[Copyright in Japan]【Commentary】King Kong Nishino exhibits his work on OpenSea! (Blockchain, NFT, copyright)

King Kong Nishino Ryohiro exhibited data of three illustrations in the new picture book “Difficult to See Marco” on OpenSea on the NFT Market.

Click here for the current listing status (7/17 19:00).

In recent years, NFT, blockchain, etc. have gradually begun to spread, and it is expected to be closely related to the content business in the future.

Then, NFT will also have an indying relationship with copyright.

So this time, I would like to explain what NFT is in the first place, the content of Mr. Nishino’s efforts this time, the relationship between copyright and NFT, etc.

What is NFT?
Purpose of Nishino’s listing at the NFT Market
NFT and Copyright
Summary

What is NFT?

NFT (Non-Fungible Token) is “digital data with non-counterfeitable appraisal and certificate of ownership”.

But at first I didn’t know what it was.

Somehow, I thought that the recent topic of “blockchain” is involved, and because it is “non-counterfeitable”, it is a mechanism that make digital data impossible to copy like so-called “things” such as ordinary paintings.

Many people are aware of the same thing, don’t they?

In conclusion, it was right that “blockchain” was involved, and it was wrong to make it impossible to copy like “things”.

Below, I would like to explain blockchain and share my misunderstood points.

What is blockchain?

Blockchain is also known as “distributed ledger technology”.

The method of recording contracts, transactions, etc. on the network, which is now mainstream, is called “1000”.

If information and records are concentrated on the servers of the company providing the service, and the server goes down, hacking, etc., and the system is disrupted, there is a risk that the information and records will be lost, and the trust of the contents may be lost.

In addition, whether information and records can be trusted requires the trust of the company or organization that operates the server after all, and if unauthorized tampering of the company or organization is discovered and the trust is lost, the service will lose credibility.

Blockchain, on the other hand, is an “autonomous decentralized” mechanism.

By having data distributed among users and virtually erasing or tampering, it is possible to maintain the reliability of information and records even if there is no administrator. (The detailed explanation will be long, so I will not discuss it here.) ）

This makes it 300,000 contracts and transactions on the network to be secure without the need for large-scale systems or operating costs.

Areas where reliability is very important are currency issuance, the financial system, and commercial transaction agreements.

It is famous that blockchain is used for crypto assets such as Bitcoin.

In addition, DeFi (decentralized finance), which provides services provided mainly by financial institutions such as banks, such as deposits, loans, and asset management, and NFT, which is being talked about this time, are also used as backbones.

I can’t know if the “data itself” is real

If you copy digital data, the exact same thing as the original (the original) is copied.

Even if you compare the data itself, it is the same in the first place, so it is not possible to make a copy and a real difference. In a sense, you may say that everything is real.

Because of this property, there is no rarity in “real” like things in the digital world, and it is difficult to add value to “real”.

In such a case, I think that many people misunderstand that “NFT can add value to one point, that is, using blockchain, you can make a copy of the real thing”, but it is different.

In the first place, image data (such as jpg and png) and music data (such as aac and wav) are not written on the blockchain.

For example, the owner of the image data A is Mr. B (strictly the address of the digital wallet), and only the information related to rights, etc. is written.

Therefore, blockchain cannot be used to prevent unauthorized copying, because it does not magically determine which of the exact same digital data that exists multiple is real.

The advantage of using blockchain in NFT is that it does not know whether the content is genuine, but rather dramatically improves convenience and freedom of exchange regarding contracts, such as buying and selling ownership and licensing licenses.

Purpose of Nishino’s listing at the NFT Market

Listing Overview

From 7/14 to 7/31, data of three illustrations in the new picture book “Hard to See Marco” is sold in auction format at OpenSea, the NFT market.

As mentioned earlier, the data itself is easy to copy, so essentially, it’s the sale of the following rights:

NFT buyers can display NFT images purchased on their web pages, etc., displayed as the owner of image data on the “Difficult Marco Official Website”.
OpenSea MARCO #14 “Night in Ents town” – Chimney Town at Night [NFT details]

I thought “owner” was a slightly ambiguous expression.

I thought that the legal “possession” is a concept for physically dingy “things” that avoid the expression “owner”, and that ownership of data is not clear (although it is selfish).

Therefore, in other words, the right to call yourself the owner of the target image data + the sale of the right to display the target image on the WEB page, it seems to be good to think of it as the contents of this sale.

As stated below, copyright is not for sale, so it is better to think that acts such as modification, unnecessary copying, making goods using images and selling… are not allowed.

