From Disney to Camp Network: A Century of Evolution in the IP Industry and the New On-Chain Landscape in the AI Era

Author: Flywheel

I. A Century of IP Industry History: From Disney to Pop Mart

If we trace back to the origins of modern IP business, Disney is undoubtedly an unavoidable case. In 1928, Mickey Mouse made his debut on the screen; this little mouse in a black-and-white short film was not complex, yet it became the starting point of the global IP race. From the very beginning, Disney grasped the key point of the IP track: Mickey Mouse is not just a simple and cute character, but a "digital asset" that can continuously generate value. With the core correctly identified, Disney's business model revolving around IP became incredibly clear:

i. First, use animation and films to shape characters, establish cultural recognition, and promote cultural dissemination;

ii. Then, through books, music, toys, and other peripherals, bring characters from the screen into real life, establishing "emotional connections" with users;

iii. Finally, extend virtual characters into immersive experiences through theme parks and live performances.

This commercial path laid the basic paradigm for the modern IP industry: from story to symbol, then to IP licensing, and finally to the construction of the worldview of the anime universe. Over the next few decades, Disney continuously expanded using this model: Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Snow White, The Lion King, Frozen… These characters and IPs not only exist on screens, in toy stores, and amusement parks, but they have also deeply imprinted in our minds, becoming an indispensable part of our memories.

Smart readers may have already noticed that while creating IP is certainly good, a good IP cannot just be created at will; artistic creation requires the right time, place, and people. At this point, Disney's shareholders came up with a good idea: I have so much money, why not buy it? Thus, Disney expanded its "IP federation" through acquisitions: acquiring Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars, and Fox, directly encompassing a large number of superheroes and cosmic narratives. Today, Disney has become a global entertainment empire with IP as its core asset.

However, while the West has Disney, the East also has its own anime kingdom. In distant East Asia, the Japanese anime industry has risen rapidly. The growth path of Japanese IP is more "grassroots." From Osamu Tezuka's "Astro Boy" to later "Slam Dunk" and "One Piece," and now to the current two-dimensional culture, Japanese IP is not monopolized and created by a super company like Disney, but relies on a chain of authors, publishers, television stations, and toy manufacturers. The uniqueness of the Japanese IP industry lies in its doujin culture. Twice a year, Comic Market (commonly known as Comiket) sees thousands of creators spontaneously engage in secondary creation based on existing IPs, publishing doujinshi. Strictly speaking, this exists in a legal gray area, but an understanding has formed in the industry: as long as doujin creations do not touch on large-scale commercial profits, original authors generally will not pursue it. This "understanding" allows secondary creations to become free promotion for the original works. Fans expand the worldview through secondary creations, forming a stronger sense of cultural belonging. For example, my favorite series as a child was "Fate"; from doujinshi to anime to games, Type-Moon made a fortune, and Gen Urobuchi became a master of his generation.

Now, let's shift our perspective to the recent rise of Pop Mart, which seems to give hope to the Chinese IP industry. If Disney represents "industrialized storytelling," and Japan represents "community participation," then China's Pop Mart showcases a brand new path: consumer innovation-driven trendy toy IP.

The logic of Pop Mart is completely different from Disney. It does not rely on big movies or grand stories, but pushes niche characters to the masses through the consumption form of "blind boxes." Characters like Molly, Dimoo, and LABUBU do not have grand narratives when viewed individually, let alone a Disney-style grand worldview. However, through the blind box economy, they quickly broke the circle and became social symbols for a generation of young people. The real innovation here lies in significantly lowering the consumption threshold for IP. You do not need to buy movie tickets or spend dozens of dollars on figurines; for just a few dozen yuan, you can own a delicate trendy toy. Coupled with the uncertainty and collection fun of "opening blind boxes," consumers' emotions are instantly ignited. This model allows "small IPs" to also achieve scalable monetization. Pop Mart does not need the next Mickey Mouse; it only needs to continuously launch new characters to create a cycle of consumption among fans through "collecting" and "socializing." However, the drawbacks are also obvious: there is no sustainability. Without sustainability, a large number of creators are needed to innovate, which leads to the next question: what is the situation of creators under these models?

II. The Dilemma of Creators

Behind the prosperity of the IP industry, creators have actually always been in a passive position. Whether they are musicians, illustrators, YouTubers, or trendy toy designers, their stories are highly similar: creative value is underestimated, rights protection is insufficient, and there is excessive reliance on platforms.

