I find some of the discourse surrounding NFTs and associated copyright to be perplexing, the notion that there are no clearly defined copyright protections and freedoms, rather that each NFT may come with its own defined contract, embedded with custom defined parameters. Personally, I think this kind of discontinuity regarding copyright protections hinders NFT expansion, both in terms of the creator and the purchaser. When either party finds themselves questioning their protections and potential liabilities behind a business deal, the chances of either party withdrawing from the table increase, ultimately giving NFT dealings a bad rap of being tough to navigate due to both technical and legal prerequisite knowledge needed to effectively navigate a business venture in a newer market.
Given the medium that NFTs exist in and the fact that these artworks are mostly traded in an anonymous capacity, sometimes the sole identifier of a purchaser being an alphanumeric address, copyright accountability starts to become an issue. For example, in the case of unauthorized production of copies, even by a current owner, the issue then becomes how to legally hold someone responsible when there are no real means in which to locate a potential offender. Additionally, regarding this digital medium, what happens when one party is in another country that cannot enforce or does not care to enforce a contract concerning a niche market with no readily defined legal precedents? Why create an original NFT and sell it if the buyer is going to make tenfold the selling price selling knockoffs while the artist is left holding the bag?
One of the largest detriments to this market is also what makes it so prosperous, the newness behind this market in tandem with its potential return rate is what motivates so many to flock towards NFTs, eager for a piece of the cryptocurrency pie. In the same breath, this influx of new people from a variety of backgrounds, in conjunction with their respective motives which may or may not be legal or moral, necessitates a legal framework to protect all parties involved. The present attempts at copyright protection actually seem like they can do more harm to the digital artistic world than help, one of the best examples of this being not able to show a physical copy of an NFT, even when being transparent with the origins of the physical copy. The couple that circumvented this clause by showing their NFT on a screen within their home, while innovative, seemed almost absurd that they were not permitted to translate their owned digital art into a physical medium to display within their house. Given a clause like that, I would never agree to purchase a piece in the first place, what use is art if it is relegated to some obscure folder on my computer and I cannot share it with others and bond over artistic interpretations?