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Don't you think that a blockchain that works for anything other than a rather useless currency should be created before suggesting one for such a use? I see comments all the time about how we should use blockchain for this and that, and yet far simpler uses for blockchain haven't yet worked out.

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A blockchain is actually a reasonable part of the solution here (just not nessesarily creating a new one). What a blockchain really does is decentralized timestamping. Usually you use it to combine it with a bit of cryptography to process flows of money, but in the same blockchain you can just write "I know hash XXXX", and if later you produce a work with that hash you can prove that it already existed at the point your message was written in the blockchain.

That's not all you would need for verification, but it is a big help.

The sentiment and idea is there, just need the implementation.

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