1. Revenue Distribution: Creators Always Get the Least

Taking the music industry as an example. Spotify generates approximately $0.003 to $0.005 in revenue for musicians per play. This means that a song needs to be played one million times for the musician to possibly earn $3,000 to $5,000. The problem is that this revenue still needs to be shared: with record companies, distributors, and management companies. In the end, what actually reaches the creator often amounts to less than 20%. YouTube is similar. A YouTuber can earn about $1 to $3 for every 1,000 views, but 45% of that is taken by YouTube. Top creators can live well off traffic, but how many top bloggers are there? The vast majority can only earn a little pocket money. Creators in the trendy toy industry face similar issues. Many designers work hard to create popular characters but lack channels and capital to scale independently. Even when collaborating with Pop Mart, the profit-sharing ratio is extremely limited, and the real profit still lies with the platform.

2. Copyright Confirmation: Difficulties in Distinguishing Originality and Infringement

Copyright confirmation is the second major challenge for creators. In traditional models, confirmation must rely on copyright office registration, contracts, or legal letters. But this process is cumbersome and expensive, and many independent creators cannot afford it. Meanwhile, the internet has brought the cost of piracy close to zero. An illustrator's original character can quickly be copied into peripheral products; a photographer's photos can be scraped by crawlers and circulated on various stock photo websites; more complexly, AI models begin to capture artists' styles without permission, generating new "derivative content" without any compensation. As a result, it is extremely difficult to protect creators' rights. For small creators, even if they go to court, the costs will far exceed the benefits, so most can only swallow their grievances.

3. Platform Dependence: Algorithms Determine Everything

The third dilemma is excessive dependence on platforms. In the Web2 world, the relationship between creators and fans is essentially "monopolized" by platforms. First, whether a work can be recommended entirely depends on the platform's algorithm. Second, advertising, tips, and paid subscriptions all need to go through platform settlements. Third, even if an IP is popular on platform A, switching to platform B still requires careful consideration, because if you are not a top-tier IP, you typically will not receive support from platform B. It can be seen that the fate of creators is actually controlled by the black box of the platform; adjustments in algorithm weights can instantly halve a creator's income. The situation for trendy toy designers is similar. Even if they design a hit character, without channels and supply chains like Pop Mart, commercialization is difficult, and ultimately creators can only accept the fate of being "employed by the platform."

III. The Competitive Landscape of IP in the AI Era

If the past has seen different stages of "company-driven IP," "community-driven IP," and "consumer-driven IP," what will the competitive landscape of the IP race look like in the AI era? We now know that the birth of AI leads to: a reduction in creative thresholds, an explosion in supply quantity, and the complexity of rights confirmation and revenue sharing, all of which will make the IP race unprecedentedly crowded and intense.

Let’s break down the entire industry from four aspects: changes in supply, ownership issues, IP in the AI ecosystem, and moats.

1. Supply Explosion: AI Brings IP Costs Close to Zero

With the emergence of AI, the creative threshold has suddenly dropped: AI image generation (like Midjourney, Stable Diffusion) can generate a set of character designs in seconds; AI writing (like ChatGPT, Claude) can help users quickly build worldviews and character relationships; AI production of audio and video can drastically reduce the production costs of music and animation. This means that IP is no longer a scarce commodity; an explosion in supply is inevitable. If a few thousand original IPs could be born globally in the past year, under AI's influence, this number could easily swell to the millions. We must understand that when supply exceeds demand, attention and copyright become the scarce resources.

2. Ownership Disputes: Who Owns AI-Generated Content?

Another problem brought by AI is the issue of ownership. The logic of confirming traditional IP ownership is very clear: complete the creation + registration, and you gain ownership. However, the involvement of AI makes this logic ambiguous. Imagine if an artist uses Stable Diffusion to generate an illustration; who owns the copyright to this image? The artist? The model developer? Or the original authors of the training data? If a musician uses AI to assist in generating a melody and then processes it themselves, is the song considered "original" or "derivative"? If a user uploads a prompt and AI directly generates a complete character, then who owns the copyright to that character?

In reality, many AI companies directly evade responsibility, stating that "user-generated content belongs to the user." But the problem is that the training data itself is often used without permission. For example, many artists protest that their works have been used to train models, ultimately generating "imitations" without any compensation. Such disputes have already begun to enter the judicial realm. For instance, an AI image company in the U.S. has been sued for allegedly infringing on artists' copyrights. In the coming years, similar cases will only increase.

When micro issues are difficult to resolve, we need to step back and look at the bigger picture.

3. In the AI Ecosystem, the Definition of IP Will Be Restructured

As AI makes "mixed creation" the norm, IP will no longer be a "static work," but a "dynamic ecosystem." It will resemble an open-source project where anyone can iterate on the original work to produce new branches. This is a double-edged sword; the advantage is that it can stimulate creative vitality and keep IP alive; the risk is that the rights and benefits of original authors may be diluted. Therefore, the core of future IP race commercial competition will shift from "creative ability" to "ecosystem governance ability." Whoever can establish a transparent set of rules that encourages mixed creation while ensuring original authors' benefits will win the support of creators and fans.

