How does copyright apply to NFTs?
UHF
Posts: 515
Its an interesting question because most NFTs are generated by programs. However, only humans can create and generate copyrights. (Scripts cannot create copyrighted materials.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey_selfie_copyright_dispute
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Does not apply in any way.
An NFT has nothing to do with copyright, it is just a link to some digital content.
The actual creations are also not copyrightable. If a script spat it out.. its not being produced by a human.
And it is STILL only a link. Even if it were created by a human instead of a machine copyright still wouldn't apply.
It only applies if your are the crested macaque who holds the patent to the original NFT press that makes all the digital images into NFTs.
In the local dialect of the Indonesian macaques where Mr. Peebles comes from, "Nft" mean a type patty left behind by male water buffaloes... humans stole the "Nft" concept, but Mr. Peebles still holds both the patent for the original design (which was actually made out of an abandoned termite mound slathered in pig dung) and the word "Nft", but since the US Court of Appeals says land animals can't hold copyrights, Mr. Peebles had himself legally declared a fish and under the United States Confused Animal Act of 1976, "a fish is not a land animal" and as long as Mr. Peebles wears his fish costume and stay in a shallow pool of water for at least twelve hours a day, he can legally be considered a fish.
Lawyers for PFTTTOA (People For The Terrible Treatment Of Animals) argue that the Court of Appeal ruling doesn't specifically say "land animals" but implies "all animals" and that since humans are animals too, and that the aforementioned lawyers who openly admit to being inhuman and thus not animals, and are actually some form of misunderstood monster, they should be the only ones allowed to hold any copyrights or patents and by default they own all the money in the world.
Currently that case is awaiting a verdict, but so far it's looking pretty good for the lawyers who seem to have found a loophole in the law.
No copyright? That explains the existence of the *cough*NFT*cough* Toon Monkey in the store.
(I am not a lawyer, etc.)
The monkey selfie dispute rests on whether or not there was sufficient human intervention to warrant the photographer owning the copyright, since "all" he did was provide the camera and allow the monkeys to take their own images (it's very unusual for a photographer to have had no other input in creating the final image; I'm pretty sure that if he'd done any editing, cropping, etc. he would have a copyright claim).
There are some questions about the copyright/legality of generative art that amounts to a program creating images from banks of other images if there's any chance the input includes material copyrighted by other people. Most NFTs could not have been created without a human making artistic decisions that contribute to the final product, even if the end result is generated by a script. For the standard three-quarter-head-turn-blorbo NFT portrait, someone had to create the art assets that the script draws from and choose the overall artistic direction. Someone did create the art; a script just remixed it. In most cases, the person who holds the copyright to the art assets would own the copyright to the NFT.
Buying an NFT, however, does not transfer the copyright for the image unless the seller specifically says it does--even though a lot of people who buy NFTs seem to think they have unlimited legal rights to the image attached to the blockchain entry they bought.
Even if the seller does say, the digital content contains some copyrights, how does one know that the seller has rights to sell them?
The NFT only proves that some anonymous operator created the NFT at a certain date, and one can track the ownership history amongst the anonymous owners on that NFT since the creation date.
No proof of origin and/or ownership of the digital content contained behind the link (NFT) is given.
Yet the NFT still isn't the art asset, it is only a functional file that tells you where to find the art asset.
This is not Minneapolis.
This is a road sign pointing to Minneapolis.
Yep, there's a lot of misunderstanding as to what an NFT actually is, something that's compounded by the fact that many of the people selling them don't really understand it and they're becoming a new favorite method of conducting scams and swindles. When OpenSea, the world's largest NFT marketplace, confirmed in February that a staggering 80% of all NFTs being created using their minting tool are in some way fraudulent, this is an industry that's in danger of either imploding or becoming the subject of massive regulatory efforts in the very near future.
Sorry for the basic question but is there anything to stop any of us creating NFTs in DAZ Studio using assets (characters, materials, poses, etc.) from the DAZ store? Would DAZ have a copyright on the assets being used?
Making NFT's with the renders one makes, no problem.
Making NFT's with the 3D assets one has bought, the licence doesn't allow sharing or resale of those assets.
The NFP's DAZ has sold are only licenced to whom ever owns the NFT they are linked to and their usage is limited with the standard DAZ licence.
I think the first case is the one i'm asking about - rendering a scene or an avatar using DAZ figures, clothing, etc. I am not selling the assets that I used to compose the picture - only the render of those assets. I don't know what NFPs are. I had no interest in NFTs but someone close to me asked if I would create some so I'm trying to oblige. I don't really have much idea what's involved though.
The NFP's were/are character packs (figure/clothing/hair/props) that DAZ linked to NFT's and they were marketed at roughly 10 times the store price.
There was a lot of confusion at the time about what was actually being sold and who owned the 3D assets linked to the NFT, but in the end they turned out to be only 3D assets licenced to whom ever owned the NFT. In essence nothing more than what one could buy from the store, exept with the possibility for resale that came with the NFT that can be freely sold.
So there's nothing to prevent me from using normal store-bought assets instead of these speciality NFT-linked assets?
Using them for what? An NFT is a fancy link. Nothing more, nothing less.
