The following is a guest post and opinion from Shane Neagle, Editor In Chief from The Tokenist.
It is no secret that large language models (LLMs) crossed the capability threshold by harvesting vast amounts of public and private data. Combined with breakthroughs in transformer architectures and compute power, this data scraping led to concerns about intellectual property (IP) rights.
Intellectual property frameworks exist to incentivize innovation and creative spark, protecting creators and businesses. In turn, the entire society benefits from that incentive structure. Eventually, IP protections typically expire, at which point IP becomes integrated into the public domain.
The global harmonizing IP framework is the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS Agreement) under the World Trade Organization (WTO) umbrella, together with the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO).
However, with AI rapidly blurring the line between human and machine creativity, the foundational assumptions of the IP system are under strain. Without explicit consent and compensation, LLMs are routinely trained on copyrighted works, eroding the important incentive structure.
Over time, it is not difficult to see digital oligopolies entrenching their power with the largest compute power and data access, while barring smaller players from large-scale data scraping.
Yet, once again when it comes to data flows, a potential solution can arise from the blockchain ecosystem. Specifically, with layer-1 Camp Network (CAMP) blockchain.
Just as Bitcoin mainnet immutably registers the transfer of value, Camp Network aims to immutably register the transfer and attribution of people’s work. With a permanent and verifiable record of ownership, creators can automatically enforce licensing terms – through smart contracts – whenever AI models use this registered content.
To accomplish this, Camp Network uses the proof-of-provenance (PoP) protocol, which handles IP origin and licensing terms. On top of this core protocol, Camp Network uses BaseCAMP as a global IP registry and SideCAMPs tailored for dApps pertaining to IP enforcement in various sectors such as music, books, or gaming.
Specifically, creators and organizations could register IP as non-fungible tokens (NFTs), which have already pioneered a form of on-chain royalties system, despite the market deflation since late 2021. Although this was an important proof of concept, royalties enforcement relies more on marketplace cooperation, not the blockchain itself.
Building on these lessons, Camp Network is embedding royalty logic at the protocol layer, instead of relying on marketplaces. This means that royalties would not just apply to content, but to data usage – ideal for scenarios when LLMs train on registered datasets.
With its purpose-built layer-1 blockchain, Camp Network is foremost aimed at individual creators across all digital content categories. Whether it is a music track or a digital image, the process is as follows:
To support Ethereum-Camp interoperability in a secure manner, Camp Network uses Decentralized Verifier Network (DVN), powered by the native token CAMP for the purpose of staking within the CAMP Vault.
Moreover, each dApp runs its own SideCAMP in order to avoid traffic congestion. And because SideCAMPs support different runtime environments, different ecosystems can onboard the Camp ecosystem. This blockchain network interoperability is extremely important for Camp Network to gain traction, ensuring that content maintains its traceable origins across chains.
Having launched relatively recently in late August 2025, there are 10 billion CAMP tokens available to secure and monetize the network, of which 2.1 billion are in circulation. Early backers hold the most tokens, at 29%.
Protocol developers gain CAMP tokens gradually over 4 years after a 1-year initial waiting period. Likewise, after waiting for one year, early backers gain a 2-year period of linear vesting to three years total.
At the end of the line, Camp Network addresses a fast-growing problem of AI devouring data without giving anything in return. One could even see Google’s AI Overview eroding website traffic, as it summarizes different websites for user queries.
By embedding royalty and usage logic at the protocol layer, Camp Network ensures digital content is transformed into verifiable, monetizable assets. And the longer we are in the AI era, the longer the demand for transparent, on-chain provenance and automated compensation will grow.
