How Can NFT Projects Benefit From Releasing Ownership?
As the NFT market continues to enlarge and expand in recent years, discussions over intellectual property became louder and questions concerning NFT ownership grew larger. While many creators are still struggling in finding a better way to protect their rights over their creations in the Web3 world, more have chosen to release the ownership by granting the CC0 license and attributing their works to the public domain, so as to benefit the NFTs for the long term.
CC0 NFT Explained
CC licenses, or Creative Commons licenses, are public licenses that permit certain uses of copyrighted materials by the public at large. These licenses often come with additional license terms to which users must still strictly adhere. For example, some licenses may require attribution to the original author (BY), restrict derivatives (ND), or forbid commercial uses (NC).
When the original author does not retain any rights or impose any restrictions on the work, ownership is completely released and a CC0 license is granted. The work will be moved to the public domain (PD), which includes but is not limited to CC0 and consists of all the creative work whose copyrights may have expired, been forfeited, or may be inapplicable.
NFTs with a CC0 license (or CC0 NFTs in brief) are one of the contents that belong entirely to the public domain. Compared to CC-licensed NFTs with whom any breach of the additional license term will be considered a tort and held legally responsible, CC0 NFTs can be used by anyone for any commercial purpose without attributing to the original creator while at the same time, free from fear of copyright infringement.
What are Some Benefits of CC0 NFT Projects?
Belonging to the public domain can be deemed as the most significant advantage of CC0 NFTs. Because it creates an environment where an open community can work together to develop infinitely scalable content, and thus add value to the project. Rather than relying on a small number of creators, CC0 NFTs choose to enable a far more profiting co-creation scheme by fostering a large, highly-consensual, or emotional-related community.
As a matter of fact, co-creation has always been a necessary ingredient for NFT’s cheerful success, as every new user, creator, and collector contributes to the project, and every lost participant degrades it. And CC0 license has been an effective tool for NFT to secure such a co-creation by opening the project to more potential participants. But how exactly does co-creation secure long-term benefits and combat the hypothetical risks (as assumed wrongly by many) of unstrained exploitation of the original work and poor incentives left to the creator?
First of all, from the NFT creators’ point of view, releasing ownership in the current Web3 market does no harm but much good to both project and themselves. Every new NFT that comes from the co-creation expands the market awareness of the original project. And the success of each new NFT is closely associated with it as well. If one of the derivatives becomes a hit, more could be attracted to build around the original NFT, and thus forms a highly positive feedback loop of co-creation. As a result, instead of one creator or team building a project, CC0 NFTs encourage dozens or hundreds of NFT holders or teams to work together and grow the idea into a worldwide sensation.
Second, every new NFT created also makes the original NFT project stickier, resulting in a more vibrant community that can withstand market risks. Holders who have commercialized their derivatives are less likely to sell their assets as they get to experience the continued benefits of co-creation. On the contrary, they may learn from existing successful projects, get more involved in co-creation, and achieve their own success.
To sum up, by releasing ownership, the CC0 NFTs are transferred to the public domain where they are far more likely to find proliferation and longevity. Though in the short term, the Web2 grounded economic models will continue to favor non-CC0 NFTs and find their success with this non-CC0 route in the Web3 space; in the long run, CC0 NFTs appear to be more promising in a world that thrives on the collaborative endeavors and supports co-creation for stronger sustainability.
About MixMarvel
MixMarvel is the world’s leading blockchain content-incubation platform and creators community. By in-depth exploring the open world and integrating world-renowned IP with high-quality content, MixMarvel connects investors and mass users through asset distribution, content publication, DeFi tools, infrastructure, community co-creation, and other diversified scenarios in a new ecosystem of dapps. Its ecosystem comprises a broad portfolio of FT/NFT assets, including the MIX, RPG, and HEROES tokens; blockchain content, including the GameFi application DeHero; and infrastructures, including Rangers Protocol and MixMarvel SDK. For more information, visit https://linktr.ee/MIXMARVEL.
