I'm not a lawyer... but say I produce some intellectual property. I can sell that copyright of that intellectual property. Everyone is with me so far. I can call that thing an NFT.
When you buy an NFT of a viral video. You are buying the copyright of it, nothing problematic there.
Its been a bit since I watched, but he raises a few issues:
1. Many NFTs are fundamentally lacking a copyright. Only humans, not animals or even programs can create copyrightable works. So NFTs that are generated may have one copyright collectively or maybe even no legal protection. This single copyright can only be held by one person. So here clearly NFT != ownership.
2. Some NFTs that could have copyrights are not from their rightful owners. As a buyer it is hard to tell. While the origin of the NFT is easy to verify by design, any non web asset associated with it is hard.
3. Selling a copyright as a NFT is legally dubious. The first sale could legally work, but its not clear how you would reliably bind all subsequent buyers/sellers to the same contract.
4. Even if the work in the NFT is copyrightable, author provided, and backed by a legally sound process, there is no guarantee the “rights” granted have any real meaning. The example given was sport clips where your “ownership” while strong and clear, was limited to basically viewing it on the site/app for non-commercial purposes.
The issue kinda becomes, its hard to tie an NFT to any kind of transferable ownership in a legally sound way. Imo it sounds possible, like how homes with HOAs force buyers to agree to and perpetuate the terms of the HOA. Its just hard. Hard to setup, and hard to verify.
If an NFT doesn’t represent a legal claim on IP, it can’t be used as the transfer of that claim between parties. The same system you would need to recognize that claim is the same system that would ignore the blockchain in the event a dispute is raised.
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[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 22.4 ms ] threadWhen you buy an NFT of a viral video. You are buying the copyright of it, nothing problematic there.
1. Many NFTs are fundamentally lacking a copyright. Only humans, not animals or even programs can create copyrightable works. So NFTs that are generated may have one copyright collectively or maybe even no legal protection. This single copyright can only be held by one person. So here clearly NFT != ownership.
2. Some NFTs that could have copyrights are not from their rightful owners. As a buyer it is hard to tell. While the origin of the NFT is easy to verify by design, any non web asset associated with it is hard.
3. Selling a copyright as a NFT is legally dubious. The first sale could legally work, but its not clear how you would reliably bind all subsequent buyers/sellers to the same contract.
4. Even if the work in the NFT is copyrightable, author provided, and backed by a legally sound process, there is no guarantee the “rights” granted have any real meaning. The example given was sport clips where your “ownership” while strong and clear, was limited to basically viewing it on the site/app for non-commercial purposes.
The issue kinda becomes, its hard to tie an NFT to any kind of transferable ownership in a legally sound way. Imo it sounds possible, like how homes with HOAs force buyers to agree to and perpetuate the terms of the HOA. Its just hard. Hard to setup, and hard to verify.