If you don’t know what an NFT is, here’s a wrong explanation: they are an entry in a database saying that something, belongs to you (or more precise, to an account you have control over). It’s impossible to hack or fake…
…but it’s also meaningless. You see, you don’t really own the thing, you just have control over what essentially is a link. You can pass it on, sell it, but you can’t prevent someone else from creating a similar or the same link (you could claim you have the oldest one).
If you buy the NFT of a picture, you can’t do anything with it, while the original copyright holder can do everything they want. They can make more NFTs, license it for commercial use, print copies. If you want to stop, and end in court, your NFT is meaningless. This is the realm of intellectual property and by now it’s understood quite well. NFTs are not playing on the realm of intellectual property… not yet.
I think this would make NFTs very valuable and also real (they are sort of fake at the moment).
Make the NFT assignment also carry the contract that makes the assignment of copyright or transfers a trademark or patent. Now NFTs are wrapping the intellectual property that the courts will back up. Now it’s interesting.
One interesting bit of NFTs is the fact that the original creator could get 5% of every sale afterwards. If NFTs are being used to transfer copyright, it should be impossible to transfer copyright without transferring the NFT otherwise there wouldn’t be further transactions for the artist to get paid out of. Can a contract be made so that the IP assignment cannot be separated from the NFT. That is a technically and legal challenge that I find interesting and if it’s possible, that could change everything.
