@punk6529 on Twitter
1/ on CC0 NFTs (Again)...
1/ On CC0 NFTs (again) I think (hope) a relatively brief and non-exhaustive thread and practical thread but we will see. CC0 is shorthand for the Creative Commons 0 license, a license that aims to allow authors of copyrightable work to place it in the public domain (View Tweet)
2/ Before we discuss CC0, I would like to reemphasize that I am NOT saying all art should be CC0. In fact 99.9999999% of all art is released on traditional copyright terms. That is completely fine, I collect a ton of it. Licensing is just a tool that people can choose to use. (View Tweet)
3/ What is the "traditional" mode in copyright? tl;dr In the United States, the author of a work (book, art, etc) made after 1978 has the exclusive copyright for their life plus 70 years. After that, the work goes into the public domain. (View Tweet)
4/ Some older works that were under an older copyright system entered the public domain earlier. For example, this year all work from 1927 will enter the public domain. Copyright life has been extended over the years due to corporate lobbying (Disney played a big role) (View Tweet)
5/ What is the theory behind copyright? Copyright was designed for social good - the theory was that if authors had an period of exclusivity to use or monetize their work as they like, the work would be more valuable to them, so they would create more of it = good for society (View Tweet)
6/ In other words, copyright is a law to encourage more creative output, under a very specific set of assumptions, that for most people the ability to manage exclusive use of their work, will make it more appealing to create it in the first place (View Tweet)
7/ In time, all work enters the public domain. The theory here is that all culture is built on other culture (even initially copyrighted work) and at some point people should be able to build freely on it. Right now, everything from 1927 and before is in the public domain (View Tweet)
8/ So if you go to museums, most of the most famous works are already in the public domain. Van Gogh's descendants cannot stop you from using Starry Night anyway you want, including as a direct copy of it. And outside of many museums, you can buy close-to-perfect replicas (View Tweet)
9/ I should note that for some authors, just as important as the monetary aspects of copyright, is the right to control what is done with their art. A piece of art might be made for a certain reason / presentation and, as long as they are alive (+70 years), they can control this (View Tweet)
10/ Now there are tons of nuances - what is the right term for copyright, what is copyrightable, what is "fair use" of copyrighted work, how does licensing work and so on. I am not going to handle these today. (View Tweet)
11/ These topics were covered in great detail on @unicmetaverse with @eliana_esq, archived now on Arweave ppt: https://t.co/qsmXcLVeUU video: https://t.co/Mts6kwjHoZ (View Tweet)
12/ I would like to focus today on something very specific: CC0 digital art, as implemented with NFTs. I continue to find these to be fascinating and in particularly I think they present a new "design space" vs what we could do before NFTs. (View Tweet)
13/ Imagine you made a piece of CC0 digital art before NFTs. e.g. you go on twitter, make a piece of art, renounce your rights and make it available to the world? what would happen? ultiple copies of the art, all in the exact same level of hierarchy, all "original"/"fake" (View Tweet)
14/ Imagine instead the same approach but with a CC0 NFT. The art can be copied infinitely but everyone knows which token was the original, who minted it and who currently owns that token in their wallet. (View Tweet)
15/ This is summer.jpg a piece of art auctioned by @XCOPYART in summer 2021. I bought it, later @XCOPYART put all his work in the public domain. You can freely copy it, you can mint new tokens with it and so on. But which token was minted, bought, owned is clear forever
16/ One question I get a lot is "but what do you own when you own a CC0 NFT?" This is the usual "gotcha" that the collector is somehow being tricked here. Weird that anticrypto people want to protect me, wealthy collector, from wasting my money but it is a common question. (View Tweet)
17/ I usually answer w/these two questions: a) what do you own when you buy a copyrighted work of art (e.g. a painting by basquait)? b) what do you own if you own a classic work of art (a Van Gogh) in public domain? Inexperienced people think some type of IP, but this is wrong (View Tweet)
18/ In the first case, the author (or estate) owns the copyright and can do whatever they want with it and you, owner, can do nothing other than display it for personal use. In the second case, the public owns the intellectual property and can do use it without buying the art. (View Tweet)
