How NFTs can protect creators and fortify their legal rights

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The inter­net has altered the land­scape of cre­ativ­i­ty and intel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty for­ev­er. With the explo­sion of dig­i­tal art, music and lit­er­a­ture, cre­atives have been empow­ered to share work on a lev­el nev­er before seen. 

As emerg­ing tech­nolo­gies like blockchain-based non-fun­gi­ble tokens (NFTs) expand fur­ther into the dig­i­tal asset space, artists and oth­er cre­ators need to under­stand when and how to use these tools to pro­tect and boost their works.

In a time when dig­i­tal con­tent is extreme­ly easy to copy and dis­trib­ute, cre­ators must find a bet­ter way to har­ness the ben­e­fits of dig­i­tal dis­tri­b­u­tion. Rely­ing on gov­ern­ment laws on copy­right will not be enough to ensure that val­ue doesn’t get lost along the way.

Digital creativity and intellectual property 

Dig­i­tal cre­ativ­i­ty, intel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty and new tech­nolo­gies are rapid­ly chang­ing how we inter­act with and con­sume media. Cre­at­ing con­tent dig­i­tal­ly has enabled us to express our­selves in ways that have nev­er before been pos­si­ble. We now can eas­i­ly cre­ate graph­ics, music, videos and text that can be shared across mul­ti­ple plat­forms. This allows us to access a vari­ety of cre­ative works from around the world with­out hav­ing to phys­i­cal­ly vis­it the loca­tion where it was created.

It should be no sur­prise that copy­right laws were estab­lished only in the 18th cen­tu­ry after access to the print­ing machine became rea­son­ably acces­si­ble. Sim­i­lar­ly, copy­right laws for dig­i­tal con­tent, such as DMCA, were not approved until 1998, when 147 mil­lion users were already “surf­ing the web.”

Even so, more than US$225 bil­lion is lost every year in the U.S. alone due to intel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty rights being vio­lat­ed, accord­ing to esti­mates by the Com­mis­sion on the Theft of Amer­i­can Intel­lec­tu­al Property.

Nowa­days, with over 5.2 bil­lion peo­ple online, this shift in shar­ing con­tent has also changed how we think about intel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty rights. Even if they have been poor­ly enforced, laws have been cre­at­ed to bet­ter pro­tect dig­i­tal cre­ations and help ensure fair com­pen­sa­tion for cre­ators of orig­i­nal works. 

It has become increas­ing­ly dif­fi­cult for cre­ators to pro­tect their works as they spread across mul­ti­ple plat­forms and devices. This is incred­i­bly chal­leng­ing when it comes to dig­i­tal pira­cy, where it is often impos­si­ble to track down who down­loaded or shared a par­tic­u­lar piece of content.

NFTs’ potential in intellectual property

A lot has been said about the gen­er­al role of NFTs for cre­ators can be sum­ma­rized in the fol­low­ing categories:

  • Prove­nance: NFTs allow the cre­ation of a dig­i­tal record of own­er­ship and ori­gin for cre­ative work. This can help estab­lish author­ship and pre­vent intel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty theft.
  • Immutabil­i­ty: NFTs are stored on a blockchain, which is an immutable ledger. This means that once an NFT is cre­at­ed, it can­not be altered, pro­vid­ing a tam­per-proof record of own­er­ship and authen­tic­i­ty for the cre­ative work.
  • Trace­abil­i­ty: The use of blockchain tech­nol­o­gy in NFTs allows for trace­abil­i­ty, which can be use­ful for cre­ators to track the own­er­ship and resales as well as bet­ter under­stand their customers.
  • Mon­e­ti­za­tion: NFTs can be bought, sold, and trad­ed on blockchain mar­ket­places. This allows cre­atives to mon­e­tize their work in new ways, such as through roy­al­ties, rentals, sub­scrip­tions and mem­ber­ship models.
  • Acces­si­bil­i­ty: NFTs can be bought, sold and trad­ed glob­al­ly, which allows cre­ators to con­nect with new audi­ences and expand their reach.

