This article is an English translation of the article here.

SUMMARY

• CC0 is helping to boost the NFT art project.
• However, CC0 has the weakness of not being able to control the copyrights of derivative works.
• This problem can be solved by adopting a license that includes Copyleft.

CC0 attracts attention in NFT art project

NFT art adopts CC0 is attracting attention.

CC0 is “waiver of copyright” so that anyone can freely use the copyrighted work. For example, CC0 adopted art can be used to Mint derivative NFT art, or printed on mugs to sell.

CC0 enables scientists, educators, artists and other creators and owners of copyright- or database-protected content to waive those interests in their works and thereby place them as completely as possible in the public domain, so that others may freely build upon, enhance and reuse the works for any purposes without restriction under copyright or database law.

CC0 has attracted a lot of attention because the prominent NFT project "Nouns" has adopted it. "Nouns" is a project that generates and publishes a cute pixel art NFT automatically per day, like "Noun117" below.

In the Nouns case, the biggest advantage of adopting CC0 is that "Everyone make Nouns more exciting on their own".
Nouns has spawned derivative projects such as 3DNouns, which creates 3D voxel art based on pixel art, and Fast Food Nouns, which creates a fast food version of Nouns. And these derivative projects are making Nouns even more exciting.
No one own Nouns, and the entire community around Nouns seems to be thriving.

Weaknesses of CC0

I consider that CC0 has weaknesses described below. In particular, I think that these weaknesses will become more pronounced in the Japanese NFT art scene.

The weakness of CC0 is that can't control the copyrights of derivative works.

Even if you publish your work with CC0, if the copyright of the derivative work has not been waived, the CC0 chain will be broken there. It will not be possible for someone to create further derivative works of that derivative work.

For example,

① artistA publishes the art of 2D character "S" under CC0.

② artistB publishes voxel art "S2" of character S without waiving the copyright.

③ artistC publishes an art work S3 based on the voxel art S2.

In this case, the action in ③ may be copyright infringement.
The creation made by artistB in ② shows his unique creativity, which is the transcription of 2D art into 3D, and he has his own copyright on the newly added part.

Why is it a Weakness?

Many of you who are considering adopting CC0 for NFT art projects are hoping that the active creation of secondary works such as fan art will have a positive impact on the branding and marketing of your project.

As in the case of Nouns, we can see a culture such as "Touhou Project" and "Hatsune Miku" a while ago, or the fan art culture of VTubers recently, that secondary creations boosts name recognition and brand value of original work in Japan.

More, NFT Art project can distribute the increase value of the original work to the community member by operating the project as a DAO.
You can set appropriate incentives, for example, by transferring governance-tokens to those who have made the content more exciting, or by reflecting the increase value of the content on the value of the governance tokens held.

In terms of the original work boost and community excitement, CC0 has the weaknesses described below.

First, it narrows down the options for expression in derivative works.

In the previous example that a third party (B) creates voxel art and retains its copyright, if another third party tries to create a different voxel art about original work, the act able to be an infringement of B's copyright.
Even if the work does not constitute copyright infringement, there is an Attrition Effect that another third party hesitate to create the work for fear of Copyright infringement.

When a creator who claims his or her own copyright appears --although such a claim itself is legitimate and should be respected--, the option of derivative works is effectively narrowed.

Secondly, it inhibits the establishment of a relationship between people who create derivative works for each other.

When a creator who claims his or her own copyright appears --although such a claim itself is legitimate and should be respected--, the chain of relationship building using the secondary works is broken. In this respect, it becomes a disadvantage in terms of community excitement.

【Solution】License with Copyleft

One idea to overcome these weaknesses is to use a license that adopts Copyleft.

Copyleft is the idea that "You are free to use the original work, but everyone must be free to use your derivative works as well".
Copyleft does not waive the copyright, but retains it.
And you indicate your intention not to claim the copyright as long as everyone use the work for the purpose and way specified by you.

A license that adopts copyleft is, for example, the GPL license, which is one of the leading examples of OSS (Open Source Software) licenses.
Software covered by the GPL license is free to run, modify, and redistribute copies of the program without charge, while any derivative works are compelled to use the GPL license.

In terms of art-related licenses, "CC BY-SA" realizes the idea of copyleft.
If you apply CC BY-SA to your own work, you can demand anyone who creates derivative works of it distribute them under the same license as the original work (i.e. CC BY-SA).
There are many other variations of the CC license, so it's interesting to check them out.

If you use a license that incorporates copyleft ideas as described above, you can allow a third party to freely create a derivative work and limit the copyright on that derivative work to a certain extent, so that another third party can create a derivative work about the derivative work freely.
By publishing works with this kind of license, I believe that we can create a truly community where anyone can create derivative works free.

Build up Web3 License!

The licenses introduced above, such as GPL and CC BY-SA, are just a few examples.

The important thing is that you should choose a license that is consistent with the ideal way your works will be used.
In this respect, copyleft can be effective for the goal of "putting works core and making the community thrive.

More to the point, if you can't find a suitable existing license, you should consider formulating a new one.

The technology of NFT has brought a way for artists to receive the value they deserve for their works.
It's a method never seen before in human history, and no license is designed to be monetized by NFT.

Therefore, I would like to develop a new license suitable for NFT and Web3.

As start, I would like to conclude this article by applying the following licenses to the copyrighted works including the images contained in this article.

• If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you must distribute your contributions under the same license as this article, and make it explicit.
• As long as you comply with the above conditions, you are free to reproduce, redistribute, and adapt this article in any medium and in any way you wish.
• I may change the terms and conditions of this license, but such changes will be effective only prospectively and without prejudice to the interests of third parties who have already distributed or otherwise made use of it.

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