4. New Moats: Rights Confirmation, Fair Revenue Sharing, and Community

Overall, the IP race in the AI era will present the following competitive logic:
i. Rights Confirmation Ability: Whoever can provide creators with rights confirmation tools quickly and at the lowest cost will attract more content.

ii. Revenue Sharing Mechanism: In an era where mixed creation and secondary creation are prevalent, whether revenue can be distributed transparently and fairly is key to the success of IP infrastructure.

iii. Community Drive: Supply is no longer an issue; the real key point lies in "fan and creator participation." Platforms that can establish active communities and form cultural consensus will have the qualifications to discuss "moats."

It can be seen that in this landscape, traditional models like Disney and Pop Mart will appear cumbersome, and new competitors must emerge in the form of infrastructure, providing opportunities for leapfrogging, which also sets the stage for the narrative of Camp Network.

IV. Camp Network: A Paradigm Attempt for On-Chain IP Infrastructure

Let’s take a look at the answer provided by Camp Network; it aims to be the "operating system" of the IP world.

1. Business Model: Full-Stack IP Infrastructure

As a Layer 1 solution, Camp can provide full-stack support for the entire IP lifecycle. Its goal is to realize a complete value chain on-chain:

i. IP Registration and Rights Confirmation: Creators register their works on Camp, generating an on-chain certificate immediately, ensuring originality and ownership.

ii. IP Licensing and Revenue Sharing: Define the scope of IP use and revenue distribution through smart contracts and automate settlements, no longer relying on traditional institutions.

iii. AI Remixing and Derivative Creation: Provide native AI infrastructure that allows for secondary creation within a legal framework.

iv. Tokenization and Trading: IP can be directly tokenized on-chain, forming tradable assets.

v. Cross-Ecosystem Circulation: Whether it’s a Web3 project or a large Web2 IP, they can bridge into the on-chain world through Camp's protocol.

2. Core Components: Four Key Modules

To support this model, Camp has built four key components:

i. Remaster: Legal Authorization Framework

Use on-chain contracts to solidify IP authorization terms, making the scope of use and revenue sharing transparent and traceable, solving the problems of complex traditional copyright contracts and high execution costs.

ii. mAItrix: AI Mixed Creation Infrastructure

Provide secondary creation tools for creators and developers, allowing fans and communities to adapt and expand existing IP under legal contracts.

iii. Origin: IP Tokenization Module

Mint IP as NFTs on-chain.

iv. Attribution: Protocol Layer Ownership and Revenue Sharing provides transparent revenue tracking for every use and transaction of IP.

Ensure long-term benefit binding among original creators, secondary creators, and holders.

3. Team Background and Funding

The Camp Network team comes from a composite background of Web3 infrastructure and content industry. On one hand, they are familiar with on-chain contracts, protocol design, and token economics; on the other hand, they have deep experience in gaming, entertainment, and IP licensing.

Currently, Camp has completed three rounds of financing, totaling approximately $30 million, with investors including: 1kx (a well-known crypto fund that has supported projects like Lens and Celestia), Blockchain Capital (a veteran crypto fund), OKX Ventures, and Maven 11.

4. Prosperity of the Ecosystem

Camp is still in the pre-mainnet launch phase, but its ecosystem has already shown unexpected prosperity: over 120 projects have been built on the testnet; over 1.5 million IPs have been minted on the testnet; they hold shares in KOR Protocol (cooperating IPs include "Black Mirror," deadmau5, Imogen Heap, etc.), and have also integrated Web2 IPs like Mimi & Neko, with downloads exceeding 5 billion.

The ecosystem covers: AI dApps (agents and remix tools); NFT infrastructure (on-chain IP rights confirmation); DeFi (liquidity support for IP assetization); gaming (on-chain games based on IP), as well as wallets and authorization protocols (lowering user entry barriers).

V. CAMP Tokenomics Design Prediction

In discussions about any infrastructure-level public chain or protocol, the core question will ultimately return to: how does the token capture value?

Next, I will boldly assume the role of Camp's founder and design a tokenomics model for reference:

1. Design Logic: IP Activity-Driven Intrinsic Demand

The core functions that I believe CAMP's token economic logic must possess are two:

i. IP Registration and Rights Confirmation: Every IP on-chain will require consuming or staking CAMP.

ii. Licensing and Revenue Sharing: Conducting IP licensing on Camp will require paying gas fees or transaction fees in CAMP, and revenue sharing can be settled using CAMP, forming a circular flow among creators, secondary creators, and token holders.

