Invalid sign (NFT) bubble burst a while agobut the US government is only fair published a report looks at the surrounding legal framework. A joint investigation by the US Copyright Office (USCO) and the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) following a 2022 Senate inquiry found that existing intellectual property laws are not robust enough to deal with copyright or trademark infringement in NFTs determined that The agencies also found that while tokens have some benefits, “trademark infringement and abuse are prevalent in NFT markets.”
Recall that moment NFT is a digital certificate of authenticity to give ownership to a collection such as a piece of art or a piece of music. This is effectively an authenticated link to a piece of media that may or may not live on the blockchain, but anyone who owns the NFT’s URL destination can change the media it points to at any time. In a remarkable situation in 2021Signal founder Moxie Marlinspike has created an NFT that promises to look like a poop emoji when someone buys it.
The offices noted that NFTs and related smart contracts can assist trademark owners in the management, licensing and transfer of IP rights. Those who discussed the issue in public comments pointed out that NFTs can help artists make money from the sale of their future work. It’s not a bad thing, even if it’s a large area NFT art is very ugly.
However, education “There is widespread concern that buyers and sellers of NFTs do not know what IP rights are involved in the creation, marketing and transfer of NFTs, and that NFTs can be used to facilitate copyright or trademark infringement,” it noted.
The decentralized nature of NFTs and blockchain networks complicates any attempts to enforce trademarks, the report notes. “While some individual NFT platforms have developed protocols to enforce their rights on trademark owners, there is no centralized authority that requires all platforms to do so,” the report said. “There are also no cross-platform mechanisms that allow trademark owners to identify and remove infringing content, resolve trademark disputes over blockchain-based domain names, or verify that sellers own trademark rights associated with the assets they offer.”
With all this in mind, the offices said that educating the public about NFTs can provide a better understanding and awareness of tokens and how they work. However, they recommended in their report to Congress that the current use of NFTs should not require changes to existing IP laws. They also noted that “it is not currently necessary or advisable to include NFTs in registration and registration practices.” In other words, they don’t think it’s necessary It also deals with NFTs.
