[dschnurr]

The people receiving royalties are the artists in these cases – instead of the record companies, instagrams, and etsys of the world. I fail to see how this won't be a net positive for wealth equality when we're shifting the advantage to those who have historically been taken advantage of.

[klodolph]

> The people receiving royalties are the artists in these cases...

This is just factually incorrect. I don't know why there's so much confusion here... it's the creator of the NFT that controls where the money goes, not the creator of the artwork. I don't know why people think that it's the artist that gets the money--that doesn't make any logical sense--how would a system like that even work?

[dschnurr]

The creator is almost always the artist. Provenance is what gives NFTs their value. The value of a Beeple NFT minted by a random user is $0.

[rcxdude]

In most legitimate uses of NFTs the creator is the artist.

[AlexandrB]

This is not a property of NFTs, but rather of new, unproven technologies. If NFTs "make it big", there will be plenty of middlemen that spring up to "help" artists sell NFTs while owning the IP rights and collecting royalties.

[dschnurr]

Sure there will be middlemen trying to profit due to asymmetry of information / technical knowledge. But as technology marches along the barriers to entry of launching new things trends to zero. Smart creators are increasingly harnessing new technologies to cut out existing middlemen. Podcasts are a great example of this, anyone with a microphone can start an entertainment business now and collect money from direct relationships with advertisers.

[billytetrud]

There's a difference between making royalties for distribution of copies of an item and making royalties for transferring a single item from one person to another. One makes sense, the other is a weird misleading way to rent to people.

[mattdesl]

Royalties apply on re-sale, not every transfer. Royalties on sales going back to the original creator is pretty normal practice in the arts and creative industries (music, writing, art, photography).

The good thing, compared to traditional markets, is that this is something that can be (loosely) enforced with smart contracts, the % rate is flexible, and the current NFT royalties are typically far better for the artists (eg: 10% NFT platform fee instead of 50% gallery fee).

[crazygringo]

> the other is a weird misleading way to rent to people.

There's nothing weird or misleading about it, and it's got zero to do with renting.

It's simply like a real estate broker commission, gallery commission, or whatever.

The concept of a commission has existed for a long, long, long time.

[mattbeckman]

Transfers are not necessarily sales.

Transaction fees for the Topps MLB cards on WAX, for example, are only taken during the sale when the sale occurs on a secondary Atomic Asset marketplace. There are no royalties to trade or transfer between accounts.

[lottin]

These are not royalties. Royalties are paid when you buy a copy of a copyrighted work. And your not paying royalties again if the previous owner has already paid them.