THE FUTURE OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY AND NTFS

2022-05-04, 08:05

Nobody wants to put time and effort into developing a brilliant idea just to have it stolen; it would be heartbreaking to devote time and effort to developing a product only to lose it to copycats. This is why the link between intellectual property rights and NFTs should be considered. In fact, because of the importance of NFTs in intellectual property rights, several creatives have become interested as the duo has amazing features with the help of blockchain technology.

The beauty of creatives has been their peculiar ability to create unique content in the form of innovations, designs, arts, music, etc. However, These intellectual ideas or creatives have suffered untold challenges and difficulties like theft, plagiarism, infringement of rights, and many more.

NFTs have solved some of these challenges by giving content creators an easier way of retaining exclusive rights to their properties. Another brilliant advantage that NFts have brought to the world of creators in terms of utility is the ability to monetize their content directly to fans, followers, and communities directly without the use of an intermediary. An example is the sale of the Popular Musician Jay-Z's Debut album copyrights named Reasonable Doubt as an NFTs for $139,000.

NFTs and Their Role in the Digital community

It's encouraging to learn that NFTs have existed in the digital world since 2012 but have gained little traction and appeal as a new frontier of cryptographic innovation. They progressed into popularity from 2017 to 2021 with a massive sale of an NFT for $69.3 Million in march 2021, a digital artwork of Mike Wikelmann, also known as Beeple. So What are NFTs?

NFTs means Non Fungible Tokens, a way to represent “one of a kind” assets on the Blockchain. They are an example of a digital certificate, a means or form of ownership of any unique asset in the digital world. NFTs help people access and own Digital representations of both physical and digital items. NFTs are not interchangeable, using a means of digital signature known as hashing to remain unique. NFTs are usually sold in digital marketplaces where ownerships can be exchanged or royalties received for having an affiliation to the digital asset.

NFTs are often tied to underlying assets, but owners cannot claim copyrights of the assets unless the smart contract governing the NFTs says so. However, this does not prevent sharing of the digital files nor the creation of other copies of the files when no express statement of the body governing the system exchange states so. But NFT tokenization has been revealed to give creatives an Improved monetizing means of property rights.

Intellectual Property(IP) and Rights

Any unique creation or innovation from an individual’s mind has been characterized as intellectual property. It could take many other forms, such as machines, designs, artworks, stories, music, etc. Intellectual properties are protected and secured by law to prevent discouragement of mental innovation due to the general public and all individuals who have benefitted from such things not celebrating or honoring their effort. Patents, copyrights, and trademarks are examples of intellectual property that allow owners to profit monetarily or acquire recognition for what they invent or create.

Intellectual Properties (IPs) have a significant benefit. They are backed up by international and local engagement laws in trade and markets, which impose severe penalties for plagiarism and stealing. This type of intellectual property (IP) protection and exclusive ownership rights for creators.

The Nexus Between NFTs and IPs

The Value of an NFT resides in the fact that it is unique. That is “Non-fungible” cannot be exchanged for another as it possesses attributes only inherent to itself. NFTs can be used as a digital certificate for IPs as they are a representative of an underlying asset. Since NFTs are linked to underlying assets, the ownership of An IP can be ascertained by minting an NFT to signify a digital linkage and tokenization to the main property. Since there can only be one unique attribute for an NFT, it would help prevent plagiarism and copycats from using the IP in an unauthorized manner.

A more interesting outlook shows the US government issues a licensing to secure the ownership of IPs as copyrights which can be transferred in the smart contract written when minting an NFT. In Other words, selling an NFT to a person can automatically transfer the ownership copyrights of the underlying assets and IP to the new owner only if written in the smart contract coded into the NFT. If this is not stated or written down clearly, then the sale of an NFT does not in any way signify a transfer of ownership or copyright from a creator to a buyer of an NFT. However, such buyers can be allowed to monetize or 1651745317799701559THEFUTUREOFINTELLECTUALPROPERTYANDNT2 the copy of the NFTs under the agreement term. For example, in Cryptokittes.

NFTs as a Future Frontier of Intellectual Properties

Considering the buzz and the sporadic growth of the NFT markets in the past few years, the ownership and monetization rights it affords several people, Content creators, companies, and famous artists are now trolling into the NFT ecosystem. It has been observed that when terms are clearly stated, NFTs help combat and prevent faking and counterfeiting of IPs and provide royalties directly passing from fans and community to creatives, hence giving power to creatives without the need of an intermediary except a line of codes.

It has also been seen as a more effective method of ensuring that the fan base receives a fair portion of the Digital Properties in the form of Certificates and copies of involvement in the usage and transfer of such properties. This can open an infinite path of monetary rewards when royalties are attached to secondary sales of Properties.

Another advantage is that through NFTs, a community or group of Fans can crowdfund an artist or a creative's intellectual property as a form of participation in the success of such inventions.

Examples of New Innovations solving IP problems with NFTs and Blockchain include

Ditto Music launched Bluebox, a blockchain service that offers creatives and artists in the music industry a suite of tools that helps to record ownership and also share royalty payments.

Opulous is another blockchain-based solution that is merging with Bluebox to help improve the copyrights system of the music industry. They plan to do this by linking digital NFTs to valid music copyright contracts.

On a final note, the increase in intrinsic value possessed by an NFT based on the demand has been huge, and how it is easy to monetize an intellectual property without necessarily giving up the ownership of the copyright has made creatives prefer NFTs to other forms of IP. It is likely that NFTs in the future, which attach to underlying assets copyrights protected under the International copyrights Laws, would be a great advantage to owners and creators of intellectual properties. This would forge a future where there is a more organized body and system overseeing the integration process of NFTs as a means of Digital IPs for creatives.

Author: Gate.io Observer: M. Olatunji
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