanwhile, turn to platforms like YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram to monetize their content through streaming. It is imperative to emphasize the importance of retaining ownership over both your created content, such as books, articles, or other intellectual property, and your online activity data.

Whether it involves playing video games, sharing educational tutorials, or cultivating audiences for product sales, content creators often generate revenue through platform views. Yet, currently, individuals do not possess ownership rights over their content and data. This situation can have dire consequences for content creators who have invested years in cultivating their expertise and audiences, as they may face unexplained cancelations, irrespective of any political biases.

The Evolving Challenge: The Impact of Generative AI

The tech giants have long used AI as a tool to process data and manipulate the users, but the emergence of AI capable of generating content that resembles real individuals poses an additional, more immediate threat to actors, athletes, and other public figures. Distinguishing whether the content is genuine, AI-created, or stolen, and building an audience where you own your content is not an option with present online platforms.

Even ostensibly cancel-free platforms such as Rumble and Mastodon still own your content even if they let you monetize it. This makes it more important than ever to take control and own your content and for consumers and fans to do the same thing.

iOwn.Me’s, goal is to solve this enormous problem by enabling a new data provenance protocol called a Community of Trust (CoT) around any data related to an individual and transforming digital privacy rights into property rights with precise enforcement mechanisms by declaring “iOwn.Me” and obtaining title to themselves via this Declaration Certificate.

The plan is to start with athletes, musicians, artists, and performers and engage communities around their fans, and in doing so, establish a new de facto standard where people have title to themselves to own, control, and monetize their digital assets.

The Solution Toolkit

Data is the lifeblood of the digital age, fueling innovation and driving decisions with its wealth of insights. It is time for individuals to stake their claim on their digital assets and take ownership of their digital identities. Instead of continuing to allow others to extract value from their digital lives via platforms owned by big tech, it is time to shift towards mining their own digital assets within a Community of Trust. In this community, the fundamental principle is clear: individuals have complete ownership of all data generated on the network, whether knowingly or unknowingly, and they have the autonomy to set their data preferences according to their desires, as stipulated in the iOwn.me U.S. patent.

The Declaration Certificate

The Declaration Certificate within the iOwn.Me Private Community of Trust Network, represents a self-affirmed step forward, allowing individuals to take possession of their digital assets and liberate themselves from reliance on established incumbents for social media, gaming, online shopping, collaboration, and other internet activities. The journey begins with a simple act: declaring “iOwn.Me” and asserting ownership. Gradually, this transition leads to a new era where individuals can mine their digital ‘gold’ on their own digital property, rather than on someone else’s turf (the incumbents).

The iOwn.Me Private Community of Trust Network accomplishes this transformation through a robust Community of Trust™ framework, underpinned by legal agreements that define cybersecurity and privacy standards, all implemented in a consistent and deployable manner. This approach combines containerized technology with an innovative concept called a “Declaration Certificate.” This intellectual property and procedural approach establish a foundational “Root Proof of Trust,” a digitally trackable asset that can seamlessly integrate with any Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) or Blockchain stack for a multitude of purposes or adapt to work with any Non-Fungible Token (NFT) technology.

The “iOwn.Me” CoT Privacy Patent

The cornerstone of this solution lies in a comprehensive patent (US 10,084,757, dated September 25, 2018) that confers individuals with unequivocal legal ownership and rights to ALL data pertaining to themselves, whether knowingly or unknowingly transmitted across any network. When an individual asserts their entitlement to their digital identity through a Declaration Certificate, this patent forms a direct connection between their declaration and the rights they lay claim to under the Network Privacy patent.

This connection, established through self-attestation, effectively transforms abstract and challenging-to-enforce privacy rights into individually enforceable and quantifiable property and intellectual property (IP) rights. One can make a compelling case that tokenizing any representation of an individual’s data assets gains significant reinforcement from both the patent and the Declaration Certificate, which formally links an individual’s data rights to the patent. Integrating a Declaration Certificate into any process involving Non-Fungible Token (NFT) tokenization offers a notable advantage in the rapidly developing landscape of data asset tokenization.

The legal framework and contracts embody the new rules of engagement delineated in the patent, where individuals assert ownership over themselves and can monetize their own digital identities. Interconnection agreements within the Community of Trust establish regulations for data exchange among diverse Trust Communities, encompassing data privacy and information sharing agreements that allow for granular control, even down to the level of defining Smart Contracts governing specific fields of information shared between entities.

The Community of Trust (CoT)

The concept of the Community of Trust™ mirrors our daily interactions in the physical world, where people seamlessly enter and exit communities of trust, although we may not formalize it in those precise terms. Just as we engage in and out of Communities of Trust when attending meetings or working in person, the Community of Trust™ provides a digital counterpart to these real-world interactions. There are five recognized types of communities:

< >Interest: People who share the same interest or passion. Action: People who work to accomplish the same goal. Place: People within given geographic boundaries. Practice: People who share the same profession. Circumstance: People brought together by external events or situations.

