Learn How To Protect Your Business In The NFT And Metaverse Sector!
For NFT Creators, Investors, And Brands
NFT Intellectual Property
What Is Intellectual Property (IP) Rights?
What Is an NFT Copyright?
Rights include the right to distribute copies, perform and display the work in public, and reproduce the work.
The owner can license, transfer and assign these rights to others. This is where NFT ownership rights come into play. The creator sets the rules. These rules can also be amended and updated.
What Is An NFT trademark?
Trademarks identify the services, identity, or products of a specific business.
A trademark helps to prevent other companies from trying to imitate your business to sell their goods and services.
Sometimes, a trademark may simply be the name of a company or product.
In the NFT world, it will become incredibly important for established bluechips to protect their brand, especially from derivative impersonation collections.
Releasing NFTs can present IP issues for creators such as:
- Does the NFT infringe on third party rights?
- Who has the right to create and release an NFT?
- How rights are transferred
- What rights are transferred when an NFT is sold?
- Will your NFT create confusion in the eyes of the consumers?
- Jurisdiction and regulatory issues.
When creating and releasing an NFT collection, it’s important that you know potential IP pitfalls and seeks expert legal advice in this specialty field. The money spent in the planning stage will help you avoid costly lawsuits and loss of reputation.
Intellectual Property For Businesses
Businesses that release NFTs into the metaverse for example, must look at how their intellectual property is protected on decentralized platforms.
One such example was the famous Hermes bags business which had to defend its brand from being copied and used as a digital asset.
How Businesses And Creators Can Protect Their IP
- Businesses should look to monitor NFT and metaverse marketplaces/platforms.
- It would be wise to play defence and register domain names in web3 such as .ETH and .SOL.
- Trademark products and services in this new digital space. Including famous artwork.
- Front run potential IP infringements by developing policies now.
Examples of NFT IP For Businesses And Creators
Record labels and music studios can create a song and then wrap the royalty rights inside an NFT. Anyone that owns one of these NFTs will receive a share of the royalties. It is a fantastic method for artists to raise money by selling NFTs to help fund the expense of creating a music video or song.
Polkacity is a metaverse who are creating NFTs to sell to investors that have real-world applications. Owners of their bitcoin city NFTs will have the rights and deeds to actual land plots in El Salvador.
Polkacity is also looking to build a worldwide ice cream brand with outlets, and NFT holders will share in the profits from this business.
Artists are selling 1/1 art pieces or even fractional ownership of expensive NFTs or real-life artwork.
Smart Contracts Used For IP Agreements
NFT Intellectual Property Rights For Investors
Here are two examples of NFT Investors Rights
BAYC – Bored Ape Yacht Club Owners Rights
Owners of BAYC NFTs have received intellectual property rights. This means that if you own one, you can potentially profit from it.
BAYC holders can lend out their NFT to brands who wish to use them.
Snoop Dogg and Emimen both own a BAYC NFT and used them in a music video where they transformed into their respective NFT pictures.
Seth Green, the actor, is creating a TV show based around his bored ape, which he has named Fred.
y00ts – A DeGod Solana-based NFT collection
y00t holders can create unique artistic traits and merchandise from their y00t NFT. These NFTs can be monetised.
Summary
The evolution of NFTs may present more complex IP issues for creators and owners of certain NFTs in the future. There may also be legal issues with branding and identity theft.
What do you do if someone copies your 1/1 NFT avatar in the metaverse and impersonates you?
Businesses need to understand how to protect their brand and NFT creations, not only in their Country but also worldwide.
We suggest hiring an experienced legal team to help you create an NFT collection and also protect your business in web3.
We have create a list of worldwide NFT legal experts to contact. Alternatively, we are available to help businesses and creators with this process.
Contact us at https://spendingcrypto.com or https://dewaymedia.com
Author:
Jonathan Titley
Founder:
spendingcrypto.com
Co-founder:
https://fomomagazine.io
(NFT industry magazine and project reviews)
Co-founder:
https://nftave.io
(NFT marketplace and educational academy)
Disclaimer:
All information in this article is for educational purposes only.
