Unlock is a protocol for memberships which lets creators monetize their work, on their own terms, without having to rely on 3rd party applications or platform.

As a creator, you want to monetize your work and ensure that only your members can access it. For this you should create a Lock. The lock is a smart contract deployed on the Ethereum blockchain which defines the terms of your membership. The Lock is yours and cannot be modified by anyone else, unless you grant them the permission.

The lock itself does not know about the content or features which it locks. The lock is also completely decoupled from your application, which means that it can be implemented in many different contexts: on the front-end, on the back-end, inside of chat applications, or even in other smart contracts.

As consumers, you want to easily unlock access to your favorite websites, or be part of communities. Unlock represents these memberships as Non Fungible Tokens. These tokens are directly linked to your Ethereum wallet.

Unlock also built a keychain for consumers to easily view all of their memberships and use them. This involves cancelling them, transferring them or printing codes to assert ownership.