Whenever people come together for a purpose, excluding others for either security or simple privacy, that is a physical-world community of trust.

The Three Tenets of any Community of Trust

Individuals:

Individuals may own, control, delete or monetize their digital identity created by their activities and interests while utilizing any network. iOwn.Me enables individuals to reprivatize their digital identities in a Community of Trust (CoT).

Businesses or organizations (including DAOs):

Have the right to administer and control their digital footprint and interact with employees, end-users, IoT devices, and interconnected 3rd parties privately and securely. I
Own.Me Community of Trust Owner companies are able to reprivatize their network when in a Community of Trust and offer these services to their users.

Legal jurisdictions:

Such as countries and states, have the right and ability to define the laws under which individuals and companies operate within their jurisdiction. A Private Community of Trust Network enables companies to manage security and privacy according to geographic jurisdictional requirements AND regulatory frameworks when in a Community of Trust in a jurisdiction.

A Community of Trust™

A Community of Trust is an entity formed around a specific purpose. The participants agree to abide by a minimum cybersecurity standard, adhere to the rules established by the governance body, protect the participants’ rights and their private and personal information, and do so within the laws of the jurisdiction in which the Community of Trust resides. Every Community of Trust (CoT) defines these, including the Governance and standards used per CoT.

A CoT is a new Special Purpose Entity that is a stand-alone entity that may be operated by a company, or a Corp or Partnership as a separate entity with it’s own governance and status. It is a new kind of entity called a Community of Trust. The legal framework allows the CoT Owner and users to leverage the Private Community of Trust Network CoT Patent as a subset of the definition of the CoT and make it available to the consumers to help them own, control and monetize their digital identity by leveraging the patent. These principles are embodied in the Legal Framework of the Community of Trust™. This means the Patent functions as a patent for the people.

They may be applied based on the purpose and control of the Community of Trust. This Legal Framework defines and controls the purpose, process, participants, and external actors involved, such as business 3rd parties or supply chain vendors. All parties agree to operate per the CoT legal framework include interconnected 3rd parties who sign interconnection agreements.

The Community of Trust Identity Vault:

A Community of Trust stores the Individuals’ personal data within an Identity Vault, overseen by a CoT Privacy Authority responsible for monitoring and regulating data usage within the Community of Trust. The iOwn.Me Private Community of Trust Network employs a distinctive database model that collects and organizes all individual data, providing individuals with the power to manage their preferences. This control extends to factors such as adhering to the specific geographic jurisdiction associated with each data subject. This innovative approach revolves around the concept of individuals asserting ownership over their data and articulating their preferences regarding data sharing and monetization.

Disintermediating the Disruptors:

Humanity has unknowingly given away its private data to a handful of companies in exchange for trivial free services. Unfortunately, these “free” services come at a staggering expense; that of not owning the data collected about themselves and not controlling the use of that data. Personal data traded for free services has allowed a handful of companies to establish a massive valuation directly out of the pockets of their users. Peoples unrecoverable assets are their time and attention and they traded their time and attention for those services unknowingly.

Enforcing Ownership:

Currently, an individual's data is dispersed across numerous databases, and it's evident that they lack ownership of it. This data is continually bought and sold, with the platform holding ownership rights. The Declaration Certificate fills in this crucial missing piece. It empowers individuals to formally declare and assert ownership over their data, enabling them to break it down into fractions and monetize it wherever it holds value.

A New Approach to Crucial Data

The Community of Trust and Declaration Certificate represents a profound shift towards safeguarding individual privacy. More critically, they provide smaller companies with a set of secure mechanisms to engage with individuals and serve as responsible custodians of critical data. This empowers them to utilize and monetize data without concerns about violating GDPR-like regulations. The Community of Trust and Declaration Certificate offers essential tools that allow participating companies to collect, safeguard, and ethically use data with the data owner’s explicit permission, thus avoiding any legal complications.

These innovations directly challenge the dominance of big tech companies in the realm of personal data, disrupting their monetization strategies and redirecting the value back to the rightful owners of the data. Monetizing data has the potential to provide individuals with a form of universal income, compensating them for the data they generate, including their attention, as this data is inherently owned by individuals.

The Declaration Certificate is a groundbreaking tool for safeguarding one’s digital identity, complementing existing measures with increased effectiveness. Leveraging the latest digital privacy laws, such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in the European Union and CCPA in California, a Declaration Certificate transforms an individual’s identity into a digital representation, invoking the legal protections embedded in GDPR and related regulations. This process also establishes a new data provenance protocol for any data linked to the individual, offering avenues for legal recourse in cases of infringement.

Enforcing one’s rights becomes more straightforward with the backing of the Declaration Certificate and intellectual property law. Unauthorized use of a Declaration Certificate holder’s data in the marketplace can be easier to prove and rectify. Holders can apply repeatedly this mechanism to various aspects of an individual’s digital identity, effectively combating identity theft and securing digital assets.

