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NFTs
An NFT is a record that says a particular token id points at some data, often a picture or a membership. You own the token. You may not own the picture.
The record points at data. Pointing is not the same as owning the picture.
A worked case
A buyer pays for an image. The image is hosted on a link. The link dies. The token remains, pointing at nothing they can see. They owned the token id.
What you own
You own the token in the contract, if you hold the key. The image may sit on a normal web link. If that link dies or changes, the token can point at nothing, or at something else.
What you do not own
Copyright stays with the artist unless a contract says otherwise. A screenshot is not theft of the token, and owning the token is not a salary.
A floor price is the cheapest listing, not a price you are owed.
They bought a copy. They did not buy the book.
An NFT is a token id that points at some data, often a picture or a membership. In early 2022 a group calling itself Spice DAO paid about 2.7 million euros at Christie's for a rare copy of Alejandro Jodorowsky's production book for a film of Dune that was never made. Members talked as if the purchase had bought the right to make the film. It had bought one physical book. The copyright stayed with the rights holders. The story was widely reported because it was so clear: a token, or a gavel, transfers the object in front of you. It does not transfer the picture's other lives.
ConstitutionDAO, in November 2021, raised ether to bid on a first printing of the US Constitution at Sotheby's. They did not win. Even if they had, they would have owned a copy, not the text, and not a government. The organisational mess of refunds afterwards was its own lesson in loose governance. The intellectual-property lesson is the same as Spice DAO.
You can own the token. You may not own the file, the copyright, or any future the team described in a thread. If the file is only a link, the link can die and the token can keep pointing at nothing.
Read it yourself
These links are the record. They are not a recommendation, and they are not instructions. A news story or a court paper can still be wrong about a detail. The check does not change because a famous name is in the story.
Apply the check
Open a question. The line is about this topic. It is not a verdict that anything is safe.
The marketplace fee, and the seller.
The contract, for royalties and for what the token means. The artist, for the copyright, if they kept it.
Whoever can move the token. A host, who can remove the file.
Check yourself
Does buying an NFT mean you own the copyright?
Not unless the terms actually say so.
After this you can separate the token you hold from the file and the copyright you probably do not.
