The Art of Copy(right) on the Blockchain

Introduction

One of the fundamental principles provided by Blockchain Technology is the elimination of intermediaries from any transfer or recording of data. With this in mind many Crypto projects aim to replace centralized systems which tend to prioritize their own interests over those of users. 

NFTs first appeared on Bitcoin during 2014, the ability to directly upload Artworks onto a Blockchain so they could be purchased directly by a peer, was a signal of drastic change to come! Apart from the technical complexities necessary to put something online through Counterparty, we had to wait until 2017 with the arrival of the ERC-721 standard on Ethereum before NFTs began to become accessible to most users.

Since then, more and more Artists have taken advantage of this technology to publish content on Platforms that have made access to the Blockchain much easier! 

So, you buy your favourite Artists work and want to use it commercially, what are the problems you may encounter? In addition to this question, even if the NFT does belong to you, what are the limits of its use and what are the challenges of using Blockchain? 

Copyright, Copyleft, Creative Commons.

Before being able to determine what the ins and outs of the rights of use for Non-Fungible Tokens are, it is important to take stock of what already exists in the World today regarding Copyright and the right to use Artistic works.

Indeed, depending on the country where you’re located there will be differences between right of use and Copyright. Generally, the two are confused, yet one relates to the author of a work, while the other focuses more on monetary aspects and reuse.

Copyright

For now, let’s take a look at the right to use with a term you must have seen regularly, Copyright.

According to Wikipedia, here is its overall definition:

“Copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive right to make copies of a creative work, usually for a limited time.”

A very restrictive concept that allows only one thing, to place a work with its copyright held within a written medium for a given period of time.

It can be a music score, a choreography or a drawing, whatever its nature as long as it can be recorded and above all provide the means to take legal action against anyone using a piece of work without having the consent of its owner.

For example, the night lighting of the Eiffel Tower is Copyrighted and it is therefore forbidden to use the night image of the Iron Woman without prior agreement..

You’ll understand once you see the small logo © somewhere, reproduction is prohibited with few exceptions, as in the French “droit d’auteur”.

Copyleft

Much less known than its big brother, the Copyleft is nevertheless very interesting! According to the GNU Foundation, here is its general definition:

“Copyleft is a general method for making a program (or any other work) free, forcing all modified or extended versions of that program to be free as…