While combatting identity theft is a compelling use case, the true disruption lies in the securitization market. This approach enables the pooling of assets, complete with legally binding agreements specifying eligible collateral, and the appointment of a trustee to enforce these agreements according to US Contract law. This approach can apply to both newly created, unencumbered digital asset instances and historical digital identities, providing control and ownership over one’s digital past.

Declaration Certificates have the potential to restore digital identity ownership and control for all individuals engaged in online activities through three key facets: converting individual rights into property ownership, defining and protecting digital identity, and instituting an efficient enforcement mechanism. Each aspect establishes a new paradigm for data protection, and the exploration of Declaration Certificate use cases may uncover further transformative opportunities.

Content Creators/Providers Have a Direct Relationship with End-Users:

The capability to dynamically establish secure private networks using software, scalable across virtually any device and operating system, in combination with the individual data vault and database model, opens up a new realm of possibilities for companies, particularly content providers. This technology enables these companies to establish a direct and legally recognized relationship with end-users, which streamlines the delivery of content in context.

In this context-driven approach, content can be dynamically served from a database in alignment with the user’s preferences, ushering in novel user experiences that cater to individual tastes and preferences, including potential monetization opportunities. This approach allows for both linear and non-linear content delivery, all while incorporating tokenization of individual preferences. To draw a historical analogy, this is akin to having a dedicated pipeline directly into the user’s home. However, by leveraging state-of-the-art cryptography provided by the industry the iOwn.me Community of Trust establishes a secure layer that overlays the existing internet infrastructure.

As a result, this Private CoT Network can provide a wide range of services, including video streaming, voice communication, conferencing, and virtually any application or content, directly to securely authenticated consumers. This model also empowers advertisers to reach verified human users—real individuals, not bots—based on their preferences, ushering in a new era of consumer-centric monetization and more effective commerce outcomes for product owners and advertisers.

Imagine a scenario where a well-known individual or a group of athletes with a massive following could harness Private Community of Trust Network’s technology and patent to establish their dedicated private conduit to all their end-users. This would not only offer these famous figures a unique opportunity to forge entirely new commercial relationships with consumers, players, and brands within this innovative paradigm, but it would also put individuals in control of their own data. Advertisers could directly engage with users and deliver content and advertising aligned with their stated preferences.

Ultimately, this platform could serve as a central “Dashboard” for individuals to manage their preferences and data monetization effectively.

iOwn.Me is eager to collaborate with prominent figures or entities to speed up the creation and deployment of new transactions for content and end consumers, while concurrently establishing and disseminating this groundbreaking paradigm on a global scale.

iOwn.me is introducing this fresh Community of Trust and Declaration Certificate paradigm with innovative early adopters, who will act as pioneers, drawing fast followers into the fold and making this approach widely accessible and repeatable. Historically, innovation has been propelled by pioneers taking initiative, ultimately leading to the development of de facto standards. Through this process, Communities of Trust will foster network dynamics to swiftly expand and deploy Declaration Certificates, initially targeting athletes and celebrities and eventually extending the reach to individuals from all walks of life.

The tokenization of data rights through Declaration Certificates is poised to rapidly become the standard for monetizing content preferences, attention, and various data streams, effectively shifting power from a select few companies back to individuals and the entities that provide them with valuable content.

“iOwn.Me” & Private Community of Trust Network as an ecosystem discussion:

How do Private Community of Trust Networks, “iOwn.Me,” the Declaration Certificate declared within the Community of Trust, and the Network Privacy Patent interconnect?

The synergy between any Private Community of Trust Network, “iOwn.Me,” the Declaration Certificate declared within the Community of Trust (CoT), and the Network Privacy Patent, forms a comprehensive and multi-dimensional approach to asserting digital self-ownership.

When we examine the concept of a Community of Trust (CoT), bolstered by its legal framework, and then introduce the Declaration Certificate (“iOwn.Me”) along with the Network Privacy Patent, we witness a compelling, common-sense, and robust assertion of one’s digital rights. This collective framework empowers individuals to truly own every facet of their digital selves, granting them not just privacy rights but full property rights and Title over their digital identities.

Community of Trust (CoT) and its Legal Framework

Structured Foundation:

The legal framework offers a well-defined, coherent structure where the principles of self-ownership are entrenched. By subscribing to the CoT, an individual operates within a realm that inherently respects and upholds their claim to digital self-ownership but uses a special purpose legal entity called a Community of Trust to substantiate and put in writing all the rules of engagement by all the parties including interconnected 3rd parties to conduct business in this manner and protect the rights of the individual, the CoT Owner which is the business operation the Community of Trust and follow the laws of the jurisdiction where the CoT operates. All 3 stakeholder entities are protected.

