“Sri Lanka should start exporting stories, ideas and intellectual property”

- Lehan Edirisinghe, Media Platform Owner

“AngryPages Inc is a publishing company (not another social network) in California, with IP sheltered in our Delaware AngryPages Holdings Inc. AngryPages.com is an Intellectual Property Piggy Bank, which will grow, with every story you save, compounding as a permanent asset you can earn with for life. Finally a really cool way for Sri Lankans to export ideas anywhere”

AngryPages Inc. a live, California-based media platform founded by Sri Lankan entrepreneur Lehan Edirisinghe aims to monetise original content sent in by Sri Lankan writers. Unlike fleeting social feeds, AngryPages is a permanent library for long-form, diary-style storytelling, designed to capture the high-value US reading market. Edirisinghe has designed the entire platform on his own, proving that world-class, export-grade internet products can be built and operated by Sri Lankan talent. In an interview with the Daily Mirror, Edirisinghe shared his inspiration to develop AngryPages Inc, benefit for Sri Lankan writers and how he plans to attract investors. Excerpts; 

Q What is the inspiration behind you to develop a platform of this nature?

Once upon a time, my father promised to pay me Rs 100, minus Rs 10 per mistake, to copy a page from a book as a small boy. My love for writing grew to over 8 million words on Facebook. But I struggled to earn off those. I built AngryPages.com as a solution. AngryPages Inc is a publishing company (not another social network) in California, with IP sheltered in our Delaware AngryPages Holdings Inc. 

AngryPages.com is an Intellectual Property Piggy Bank, which will grow, with every story you save, compounding as a permanent asset you can earn with for life. Finally a really cool way for Sri Lankans to export ideas anywhere.

QAny reason why you named it Angry Pages and not any other name?

“AngryPages” is bold, memorable, and honest. The US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is considering our application for AngryPages™. I wrote with real passion on Facebook, but I often ended up in “FB jail” for speaking my truth. Those social media sites aren’t exactly publishers who sell entertainment, they sell brand-safe ad-spots near your freely shared personal, family pictures, to advertisers.

Mr. Trump and Elon know they can’t live under anyone else’s rules. They moved up to Truth Social or X. AngryPages, is as American as Virtusa, but I own it as a Sri Lankan. We’re not ‘Happy Pages’ (sounds lame). We’ll have your back when you dare to tell it like it is. 

Q Could you briefly explain the concept and objective behind this initiative?

Social media and publishing, left a big gap: advertising dollars aren’t captured by published writers. AngryPages capitalizes on this market opportunity: human attention is the most valuable resource. You suddenly make money as a writer from ads (50%). On top of the direct sales (80%) you make from content (you own 100% of IP).

You won’t earn as much off major platforms. But I’d suggest YouTube as a great alternative. Most platforms won’t truly partner you. Traditional publishers are near extinct dinosaurs. 1 out of a 1,000 fax machines might still ring back. They’ll sell fossils called “books”. They’ll rip you off. You won’t get to keep 30% royalties off sales from the leading retailer. Readers want it fast, easy, and as trained by the internet, for free. They want it in digital format. They want a delightful experience. AngryPages is trying to help our nation earn USD without you having to migrate. 

QYou intend to approach the US-based audience through creative storytelling. Why should someone visit your website and read its contents?

I have a list of influences. Some of those are despised by many. But I love those personally. American Psycho, Godfather, Howard Stern, Family Guy, and yes, all things Trump, that’s what I love the most. I personally love AngryPages because it’s real. You can’t find stuff like this on Facebook (not anymore) or Medium (no fan-relations). There’s nothing else quite like AngryPages, anywhere.

We have nice “story cards” on our site. But this isn’t a game of cards. It really is my life and yours. And as long as I’m publisher of AngryPages, what I’ve spent a whole lifetime building: Nobody’s going to knock it down! 

QTell us how you plan to attract investors through this platform?

America is a USD 31 trillion marketplace. All investors are leaders too. They put momentum behind visions they believe in. Capitalization is everything. Investors know firms with mostly hosting operation expenses, fat margins, selling branded products to anyone, anywhere will thrive. But life is too short to be reading someone else’s diary. So, invest in your own.

Q How can a Sri Lankan writers contribute to your platform? What is the benefit to them?

Once we receive the content we will review, co-write, edit and grow your IP. We handle images, video, API calls, celebrity ID, text-to-speech, AVIF/WebP, caching, and more. Everything from printing or shipping books to stocking on Amazon in the form of hardcover, paperback and books of any size could be handled. We design advertisements, targeting, promotions, events, merchandise and customer relations. Then there are different tags for fiction and non-fiction content. We also support banking and payments globally. 

Q You invite Sri Lankan writers to publish their archives. In the event that it is an unpublished write-up, how do you address any copyright issues if these materials are published by someone else elsewhere?

Best advice is to use a physical notebook. We don’t accept drafts. So only use us to publish. Any kind of hack or break video games developed by major game studios “speed run” in hours and minutes by exploiting weaknesses. Any software or platform (like a game, made by skilled developers) has bugs to damage or exploit for leverage to steal or exfiltrate data.

Web-scraping (AI) is the biggest risk. While we can argue, “first published at AngryPages”, show proper meta-data, sites like Yahoo/ GroundNews, claim “fair use” exceptions to copyright law, to “criticize” news. YouTube’s full of “movie reviews” which are high value content. 

We have a US structure, we can sue, send takedown notices. We have timestamps/logs (source/authenticity). But it’s tough to repair. They ignore in certain countries. The internet’s full of stolen content. AI makes it harder, as they evade with regenerated content/video/photos.

You are still better off with a platform on enterprise plans with vendors. We use tools trusted by T1 cyber-power government offices, top 10 banks, telcos, defense, tech and so on. You get those for free. I depend on it for my own content. But they’re never perfect. Nothing stops evil actors with resources/time.

Q You have put in a lot of effort to create this platform on your own. What sort of challenges did you encounter during this process?

I enjoyed writing. It was fun, a dream come true, to set it up the way it is structured (easy). Technology is a tough sector and many are depressed. I found coding very challenging. But ChatGPT helped (OpenAI/Codex). I use AI for editing/tagging for content releases.

Q A message to investors and anybody interested in supporting a tech-export initiative?

At the end of her journey, my grandma showed me the Thank You letters she received during her career, some about her days at lifesaving medical wards and charity acts. It overfilled her wardrobe where she has once hid during a dark time.   

That is why I believe Sri Lanka should export not only labour and talent, but also stories, ideas, and intellectual property. You can invest in giving everyone here a chance to tell a real story which deserves to be told.