Are NFTs DRM by Another Name?
Bill Rosenblatt,
Copyright and Technology,
Mar 16, 2021
Something is 'fungible' if it can be easily replaced with another item of the same type. For example, we don't really care which dollar bill we receive; they're all basically the same. A non-fungible thing is something that is verifiably unique. Like the Mona Lisa say. So a non-fungible token (NFT) is a digital thing that is verifiably unique. People have been paying a lot for NFTs of famous things recently. Is it a scam? A bubble? Or is it, as suggested in this article, the latest face of digital rights management (DRM). It's a persuasive argument, because what people are actually buying are "NFTs that point to digital objects", and not the objects themselves. "In neither the NFT nor DRM cases do buyers get the same bundle of rights that are guaranteed for a physical object in copyright law," writes Bill Rosenblatt. He may have a case.
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