Collective Strength:

A community implies a collective, a group of individuals united by a shared understanding or goal. When multiple people attest to their digital rights within this community, it brings collective strength, making the assertion harder to challenge or dismiss. It’s no longer an isolated claim but a communal stand. As adoption occurs and more people in more CoTs adopt the Declaration Certificate approach to declare ”iOwn.Me” this can become a de facto standard for how to declare you own your digital self. Use of the Dec Cert with the unique identifier is the Title to oneself and as such this is also a de facto standard.

Adherence to Jurisdictional Laws:

The CoT ensures that the declaration of digital self-ownership is in line with jurisdictional laws, thereby ensuring that the claim is not just philosophical and logical but also legally sound because it honors the laws of the jurisdiction.

The Declaration Certificate key concepts:

Tangible Assertion:

The Declaration Certificate serves as a tangible, formal evidence of one’s declaration of digital self-ownership. It’s not just a verbal claim; it’s a documented assertion that uses a repeatable methodology to timestamp the action in a manner than can be used in a court to make it admissible as evidence since it followed a chain of custody approach to document when and how it was done. It includes independent validation of oneself and a unique identifier to record this event.

Universal Application:

With the Dec Cert, there’s a standardized, universal method of declaring one’s digital rights. This uniformity ensures that the principle of ”iOwn.Me” is consistently applied and understood and the methodology is repeatable for all people.

Framework-Driven Claim:

The certificate isn’t arbitrary. It derives its strength from the established CoT framework, ensuring that the claim is both structured and recognized and uses technology to timestamp all actions in this process.

The Network Privacy Patent use in the CoT Framework:

Validation of the Process:

The patenting of the “iOwn.Me” concept signifies it has undergone rigorous scrutiny and validation by the patent office. This recognition affirms the concept’s uniqueness and innovation. Importantly, the patent’s assertion that individuals have “title” to their data elevates the concept beyond mere privacy rights, firmly establishing it as a fundamental property right.

Shield against Infringement:

With legal protection against misuse or co-opting, the patent safeguards the integrity and authenticity of the “iOwn.Me” declaration when combined with the methodology provided by the Community of Trust Owner while operating the CoT in a uniform manner and using the legal document that makes the claims..

Asserting Novelty:

The patent underscores that the “iOwn.Me” concept is not a mere reinterpretation but a pioneering approach to digital self-ownership and links it to a provable document filed in the USA and EU that states this idea of having title to the data and own, control, and monetize all data traversing any network knowingly or unknowingly is a proof this concept was novel and worthy of being patented by the US and EU patent offices.

“iOwn.Me” Summarization:

The “iOwn.Me” self-attestation, when considered alongside the Community of Trust (CoT), the Declaration Certificate, and the Network Privacy Patent, forms a profound union of logic, common sense, and legal coherence. It builds upon the fundamental principle of owning oneself in the physical world and seamlessly extends this concept to the digital realm. This goes beyond a mere legal maneuver; it encapsulates the evolving digital age where our data and digital expressions are as integral to our identity as our physical presence.

This cohesive system empowers individuals with a potent tool to assert their digital rights. It not only fortifies the foundation of this claim with logic and common sense but also reinforces its legal legitimacy. As a result, the self-attestation of “iOwn.Me” becomes an incontrovertible and comprehensive statement of one’s digital identity and associated rights.

Summary of Key Concepts

The Validity of “iOwn.Me” Self-Attestation: A Logical Progression of Self-Ownership

Understanding the principle of self-ownership in both physical and digital realms is more than a legal matter; it is rooted in fundamental logic and common sense.

Concept of Self Ownership in the Physical World:

Across various philosophical and legal doctrines worldwide, a firmly established belief endures—that individuals inherently possess sovereignty over their own bodies. We frequently refer to this principle as an inalienable right, signifying that it is an innate facet of human existence that cannot be surrendered, irrespective of personal preferences. When an individual declares ‘I own me,’ they are not merely making a statement; they are affirming a fundamental and unassailable right.

Digital Extension of Self Ownership:

The age of the internet has ushered us into a realm where our personalities, actions, and preferences extend beyond the tangible. Our social media interactions, online behaviors, health records, and more form a comprehensive digital avatar. This avatar, while intangible, is a manifestation of our identity. Logic dictates that if we have dominion over our physical selves, this dominion should naturally extend to our digital footprints. Claiming, “I own all my data about me,” is more than an idle statement; it’s an acknowledgment of our digital self-ownership.

Self-Attestation and its Intrinsic Validity:

Because one can, without any external validation, claim dominion over their physical being, it’s only logical that the same individual can attest to owning their digital self. “iOwn.Me” is not just a catchy phrase; it’s an extension of the principle of inalienable rights into the digital sphere.