Yes, you can create an image, upload it, and sell it as an nft through a marketplace. As long as you are not uploading and distributing the models or textures or any other files from the products themselves, anything that is licensed for you to create a commercial image (which is pretty much everything in this store) is fine to render for this.
All that said, if someone else is asking for you to get it on this, you will likely want to be asking a lot of questions of them and about NFTs in general. You will want to be clear on ownership of the image and the NFT token, and be aware of how the market is currently doing.
My son is asking and I am happy to oblige. I trust him and his judgement especially since I know next to nothing about this marketplace - as can be seen by my obviously ignorant questions.
Nevertheless, the NFT market sees those links as tangible entities with a certain value. Where buying and selling is concerned, it usually creates legal issues around ownership. I still don't understand the concept of buying and selling links - it just makes no sense to me but people are doing it. All I have been asked to do is create a collection of images and I wanted to make sure that DAZ or a DAZ PA has no legal claim to an image (or a link to an image) composed of their original creations.
For what it's worth, I don't think they're obviously ignorant questions, I think most of the writing about NFTs from the people promoting them has been deliberately opaque. Hopefully folks here have helped answer them.
Yes indeed, I appreciate the help with understanding. My son tried to explain but I got lost in the jargon (which seems to be entirely and newly invented).
you certainly can sell renders as NFTs you also could just render a series of cubes with smiley faces and it would be just as valid
the art/images are irrelevant to this scheme
One is buying and selling the link (NFT), if one buys one, one is buying just the link. On it's own, the concept does not provide any proof of ownership, originality or legality of the content behind the link.
And it is this explanation that makes me wonder what the world is coming to. It seems like a Monty Python sketch to me but I'll make some pictures for my son and see where it goes. I'm actually enjoying that part of it and, thankfully, I don't have to worry about the NFT process.
They're like trading cards. There's art on the card, and the owner of the card might enjoy the art/feel some attachment to it because of what it depicts, but the only reason the card is worth any money at all is typically because of its rarity. The link is a unique blockchain entry, which means that it is rare. The rarity of the link gives the art collectable value, while the art makes the link worth collecting. But because the art is digital and therefore unlimited, the only way it really works is if you're part of a community that views the act of having bought the NFT part of the collectability. Anyone can view the art, but if you bought the NFT, you are the one with a special attachment to it, certified by the artist.
If it sounds like the kind of thing that probably doesn't work unless you are already famous and have a large audience of people clamoring to associate themselves with your art...that's who has typically made money off these. Some people who weren't well-known got in early and sold stuff when there was a rush of people buying up anything that looked interesting based purely on having been told that NFTs were going to become valuable collectors' items, but that's mostly fizzled out.
They have no intrinsic value. You will make money if someone who has crypto to burn happens to see your NFTs among all the people selling them and decides they want to display it on their page. The market is overrun by scammers at this point, so caveat venditor. If you make any profit, it's probably best to cash out as quickly as possible.
Nope, the NFT is the casing for a 'trading card', which may be original and rare or most likely isn't
There is no certification by the artist within the concept, unless some other means are used to provide it.
The blockchain only shows/tracks, who was the (anonymous) user that created the link, and who were the (anonymous) users that have bought and sold the link later on.
So true.
I want to be very clear that I'm not talking about how the technology works at all; NFTs are not comparable to a trading card case because no one cares about the case, and NFT collectors very much do care about their NFTs. This is why the concept of their value is so slippery and why NFT collectors seem to understand it instinctively while it sounds ridiculous to people who don't care about NFTs. If you aren't impressed by NFT ownership, they're just a link with an arbitrarily associated asset. If you are impressed by it--and your social circle is impressed by it--you're buying and selling clout. If you don't find trading cards interesting (or stamps, or anything else people collect that has no functional value), they are nothing but a picture printed on cardstock. They are only worth money to people within a specific collector subculture. NFTs are the same way, it's just that people in that subculture decided they could get everyone else on board with it.
I am not talking about "certification" in any legal sense. The whole idea behind the value of NFTs is that you're buying a social connection to something famous or artistically important, so that when people appreciate it they are elevating your social status by proxy. All of this is happening because a bunch of rich people envisioned a future where you would have a virtual house with virtual art on the walls and could take your metaverse friends around and show them the special status you bought that says "PerttiA is the Official Owner of this famous artwork by a famous artist :)" and all your friends would be impressed because the artist knows who you are and every time someone talks about the art they can look it up and see your name associated with it.
The main reason this doesn't work is that the metaverse isn't happening and most artists selling NFTs are not famous, so the people who bought them up to speculate on their future value are mostly holding nothing.
In essence... The content behind the link is of no interest, it's about the bragging rights one gets based on how much one has paid for the casing (link).
Not necessarily - an NFT produced, in limited numbers, by the original artist is, to some degree determined by circumstances, a personal link to the artist in a way that even a very good poster of the art would not be, though the poster would be easier to share with others by hanging on a wall.
But the question still remains, where's the proof?
How does the buyer know that "Andy W" that has created the NFT containing the link to the artwork, is actually the famous american artist and not just some teenage kid playing with AI?
Presumably the artist would post on what they were doing on their site/social feeds/in a newspaper - but yes, that is something that would clearly need to be verified in some way. However, I was assuming that the artist would need to be visibly involved for there to be any sense of connection.