CSPLA’s mission on non-fungible tokens (NFT)
The Conseil supérieur de la propriété littéraire et artistique (CSPLA) published a report at the plenary session of July 12, 2022, as part of its mission to provide a status report of the current situation in order to identify, analyze and evaluate the phenomenon of NFTs in its various legal aspects, in particular through the prism of copyright, in the interest of the various operators involved and its market.
After proposing a legal qualification of NFT that is as close as possible to their technical reality and considering the numerous opportunities for modernization and openness that NFTs has to offer to the cultural sectors, the report adopts an approach that tends to determine what NFT cannot be in order to better define the contours of this unidentified legal object.
As part of its mission, CSPLA makes a series of recommendations aiming primarily to inform :
– the public in general
– the right holders
– experts in intellectual property law mobilized by the creation and transactions of NFT
The purpose of these recommendations is to develop and promote best practices at the national and European levels in order to provide the legal security necessary for the development of a promising business sector.
According to the report, even if NFTs constitute « an opportunity for the cultural sector as a whole« , their use must be better « supervised » in « a speculative and uncertain financial context likely to blur the prospects of development in culture« .
Moreover, for the report, the « essential issue » concerns « the accountability of the digital platforms on which NTFs are exchanged« which must « ensure the respect of literary and artistic property« . Thus, it proposes that they should be subject to the 2019 European directive on copyright and related rights in the digital single market.
In addition, the authors also highlight the « energy-intensive nature of blockchain » as well as the « many risks to the security of tokens » and the « speculative nature of the market » observed over the « last 18 months« .
Finally, they still believe that « consumer protection in the face of this multiple and technologically complex phenomenon remains insufficient. »