Moreover, inalienable rights, by nature, are considered “self-evident.” This means they don’t need an external body to acknowledge or validate them. Their existence is a given, drawing from the essence of human dignity and nature. While governments and institutions recognize these rights, they are not the source. As such, these bodies cannot deny or take away these inherent rights, making them beyond the purview of legal negation. Self-attestation, especially in the context of inalienable rights, is fundamentally a declaration of these inherent rights. And, since inalienable rights don’t require external endorsement, self-attestation doesn’t either. However, from a practical standpoint, the manner in which one self-attests might come under scrutiny for authenticity in certain situations, but not the underlying right itself.

Use Case Examples

Use Case 1: NIL Collective Community of Trust for University Athletics and the digital life of Athletes, Students and Fans.

Introduction

In the dynamic landscape of collegiate athletics, the importance of managing Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) rights has never been more critical. This discussion proposes a revolutionary model: a NIL Collective Community of Trust (CoT) for university athletics, powered by an Advanced Distributed Digital Identity Vault (ADDIV). This model aims to protect stakeholders, including athletes, universities, athletic departments, alumni, and donors, while empowering athletes to own, control, and monetize their digital selves.

The NIL Collective CoT Framework

At the heart of this model is the NIL Collective CoT, a structured framework designed to safeguard the interests of all parties involved in collegiate athletics. This framework is underpinned by comprehensive governance documents, including boilerplate agreements, an End User License Agreement (EULA), and a Declaration Certificate (Dec Cert). This foundation, coupled with the utilization of a privacy patent, establishes a secure environment for managing NIL rights within a regulated and transparent ecosystem.

Key Components:

Community of Trust (CoT) legal framework includes Governance Documents and EULA: These documents define the operational, legal, and ethical boundaries of the NIL Collective Community of Trust and it is established as a stand alone Special Purpose Vehicle operating separately from the University, the Athletic Department and potentially the existing Collectives at the University, ensuring compliance with NCAA regulations, state laws, and federal mandates while protecting the NIL Rights of the individual athletes and helping them operate as stand-alone digital identities.
Declaration Certificate (Dec Cert): the Dec Cert serves as a legal assertion of an athlete's ownership over their digital identity which includes a unique identifier number that functions as their digital “Title” to themselves. It is created when they allow an independent digital identity validation step to occur as a key part of the Dec Cert process. This not only makes the person trustworthy because they subjected themselves to independent validation so if they do not follow the Community of Trust Rules they can be caught and identified, when the unique validation number is created it is used over and over to enable them to keep exerting Title/Ownership to their digital assets. This gives them repeatable control while enabling them to explore monetization avenues of their NIL rights. 
Privacy Patent usage licensed as part of the CoT and used in the Dec Cert claims: The CoT Privacy Patent is licensed to the CoT Owner with other IP such as the CoT Legal Framework. The template of the Declaration Certificate is part of this IP and the Dec Cert claims use the fact that the US Gov and the EU Gov honor the patent as additional support to the self-attested claim of not only inalienable rights but property laws to protect the assets which add up to be your digital self.
CoT Privacy Authority Function: The CoT Privacy Authority is a legal construct that is part of the patent that says all data created while traversing the network knowingly or unknowingly will be parsed and managed by the CoT Central Privacy Authority so people can have “title” to their digital self. These CoT elements enforce privacy and data protection standards, providing a secure framework for managing NIL activities. 
Advanced Distributed Digital Identity Vault (ADDIV): A technological solution that allows athletes and students to securely manage their digital assets, ensuring privacy and control over their digital footprint in an ongoing manner so as they conduct their digital lives they always create digital assets in in their digital future that are always marked with their “title” or unique Dec Cert ID number. This may also be put on an immutable record like a blockchain so they can use that “hash” number in addition to their unique ID look up number as they deem appropriate. This is up to each athlete and student to decide and they may change their mind over time.

Implementing the CoT Collective across University Athletics

Envision a university with 500 athletes across 10 sports, including football, basketball (men's and women's), baseball, volleyball, lacrosse, track, and others. The implementation of the NIL Collective CoT at the collective level for all sports provides a unified approach to managing NIL rights, promoting equitable treatment and opportunities for all athletes, regardless of the sport.

Sports-Specific Promotion within the Private CoT Network

Each team, within its respective sport, promotes its athletes and their achievements to students and fans through their own private channel within the CoT Network. This approach ensures targeted engagement and fosters a deeper connection between athletes and their supporters.

The Dec Cert: A Game-Changer for Athlete Monetization

The Dec Cert plays a pivotal role in this model by creating a unique title for each athlete's data. This certificate is attached to every new digital asset created by an athlete, ensuring that content published in the Private CoT Network is protected and monetized efficiently. Athletes are encouraged to promote snippets of their content on traditional social media platforms, driving engagement back to the CoT Network where full access is granted to subscribers.

A Detailed Athlete Specific Use Case: Building an Audience in a Private CoT Network

Drawing inspiration from strategies outlined in “Methods to build an audience in a Private CoT Network,” athletes can leverage various methods to grow their fan base within the CoT Network. These strategies include announcing launches, creating exclusive content, engaging with the community through AMA sessions, recognizing members, and utilizing surprise content drops to keep the audience engaged and invested.

