<aside> 👨🏻💻 Author : Aditya Vijaykumar
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The purpose of this documentation is to primarily talk about the Decentralized Finances (DeFi) based project - Atlas Library System (Demo), and to also help developers and tech enthusiasts alike understand a bit about DeFi and how simple the end user experience can really be.
https://atlas.adityavijaykumar.me
In the simplest words, Atlas Library System is a blockchain based hassle-free library rental system to directly support authors.
Atlas as we all know is a book of collection of several detailed maps of the world, and in an allegoric sense, this project is named Atlas as the purpose here is to create a fantastic collection of e-books that users can rent with absolute trust and without any hassle, all while directly supporting the authors.
The entire idea and functioning is based on the generation of a deterministic Ethereum address, efficient use of ERC20 tokens, decentralized storage and a simple payment gateway. This documentation will be delving into details of each aspect further (skip sections with the help of the table of contents).
Creative industries face the issue of misappropriation of compensation especially in the area of research paper and book publications. The Publishers play the role of a very strong intermediate body having arbitrary rights over publication and distribution of books which not only puts the due compensation of the authors at stake but also makes distribution biased.
Simultaneously we observe that with the ease of access to internet, the number of people who seek books and journals for free has led to widespread intellectual property theft and piracy issues seemingly causing an absence of a sustainable ecosystem and a platform for the industry.
Furthermore, several regular netizens have misunderstood the idea and application of blockchain as a whole since it is very commonly interpreted as a tech stack for the pros. While this was perhaps true a couple of years ago, the blockchain space has made massive leaps and progress to make end user experience simple.
As a plausible approach to the problem, I put forth the idea behind Atlas Library System. The thought process here is simple - help Authors directly control their income and at the same time curb the issue of intellectual property theft while trying to establish ubiquitous presence of the platform.
This could be done by facilitating affordable rental of books and research papers through a simple web app that anyone can use. The entire system is built using Blockchain which deploys immutable smart contracts and hence ensures greater transparency and trust amongst the users and authors alike.
Not only does this help authors receive 90% or more of the revenue, but also eases the process of publishing it. Furthermore, the showcase of absolute transparency with a user-friendly experience will have a two-fold impact on the end user community - greater trust in blockchain technology and greater acceptance to the idea of DApps becoming the mainstream.
Fundamentally, Blockchain functions as a public ledger which helps in finding details of all transactions in a chronological order and makes the entire system absolutely transparent. The trustlessness design of Blockchain encourages the end user and the authors to trust the system.