2. Value Anchoring: Gas + Revenue Sharing

CAMP must possess both usage attributes and dividend attributes: every IP registration, licensing, and revenue sharing must use CAMP; part of the transaction fees will be used to burn CAMP to ensure scarcity, while part of the revenue will enter a reward pool, distributed to stakers and creators. The overlap of these three types of demand will create a stable intrinsic market for CAMP's liquidity, making its value capture ability stronger than traditional governance tokens.

3. Tokenomics Refinement

With the framework in place, we can refine the tokenomics.

First, establish a content publishing staking mechanism:

i. Creators stake a certain amount of tokens (refundable) when publishing content to avoid junk content; additional tokens can be rewarded after content generates calls and revenue. Remix usage fees will be settled uniformly in tokens.

ii. Every time someone calls another's content or remixes a segment, it will trigger on-chain payments, paid in tokens, distributed to all upstream creators in the remix path. Content credit rating → increases revenue multiplier/token return ratio:

iii. If content is frequently used and generates high revenue, the author's on-chain "content weight" will increase, allowing for higher reward ratios, participation in protocol governance, and eligibility for the next round of quality content recommendations.

Second, link tokens to platform usage rights: if commercial users want to call content in bulk or train models, they need to hold and lock CAMP, forming a payment barrier and liquidity pool lock-up model.

Finally, establish a protocol buyback mechanism: the protocol will periodically buy back or inject remix incentive pools from protocol fees extracted from remixing and commercial use, thus forming a flywheel: the more content → the more remixes → the more commercial calls → the more revenue → the more buybacks → the more incentives → the more content…
Thus, the tokenomics will become comprehensive, covering coordination incentives, payments, calls, staking, and governance for five roles.

4. Example Explanation: What if I am a Composer?

If I upload an original melody segment, allowing non-commercial remixes and commercial revenue sharing, the expected results occur:

i. A user uses Merv to turn it into Lofi.

ii. A comic creator embeds it into the plot's soundtrack.

iii. An advertising company cuts it into a brand promotional video.

At the same time, I can see every remix path and the revenue generated by each remix in the backend, as well as how many people have collaborated on this melody. Ultimately, I gain the following rights:

i. $220 CAMP + $37 USDC in revenue sharing.

ii. Content credit score increases, leading to higher future revenue multipliers.

iii. The remix graph automatically establishes path assets, generating continuous revenue.

VI. Conclusion: The Investment Value of CAMP

After the above analysis, I believe readers have a deep understanding of the value and logic of Camp Network. Finally, let’s discuss the ultimate question: does this project’s token possess investment value?

Camp Network has indeed targeted a very strong track, and with its AI + IP concept, it offers investors considerable imagination space, which is one reason it has secured significant funding. In an ideal state, if the resource-rich Camp team incentivizes creators and uses tokenomics to bring the business into a positive cycle, it may truly become the next leader. However, this also highlights the biggest problem in the current IP race: the difficulty of business implementation.

First, the commercialization cycle of IP is long; from rights confirmation to licensing to actual revenue generation often takes years. Second, the legal differences in copyright protection across countries pose a huge challenge in handling compliance issues. If it cannot quickly capture quality markets, it may be overtaken by competitors. Third, creators face significant migration and learning costs, so Camp needs strong incentives and guidance measures. Finally, how will Camp balance "secondary creation vitality" and "copyright protection"? This is the most ambiguous yet core governance challenge. On the other hand, I have recently observed the team's "pay first, then receive airdrop" tactics, as well as the behavior of many "witch" testnet users, which raises questions about the team's operational experience in the Web3 space. In terms of valuation, the same track's Story has a FDV as high as $5.9 billion and a circulating market cap of $1.7 billion, indicating that the market currently assigns a very high valuation to leading IP projects, considering factors such as team and market conditions.

I believe:

As a temporary runner-up, a FDV of $3 to $4 billion upon launch would be normal; below $2 billion would be undervalued. If the circulating ratio is around 30% like Story, under the condition that the mainnet and team do not encounter major issues, a FDV below $2 billion could be a no-brainer buy. However, it is essential to observe the technical aspects and macro conditions to find a buying point, as liquidity and U.S. economic policy issues still exist.

If the opening market cap reaches $3 to $4 billion, then it is necessary to observe and consider the short-term pressure brought by the airdrop recipients' selling wave. If the market cap reaches $4 billion and above, continuous observation of business growth is needed, while being wary of overvaluation. https://x.com/FlywheelPremium/status/1960243101907447860