Use Case 1 Athlete 1 : One Athlete in one NIL Collective Private CoT Network

In the NIL era, athletes like Alex have unprecedented opportunities to control, protect, and monetize their digital identities. The NIL Collective CoT, paired with an Advanced Distributed Digital Identity Vault (ADDIV), offers a structured environment for Alex to connect with fans, share content securely, and build a personal brand beyond traditional social media platforms.

Setting Up each Athlete to operate as a business.

There is a need to handle your digital identity and assets as property and manage yourself as a business. This starts with Title to yourself (Declaration Certificate within a CoT) and attaching your unique Dec Cert number to your assets. This need to happen to all new assets and separately linking it to your old social media internet content. This is done in the Advanced Distributed Digital Identity Vault (ADDIV) where all data is claimed as your own and you track that you are operating your digital self as a business while doing so within the NIL Collective CoT Legal Framework.

Initial Setup with Dec Cert: Alex starts by obtaining a Declaration Certificate (Dec Cert), establishing legal ownership of their digital identity. This certificate underpins every piece of content Alex creates, ensuring it's recognized as their property. 
Profile Creation in ADDIV: Alex sets up their profile in the ADDIV, inputting essential information, including sports specialization, achievements, and interests. This profile becomes the hub for all digital activities, securely stored and managed within the CoT legal framework. One key reusable asset in the ADDIV is the NIL license agreement to be used by the athlete over and over again. This is used to engage as an athlete in microtransactions.

Content Strategy

Launch Announcement: Alex announces their new channel within the CoT Network with a teaser video on traditional social media platforms, driving initial interest and content that will be available, including behind-the-scenes training sessions and personal vlogs. 
Exclusive Content Creation:
- Training Insights: Alex shares detailed videos of training routines, offering tips and techniques not available elsewhere.
- Game Day Video logs (vlogs): Personal vlogs from game days, providing an insider's view of the athlete's experience.
- Diet and Nutrition: Exclusive recipes and diet plans that Alex follows, adding value for fans interested in fitness and wellness.
Community Engagement:
- Routine AMA Sessions: Monthly “Ask Me Anything” sessions where fans can submit questions, making the audience feel heard and valued.
- Live Streams: Pre or post-game live streams, offering real-time interaction with fans.
- Member Recognition: Celebrating fan milestones, such as membership anniversaries or active participation, with shout-outs in videos or live sessions.
Surprise Content Drops: Unannounced releases of special content, such as collaboration with other athletes, personal milestones, or off-field hobbies, keeping the audience engaged and looking forward to new surprises.

Monetization and Growth

Subscription Models: Offering tiered subscription options, providing access to different levels of content and engagement opportunities based on subscription tiers. 
Merchandise Line: Launching a line of merchandise available exclusively to CoT Network subscribers, including training apparel or personalized gear. 
Exclusive Events: Organizing virtual meet-and-greets or training sessions for top-tier subscribers, adding value to higher subscription models. 
Content Collaboration: Collaborating with other athletes within the CoT Network on shared content, expanding reach to different fan bases and encouraging cross-subscriptions.

Long-term Engagement

Feedback Loops: Regularly soliciting feedback from subscribers on the type of content they enjoy most, adjusting the content strategy based on audience preferences. 
Analytics Review: Utilizing ADDIV's analytics tools to understand subscriber behavior, content engagement levels, and overall channel growth to refine and target content more effectively. 
Community Building: Creating a sense of community among subscribers, encouraging interactions not just between Alex and fans but also among fans themselves, fostering a supportive environment. 
Enforcement: The Community of Trust may engage a NIL enforcement company to offer services at the NIL Collective level and at the individual athlete level. This could include future insurance products.

Summary of how Alex benefits:

For an athlete like Alex, transitioning to an NIL Collective run Private Community of Trust Network represents a strategic move towards a more personalized, secure, and monetizable digital presence. By leveraging detailed content strategies, engaging directly with their fan base, and utilizing innovative monetization tactics, Alex can cultivate a dedicated following while maintaining control over their digital identity. This approach not only benefits the athlete but also enhances the overall value of the NIL Collective CoT, setting a precedent for how athletes can navigate and thrive in the digital landscape of collegiate sports.

Use Case 1 Athlete 2: A Day in the New Digital Life of Athlete 2:

Imagine a day in the life of Jordan Ellis, a star college basketball player at a major university, who has recently joined the school's NIL Collective Community of Trust (CoT). Jordan is pioneering a new way to interact with fans, protect his digital identity, and monetize his content through the CoTs infrastructure, utilizing his Declaration Certificate (Dec Cert) and publishing content in the CoTs Advanced Distributed Digital Identity Vault (ADDIV).

Here’s how Jordan’s day unfolds:

Morning: Content Planning and Creation

8:00 AM: Jordan starts his day with a planning session. He checks his content calendar, noting that today he’ll share a day-in-the-life vlog and a breakdown of his morning training routine.

