Fair Use in the Metaverse
The metaverse is a digital world that exists parallel to our own. It’s a place where people can interact with each other and with digital objects using avatars, or digital representations of themselves.
The metaverse is also a place where digital art can be created, displayed, and sold. Because of the global nature of the metaverse, and the fact The metaverse is a playground for creativity and exploration, it’s also a place where people can exploit and abuse digital art.
Tokenizing your art can help you protect it from fair use abuse.
What is Fair Use?
Fair use is a legal doctrine that allows people to use copyrighted material for limited purposes without getting permission from the copyright holder. For example, fair use allows people to use copyrighted material for the purpose of criticism, commentary, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, or research.
However, fair use is a complex legal doctrine, and there are no hard-and-fast rules about what does and doesn’t qualify as fair use. Whether or not something is considered fair use depends on a number of factors, including the purpose and character of the use, the nature of the copyrighted work, the amount and substantiality of the portion used, and the effect of the use on the market for the copyrighted work.
Because there is no clear definition of fair use, it’s often up to courts to decide whether or not a particular use qualifies as fair use. And because the doctrine is complex, court decisions can be hard to predict.
For example, in the 2015 case of Oracle v. Google, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled that Google’s use of Java code in its Android operating system was not fair use. The court found that Google’s use was not transformative, and that it harmed the market for Java.
Why is Fair Use Important in the Metaverse?
The metaverse is a place where people can create and share digital art. And because the metaverse is global, and because it’s easy to copy and modify digital art, there’s a risk that people will abuse fair use in order to exploit or steal other people’s work.
For example, someone might create a derivative work based on another person’s digital art, and then sell that derivative work without the original artist’s permission. Or, someone might take a copyrighted image or piece of code and incorporate it into their own avatar, without the copyright holder’s consent.
These kinds of uses are not fair use. They’re infringement. And they can cause serious harm to the original artist.
How Can Tokenizing Your Art Help Prevent Fair Use Abuse?
When you tokenize your art, you create a digital asset that can be bought, sold, or traded on a blockchain. And because the blockchain is a decentralized, immutable ledger, it’s very difficult to steal or modify digital assets that are stored on the blockchain.
This means that if someone tries to use your art without your permission, you can take legal action to protect your rights. You can also use the blockchain to track the use of your art, and to identify people who are infringing on your copyright.
Tokenizing your art is a simple way to protect it from fair use abuse. And because the blockchain is global and immutable, it’s a safe and secure way to store your digital assets.
About NFTMe™
NFTMe empowers you to have total sovereignty over your
digital Metaverse.
NFTMe is an innovative company that increases individuals’ ability to own their most unique assets. Their image. We want to champion changes in the system that will not allow individual images, and/or creative works of art to be used without the actual owners’ permission. Any use of these images and creations used for monetary gain, however trivial, will now also benefit the owners.
