Should NFT Projects Have Copyright Laws Or Be In The Public Domain?
"Congress shall have power [...] to promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries:' —United States Constitution, Article I, Section 8
Copyright has been a part of U.S. law since the nation's founding.
It essentially protects original works of authorship throughout the life of the author plus an additional 70 years. After that, the work is in the public domain, meaning anyone do anything with the work, legally.
(Fun fact: on the 1st of January of 2024, the older versions of Mickey Mouse's copyright laws will expire).
Creative Commons Zero, or CCO, is the legal way in which an author renounces any sort of copyright law.
Meaning that as soon as the work is published, it's free for anyone to:
commercialize, reproduce or distribute it
create derivative works from it
The majority of NFT projects do carefully protect their intellectual property and brand by keeping these rights. It's important to note that different projects have varying degrees of copyright protection.
"CCO" is just the term used to indicate the relinquishing of all authorship rights.
Some projects have embraced CCO, such as: CrypToadz, Blitmap, NounsDAO, and they're doing great.
What copyright law is better for an NFT project to adopt? It depends.
A pro argument is that it accelerates the project's mass adoption as it's effectively censorship resistant. In turn, any value generated from any derivative projects (almost always) positively feedbacks into the value of the original one.
A con argument is that you lose the exclusivity of the brand, which also implies that the project is more at risk to being defamed by a malicious actor.
A middle ground example is Bored Ape Yacht Club: a non-CCO project that creates no cap on individual commercialization exclusively for its owners.
Many other middle grounds exist.
There is no right answer for where a project should sit in the copyright law spectrum. However, by design, these rights will greatly influence the community, network effects and value proposition of a project in the long-term.
Nailing the set of rights that are adequate for a community's joint objective is thus golden.