9:00 AM: During his training session, Jordan records various drills and practice highlights. He shares tips on shooting techniques, offering value that fans won’t find elsewhere. Jordan ensures that each piece of content is tagged and linked to his Dec Cert, affirming his ownership.

Afternoon: Engaging with Fans and Exclusive Content Drops

1:00 PM: Post-training, Jordan edits his videos, adding annotations and personal insights. He uploads the content to his profile in the ADDIV, setting the morning training video as free to view for all fans but reserving the day-in-the-life vlog for his premium subscribers.

2:00 PM: Jordan announces the new content on traditional social media platforms, with teaser clips that drive his followers to his CoT channel for the full videos. He highlights the exclusive nature of the content available only within the CoT Network.

Evening: Live Interaction and Community Building

6:00 PM: Jordan hosts a live Q&A session within the CoT Network, directly engaging with his fans. He answers questions about his training, future goals, and personal life, fostering a deeper connection with his audience.

7:00 PM: To surprise his subscribers, Jordan drops an unplanned video—a behind-the-scenes look at his game preparation routine, available only for his top-tier subscribers. This exclusive drop keeps his audience engaged and appreciative of the unique insights they gain by being part of the CoT Network.

Night: Reflecting and Planning Ahead

9:00 PM: Jordan reviews feedback from his fans and analyzes engagement data provided by the ADDIV. He notes what content resonates most with his audience, using these insights to plan future content that aligns with his fans' interests.

10:00 PM: Before calling it a day, Jordan outlines ideas for a collaboration with another athlete in the CoT Network, envisioning a crossover event that could attract more subscribers and further engage his current fan base.

Summary of Use Case 4 with 2nd Athlete example:

In this new digital life within a NIL Collective CoT, Jordan Ellis is not just an athlete; he's a content creator, a brand, and an entrepreneur. By leveraging the CoTs infrastructure, he maintains control over his digital identity, engages with his fans on a deeper level, and opens new revenue streams through direct monetization of his content. This approach exemplifies how the Dec Cert and ADDIV enhance an athlete's ability to navigate the complexities of NIL rights in the digital age, ensuring their efforts and digital assets are protected, owned, and profitably managed.

Use Case 1: Example of NIL Collective Private CoT Financial Ecosystem:

NIL Collective ad the CoT Owner Revenue and Costs

The CoT Owner is responsible for the initial setup and ongoing maintenance of the CoT infrastructure, including software development, the ADDIV System for secure digital identity management, streaming services, and social media systems. While these responsibilities incur significant costs, they also offer diverse revenue streams:

Affiliate Deals and Advertising: By negotiating deals directly, the CoT Owner introduces additional revenue channels that benefit the entire community.
Subscription and Service Fees: Premium features and enhanced services provide direct income, shared with content creators through a transparent model.
Micro-transactions: Facilitated by blockchain technology, these allow for direct and immediate compensation for various digital interactions within the CoT.

Empowering Creators and Influencers

Content creators and influencers are pivotal to the CoTs vibrancy and appeal. The financial model empowers them through:

Direct Monetization: Via subscriptions, exclusive content sales, and personalized merchandise.
Revenue Sharing: A portion of the CoTs overall revenue, including affiliate deals and advertising, is distributed among creators and influencers, incentivizing high-quality content production.
Micro-transactions: For every interaction, whether a view, like, or share, creators and influencers receive compensation, tracked and secured via blockchain technology linked to their Dec Cert.

Consumer Engagement and Compensation

Consumers, or end-users, play a crucial role in the CoT ecosystem, not just as passive viewers but as active participants:

Time and Attention Compensation: Users are rewarded for engaging with content, participating in surveys, or viewing advertisements, acknowledging their time and attention as valuable commodities.
Micro-transactions: Consumers benefit from a share of micro-transaction revenues, encouraging active and meaningful participation within the CoT.
Privacy and Consent: Utilizing the CoT Privacy Authority, consumers set preferences for data sharing, ensuring their digital assets are managed according to their consent, thereby enhancing trust and participation in the CoT ecosystem.

The NIL Collective CoT Example

A practical application of this model is observed in the NIL Collective CoT, where athletes like Jordan Ellis and others leverage the platform to share exclusive content, engage with fans, and monetize their digital presence. The CoT framework supports these athletes by providing a secure, transparent environment for content sharing, while also ensuring fair compensation for their contributions, directly from fans' subscriptions and microtransactions.

Blockchain/DLT Technology and Dec Cert

The CoTs financial model will be able to uitilize and or all blockchain technology as deemed appropriate to ensure transparency, security, and efficiency in transactions. Linked to the Declaration Certificate (Dec Cert), blockchain/Distributed Ledger Technology facilitates an immutable record of ownership, transactions, and interactions, allowing for accurate, real-time compensation and revenue distribution among all CoT participants.