19/ The next step usually is "but I own a physical work, created by the artist themselves" People tend to index here on the "physical work" part; but very very good fakes are very common in the art world and are worth zero if discovered. (View Tweet)
20/ The part that has value is the second part of the sentence, the "created by the artist themselves" What you are buying is provenance, authenticity. It is why a copy of Harry Potter is worth $10, but hand-signed by the author, it is worth much more. (View Tweet)
21/ With NFTs, we have moved the question of provenance from "having experts look at the paintstrokes with a microscope to see if they are authentic" to "check the chain to see who minted the NFT" And just like with all other creative matters, provenance is everything. (View Tweet)
22/ The specific approach in NFTs was in some way invented by @cathsimard_ and @gmoneyNFT when he bought "Free Hawaii" and upon purchase she released the rights on a permissive license I like this approach/this mental model
23/ This is the mental model I have for the Meme Cards, specifically: a) the primary minters pay the artist to release the art into the public domain (CC0) b) after the mint, the primary minters have provenance of the art and the global cultural commons is a bit richer (View Tweet)
24/ In a way, as a collector/primary minter of a CC0 work, you get an little bit of an extra boost One "criticism" of fine art is "rich people spending lots of money for their personal enjoyment when there are real problems in the world" In the case of CC0, it's a bit different (View Tweet)
25/ You are not only paying money to have a piece of art for yourselves. You are also contributing (economically) so that art is contributed to the global cultural commons now, not 100 or 150 years from now. You have made the world a bit richer, not just yourself (View Tweet)
26/ I would like to reemphasize that there is no pressure on artists to release work this way. Every artist should approach their work, deciding what is right for that work, at that time, with the broad set of tools at their disposal (View Tweet)
27/ What are good reasons for art to be released on traditional copyright models? ✅ You care about how it is presented ✅ You have specific monetization plans for it ✅ You want to wait and see (you can always have more permissive terms later) (View Tweet)
28/ What are good reasons for art to be released on CC0 terms? ✅ You want your art to be part of the global cultural commons now ✅ You want people to remix/reuse it while you are still alive (more on this in the next tweet) (View Tweet)
29/ Eventually all art ends up in the public domain with no exceptions. As an artist, an interesting question is if seeing it remixed brings you pain or brings you joy. Your views on this probably play into if you would like to be alive to see this or not (View Tweet)
30/ Another thing to keep in mind is that nobody has to take an across-the-board view on how to license their art. You could choose per piece, per project, per collection, what to do. For artists, it is just a tool, nothing more. (View Tweet)
31/ "What about the theory that CC0 art will spread more and make art/artist more famous/valuable" While I think this is true in some cases, I will NOT say this because 99.99999% of art will not become famous or important or monetizable whatever the licensing model (View Tweet)
32/ So I do not want artists to say "I do not want my art to be CC0 but I want to make more money so I will do it" and then be disappointed in the almost certainly true case that they will not make a lot of money. For every @XCOPYART there are thousands of unknown artists (View Tweet)
33/ Attention and artistic importance follows "power laws" - the most important work becomes extremely valuable and there is a long-tail of work that is only appreciated by a small group. The licensing model CANNOT change this. (View Tweet)
34/ Licensing models are not a panacea - whatever the licensing model, most art will not become economically important (it can still be psychologically important for the artist and collector) So choose your licensing model for other reasons - based on what brings you joy. (View Tweet)
35/ Also, collectors should not particularly care either way for the same reasons. Every collector should buy what they like, buy what art/licensing brings them joy. Should not pressure anyone to do anything! (View Tweet)
36/ In any case, I hope this helps some people - I also wanted it online to share with people who find CC0 NFTs confusing. And they can rest assured that me, collector, am not getting tricked by cunning CC0 artists 😀 (View Tweet)