The purchase of this NFT will result in the purchase of the NFT, but the purchaser will not be transferred any other copyrights, trademarks, or other intellectual property rights.
OpenSea MARCO #14 “Night in Ents town” – Chimney Town at Night [NFT details]

Although the copyright itself is not transferred, in addition to obtaining pure satisfaction as a collector’s mind and fan, if the successful bidder is a person who operates a website or other business, if you display it with the back of the official website, you can expect an economic return because you can expect a sufficient customer acquisition effect that you want to see the image.

In addition, as long as the effect is not lost, it will not become worthless, and it will be possible to profit by selling the same rights to others.

What Nishino expects

Nishino-san’s work was exhibited at the NFT Market on July 15, 2019 at the Nishino Ryohiro Entertainment Research Institute, and “Two Reasons Why Kincon Nishino Participated in the NFT.”

僭 summarize it over the past,

・Since picture books are a market with a small number of sales, royal tax is also small, and there are very few people who can eat with picture book writers. I want to create a revenue stream for picture book writers other than book royalies.

・We would like to spread new mechanisms such as blockchain and NFT, which will become essential tools for expressionists in the future, and advance the times.

It’s like for two reasons.

Mr. Nishino is now attracting a lot of attention in the business community, so as he sees, this exhibition may have been an opportunity for people from a wide range of fields to think about NFT.

Actual purchase instructions

When it comes to actually purchasing, you need to prepare as follows:

Purchase ETH (Ethereum) at crypto asset exchanges such as Coincheck

Metamask (one of the digital wallets) is available

Transfer money from crypto-asset exchange to Metamask

OpenSea and Metamask work together

Swap ETH to WETH

If you have experienced investing in crypto assets, DeFi, NFT, blockchain games, etc., I think that there is no difficulty, but such people are still few from the whole, and most people are “???? I think that it is.

No matter how much NFT is a possibility, I think that we users need to be familiar with these procedures in the hope that we can introduce them to them if we have a chance in the future.

NFT and Copyright

I haven’t seen much of a pattern of passing copyrights on the NFT, but it’s a recently flourishing area, and copyright law hasn’t caught up yet.

Here, I would like to note that my personal interpretations are often used as examples of copyrights in art, a field that is relatively similar to how NFT is used today.

Just because you bought an NFT doesn’t mean you can get copyright.

Depending on the terms and conditions of the NFT purchase, you will not be available for copyright on the work you bought the NFT unless it is explicitly stated that you will transfer the copyright to the NFT purchaser.

Therefore, if you modify the contents without permission of the right-goer, copy it and give it to an unspecified number, print it on a T-shirt or mug and sell it, or publish it on the Internet, you will be copyright infringement.

In the case of such an act, permission must be obtained from the right-party.

As an example of “Marco that is difficult to see”, it is clear that the NFT purchaser may do it with regard to the release on the website after refusing that the copyright is not transferred, so you may think that the copyright holder has granted permission to the purchaser instead of “publishing without permission”.

Other usage methods do not transfer copyright, so you will need to check with the right holder.

The owner may not be able to take advantage of the benefits allowed

In “art works” such as paintings, there is an exceptional arrangement that “owners” who purchase or take over the “original works” may exhibit publicly without permission from the copyright holder. (Exhibition by the owner of the original work such as works of art)

However, this is likely not to apply in NFT.

First of all, “original work” is the painting itself, and if it is a photograph or digital data, it is printed on paper (not as a copy of mass production, but as an original). In short, it is “original work” = “thing”, and it does not become “original work” if it is in the state of data.

In addition, since legal “possession” is a concept for physically available “things”, and the ownership of “data” is not clear, NFT buyers may not be called “owners”.

In addition to not being the “owner”, the NFT purchaser is not the owner of the “original work”, so there is a high possibility that they will not be able to obtain the merits of opening an exhibition and attracting customers.

In addition, even if it is recognized as the “owner of the original work”, the “owner of the original work” may go without permission from the copyright holder only “exhibition” itself, or “public display on the Internet to introduce the exhibition, print on pamphlets, etc.”, so it is not allowed to publish on the Internet without “exhibition”.

Either way, simply buying an NFT is likely to have no benefit to buyers.

Buyers need to be clear and sure what they can do

On the other hand, if the benefits to the buyer are clearly stated, this will serve as a contract and can benefit NFT buyers.

* In the example of “Marco that is hard to see”, the benefits are clearly stated.

Since there is no legal arrangement, sellers should clearly state what the benefits are for NFT buyers, and even those who are considering purchasing should check the contents of the benefits carefully.