Financial Summary Conclusion

The Private Community of Trust Network introduces a win-win-win scenario for CoT owners, content creators, influencers, and consumers. By prioritizing fairness, transparency, and direct compensation, the CoT dismantles traditional financial barriers imposed by big tech incumbents, redistributing value back to the community's actual contributors. This financial model not only champions digital privacy and ownership but also heralds a new era of digital commerce and interaction, rooted in trust, equity, and mutual benefit.

Use Case 2: Using a Community of Trust to manage a person’s financial data by enabling Consumers to Monetize Their Most Valuable Data Asset their purchase history.

Rapid developments in technology along with an explosion in data generated from digital devices, platforms, and systems has led to an increasing awareness amongst consumers that their personal data is enormously valuable. From powering artificial intelligence to targeted advertising and credit decisions, an individual's data is being constantly mined and monetized. Despite this, consumers have lacked any means to participate in or benefit from the significant value they are creating with their own data.

Financial institutions in particular have failed to leverage their customers' most important data asset — bank transaction records. Legacy lending models rely on imprecise measures of risk like FICO scores rather than a detailed analysis of an individual's income, spending, and cash flow patterns. Not only does this lead to inefficient and often biased lending decisions, but institutions miss the opportunity to dynamically monitor customer risk based on changes in transaction behavior. Most also lack the ability to easily integrate bank transaction records from other institutions to construct a holistic view of a consumer's financial position.

This example use case envisions a pilot which brings together three innovative technologies to address these problems in a compelling new way:

iOwn.Me: This platform provides consumers a legal framework to claim full ownership rights over their personal data via a Declaration Certificate. Individuals can then selectively license usage of their data and participate in its monetization.
Aliya: Leveraging proprietary AI algorithms, Aliya analyzes bank transaction data to deliver superior risk assessment and tailored lending offers. Reduces losses by over 50% while expanding market reach.
Cloudentity: An open banking platform that facilitates aggregation of an individual’s financial transaction data from multiple institutions through its consent and preference framework. Enables data sharing across entities.

By participating in this pilot, consumers can exert their rights of ownership over bank transaction data and directly share in the monetization as this data enables improved lending decisions and interest rates. Partners sponsoring the pilot can gain significant advantages:

Consumer Benefits:

Ability to leverage full value of their data.
Personalized offers and programs.
Upside through better rates, sizing, and cash rewards.
Control and transparency over data usage.
Revenue share of monetization.

Sponsor Benefits:

Expanded lending reach with reduced risk.
Expand product lines or enter lending market with little technology lift and tight risk parameters.
5X better loan performance with Aliya’s analytics.
360° view of customers from aggregated transaction data.
Increased conversion rates via faster digital lending workflow.
Ongoing monitoring for risk management and cross-sell.
First mover in enabling consumer data monetization.

This pilot demonstrates an opportunity to create a win-win scenario for institutions and consumers by recognizing the value of bank transaction data. Sponsors who empower consumers to benefit from their data will gain loyalty along with better economics and risk management. The time is now for forward-thinking institutions to embrace this model as consumer awareness of the value of data accelerates.

iOwn.Me Private CoT Network Summary

Individuals must assert their ownership, control, and ability to monetize their digital identities, rather than allowing manipulation by a handful of trillion-dollar corporations. Advertisers also deserve the assurance that their target audience is genuine and worth their investment. Content creators and providers should establish direct relationships with end-user consumers, enabling a user-centric experience defined by the individuals themselves, including monetization options.

The initial step in this transformative process is to declare “iOwn.Me” and obtain a Declaration Certificate, using a new self-attestation methodology grounded in the simple principle that what one owns in the physical world should extend to their digital presence in the interconnected virtual realm. The ability to tokenize these individual attributes empowers people to regain control over their data while providing them with a market-driven tool to monetize their digital personas in alignment with their preferences.

The Declaration Certificate represents an innovative and transformative approach to digital identity and data rights. It harmonizes universal privacy laws and human rights with US and EU patents, which grant individuals legal ownership and rights to their data. In a world where data rights are often uncertain, positive changes are on the horizon.

The iOwn.Me Private Community of Trust Network, along with its ecosystem and tokenization partners, aim to create a new virtual world tailored to the rights and preferences of individuals. Monetizing individual data rights will introduce market dynamics that foster direct feedback loops, more efficient capital allocation, and an acceleration in the tokenization of various assets.

Leveraging the Community of Trust technology, legal frameworks, patents, and tokenization partnerships, we can gradually implement these ideas, following a step-by-step progression from crawl to fly. This transformation can occur swiftly, starting with visionary innovators at the forefront of change.

Vlad Savov, “Google’s Selfish Ledger is an unsettling vision of Silicon Valley social engineering,” The Verge, https://www.theverge.com/2018/5/17/17344250/google-x-selfish-ledger-video-data-privacy (May 17, 2018)