The increase in the use of digital assets is bringing out more platforms in existence. These might impact the digital era and introduce more such specializations. With the rollout of cryptocurrency and its advent, there is a lot of development in the way of transactions.
Introduction to Blockchain
We are well aware of the concept of Blockchain, it is the automatic record of transactions that are made without the help of a specific third party, that is the elimination of banks from our day-to-day transactions. In this technology, a transaction gets recorded on the various computers that are registered on the blockchain.
However, we are limiting the discussion to the NFTs in this piece of information.
Now the NFTs. Non-fungible tokens are those tokens which are traded digitally and these are just the potential copies of the artwork by any creator or artist of the particular artwork.
What Is a Non-Fungible Token?
Non-Fungible means something that can’t be traded, it can’t be transferred or interchanged with a thing of the same value and Token is used as a synonym for ownership here, which means any asset that is non-transferable, and the ownership of the original piece of work underlies with the creator of the piece of work.
The crux of this is that when you buy an NFT, you are just buying the right, the digital authentication to the artwork, rather than buying the whole artwork. It is just the digital signature of the work, which is generally embedded in the artwork, mind it is not the original piece of the artwork, it is just a part of it.
NFT’s can be minted on various blockchains such as IBM blockchains, Ethereum, Multichain, Ripple, EOS, Klaytn, Tron, etc.
We are now familiar with the concept of NFT and Blockchain.
Everything on the planet has its drawbacks and limitations. However, the NFTs are not as perfect as they seem to be, there are many issues that are left unaddressed.
What is a Copyright?
Copyright is nothing but the right one holds when he/she is the owner of the original artwork. It is just the ownership of a piece of artwork. Without copyright, you can’t copy that artwork or modify it to make something new.
This is very easy to understand, suppose you are an artist and you just created a tune, you have the unique ownership of it and therefore, it belongs to you. You have the copyright to it.
The copyright owners have the bundle of rights which includes the right to distribute the artwork, the right to reproduce the artwork, and the right to display or perform the artwork somewhere. They are the ones who have the right to create NFTs out of the work.
Suppose you are buying an original artwork of Mona Lisa, you brought it and one day someone claims it as an unoriginal piece of art.
What would you do?
How will you react to it?
You should have proof of it if it is an original piece of art which should be in written format. Here, we are talking about copyright.
What is Copyright Infringement?
Copyright infringement is the use of someone else’s work without prior permission. In legal terms, we call it without having the copyright. You must have heard the word Piracy, it is the illegal dealing of a piece of work without prior permission or authorization. The same is the case in this.
What Is the Case of Copyright Infringement?
Consider a situation, where you are the owner of an NFT, and your work gets copied without permission. This is a case of copyright infringement.
Suppose you are using a video clip from a famous movie and creating an NFT out of it, you might get profited from its initial sale value but, that is not your creation, you are just using it out of the way and claiming it to be your own piece of work, the producers of that film could file a case of something related to copyright because they are the ones who have the right to create NFT’s out of the work.
Is the Owner of NFT, the Owner of the Original Piece of Art?
The NFT owners only have the re-print or minted work of it or a part of the piece of art. This might be the signature of the artist and some other thing, digital art of the piece of art created but it can’t be the original artwork.
The buyers of the NFT are mere the buyers of metadata associated with that artwork
The same situation might be repeated if we modify or modernize someone else’s artwork and sell it again to get a profit out of it. All of this is illegal and not viable as we don’t have the right to do it. Instead, we can create our original artwork rather than publish someone else’s work.
When is The Owner of NFT, the Owner of Artwork?
To be precise, the secondary owner of NFT or buyer is just the owner of the content of the NFT and not the original asset of NFT itself. Same way, the original owner or creator of NFT is the owner of the original asset.
The buyer is said to be the owner of artwork once the copyright itself is granted as the NFT to the buyer. Technically, it is as simple as the traditional ways of buying and selling pieces of artwork and follows the same Copyright Laws in general.
Can There Be More Than One Owner of an NFT?
There can be more than one owner of NFT, only if the creator of NFT might use more than one platform to mint the particular piece of art. It can be sold on other blockchain platforms. It is thus implied that we can sell it in other forms as well, as a photo, as printed or in any of the other forms.
Conclusion
These are the basic key reviews on the idea of NFT, well we do need a proper set of laws for the concept of NFT which we don’t have right now. Only then we might be able to distinguish and end the ever-long rift between the NFTs and copyright.
Written by: Khushbu Arora
Edited By: Nidhi Jha
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