In addi­tion, trans­ac­tions involv­ing dig­i­tal assets can be exe­cut­ed almost instant­ly, reduc­ing costs and fric­tion. Because dig­i­tal assets can be eas­i­ly stored and trans­ferred glob­al­ly, they are acces­si­ble to many peo­ple, regard­less of their location. 

The pro­gram­ma­bil­i­ty of dig­i­tal assets enables the devel­op­ment of self-exe­cut­ing smart con­tracts that auto­mate pro­ce­dures and elim­i­nate the need for mid­dle­men, reduc­ing costs and facil­i­tat­ing the devel­op­ment of inno­v­a­tive use cas­es for decen­tral­ized finance and NFTs. Over­all, dig­i­tal assets are a bet­ter tech­nol­o­gy for cre­atives than any­thing we’ve had at our fin­ger­tips so far. Dig­i­tal assets also offer extra val­ue to the own­ers of the creator’s work. 

Protecting creative works 

Dig­i­tal assets offer an excit­ing solu­tion dur­ing a time when scarci­ty can only be forced artificially.

NFTs can be used to cre­ate new busi­ness mod­els and incen­tivize con­sumers to get their con­tent from legit­i­mate dis­tri­b­u­tion chan­nels rather than going for pirat­ed or unof­fi­cial ones. Com­pa­nies can offer spe­cial rewards for pur­chas­ing a dig­i­tal asset, such as access to exclu­sive con­tent or lim­it­ed-edi­tion prod­ucts. This is because dig­i­tal assets can “track” each real cus­tomer for the whole cus­tomer jour­ney and deliv­er a per­son­al­ized expe­ri­ence and extra rewards that can’t be done oth­er­wise. Cre­ators can reward their fans at any point of their jour­neys by set­ting spe­cif­ic cri­te­ria that are track­able on-chain or oth­er­wise. NFTs offer access to unique expe­ri­ences and can cre­ate a cus­tomized val­ue proposition. 

In addi­tion, dig­i­tal assets cre­ate a com­mon ground for part­ner­ships and inter­con­nec­tiv­i­ty between IPs. The trans­paren­cy of this tech­nol­o­gy makes it per­fect for brands to col­lab­o­rate with each oth­er and scale the val­ue propo­si­tion of their communities.

Final­ly, it is impor­tant to note that while cryp­tocur­ren­cy and blockchain tech­nol­o­gy has the poten­tial to pro­vide a secure and effi­cient way to pro­tect cre­ative works, it is still a rel­a­tive­ly new field and the legal impli­ca­tions of dig­i­tal assets are still unclear.

A tool for creative professionals

Dig­i­tal pira­cy can’t be fought with laws alone, and NFTs offer an excel­lent solu­tion for pro­tect­ing cre­ative works in the dig­i­tal age.

Only by pro­vid­ing a supe­ri­or expe­ri­ence can cre­ators safe­guard their work. Fans will be incen­tivized to pay for a pre­mi­um expe­ri­ence that can be accessed only through own­er­ship of a spe­cif­ic NFT. 

This tech­nol­o­gy also pro­vides an easy way for cre­ators to secure their assets and ensure they can get reward­ed for their efforts. NFTs can lay the foun­da­tion for new busi­ness mod­els for cre­ators and many tra­di­tion­al businesses.

Dig­i­tal assets are poised to rev­o­lu­tion­ize the cre­ative indus­try as the dig­i­tal asset space con­tin­ues to expand. They pro­vide a secure and prof­itable solu­tion for cre­ative pro­fes­sion­als, allow­ing them to safe­guard and mon­e­tize their dig­i­tal works while offer­ing fans excep­tion­al and exclu­sive expe­ri­ences. Through NFTs, cre­ators have the abil­i­ty to assert con­trol over their cre­ations and explore new busi­ness prospects, ulti­mate­ly lead­ing to a more sta­ble and sus­tain­able cre­ative environment.

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