- MILC’s marketplace turns media rights into enforceable digital assets that work across borders.
- Creators gain more control over ownership, licensing, and long-term value without giving everything away upfront.
- The marketplace is live and operational, serving as the foundation for what MILC plans to build next.
Media ownership has always been complicated. What has changed is the speed and scale at which content now moves. A film clip can circulate globally in minutes, but the rights behind it still crawl through contracts, regional carve-outs, and intermediaries built for another era. For creators and studios operating across borders, this mismatch slows distribution and leaves revenue stranded.
MILC is tackling that problem at the infrastructure level. Rather than adding another layer of tools on top of legacy systems, the company is rebuilding how media rights are issued, tracked, and monetized. At the center of that effort is the MILC marketplace, a live platform where intellectual property is treated as an enforceable digital asset rather than static paperwork. It is a practical effort to align media ownership with how content is produced and consumed today.
From fragmented rights to a working marketplace
For decades, rights management has operated as a patchwork. A single project can have different ownership terms across territories, platforms and time windows. Tracking ownership then becomes a manual process, and enforcement often occurs only after value has leaked. Payments arrive late, if they arrive at all.
The MILC marketplace replaces that fragmentation with a unified system. Rights are issued as digital tokens tied directly to legally recognized ownership. Each token carries defined parameters around usage, duration, and geography. Execution happens through smart contracts, which removes much of the friction that slows traditional licensing deals.
This changes how rights move through the market. Instead of renegotiating the structure each time, rights holders operate within a framework that enables licensing, trading, and shared ownership, even when transactions span multiple jurisdictions. Settlement becomes automatic. Records remain transparent. Many errors common to manual processes disappear because the logic resides within the transaction itself.
The marketplace is already live. Wallet connections, payment rails, and rights modules are operational. According to company materials, MILC has secured an intellectual property library valued at roughly €30 million, with €15 million from its Series B funding allocated to expanding marketplace activity. That detail matters. It signals that this is not a concept waiting on adoption but infrastructure responding to existing demand.
Redefining ownership and monetization for creators
Tokenization can sound abstract until it shows up in a creator’s workflow. On the MILC marketplace, a filmmaker can mint rights to a project and decide how those rights circulate. Ownership does not have to be fully assigned upfront. It can be structured around fundraising, partnerships, or long-term licensing strategies.
That flexibility changes the economics for independent creators. Instead of relying entirely on distributors or financiers, rights holders can unlock liquidity while retaining control. Ownership or usage rights can be licensed directly or offered to investors who understand the underlying asset. Creative work and economic value stay more closely aligned.
The secondary market adds another dimension. Once rights are digitized, they can be re-licensed or transferred with full visibility. Royalty payments are triggered automatically based on predefined rules. Audits become less necessary because settlement happens on-chain. Smaller studios gain access to infrastructure that previously required large legal teams and custom systems.
The broader market context supports this shift. The global intellectual property licensing market was valued at about $340 billion in 2024 and is projected to reach roughly $580 billion by 2030. MILC’s own projections focus on a narrower slice, estimating access to an €8.2 billion addressable market by 2030 with a target of €86 million in annual revenue by year five. The point is not dominance. It is proof that compliant, tokenized rights management can scale.
A marketplace inside a larger media infrastructure
The marketplace is not a standalone product. It sits within MILC’s broader Web3 infrastructure, which spans immersive production, decentralized distribution, and AI-powered workflows. In that context, rights management becomes connective tissue rather than a bottleneck.
Founder and CEO Hendrik Hey has made that intent clear. “MILC is the infrastructure layer where immersive content lives, evolves, and earns,” he says. “We are not just building a platform. We are architecting the protocol that will power the immersive content economies of the next decade.”
That mindset shows in how the marketplace has rolled out. Features ship when they are functional, not as placeholders. Partnerships are aligned with long-term use cases rather than short bursts of attention. The emphasis stays on execution.
There is also a clear sense that this is not the end of the story. The marketplace anchors MILC’s current strategy, but it is part of a broader roadmap still unfolding. The company has chosen to build first and talk later. What is visible now reflects years of groundwork.
For those watching closely, the signal is straightforward. MILC has laid its foundation. The marketplace is live, working, and already creating value. What comes next builds on that foundation, with further developments just beyond to be announced soon.
About MILC
Hendrik Hey is the Founder of MILC (Media Industry Licensing Content), a pioneering company in the blockchain and metaverse space, with a strong background in media and content. MILC operates a real-life metaverse platform that serves not only the media industry but also various industrial use cases. The company also focuses on Web3 consulting, aiming to support complex real-world industries on their way into Web3. MILC is a sister company of European media giant Welt der Wunder, which Hey founded over 25 years ago. For more information, please visit https://www.milc.global
