Creators Take Control

<br> <br> <p>A leading legal scholar offers a compelling new theory to explain the meteoric rise of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and their impact on art, business, entertainment, and society, and explains how they are revolutionizing our understanding of ownership.</p> <p>If you buy an NFT, do you own anything Critics say no. Then why are people spending so much money to own them--to the tune of $27 billion in 2021 And why are big businesses and venture capital firms investing hundreds of millions to develop NFTs for people's use in the metaverse, a purely imaginary world</p> <p>In Creators Take Control, Edward Lee offers a compelling new theory he calls "Tokenism" that answers these perplexing questions. Using vivid examples, Lee lucidly explains how NFTs operate--and how they fundamentally change our understanding of ownership. Tokenism is an artistic, cultural, and technological movement that creates value in a new kind of ownership of a new type of property--symbolized by a virtual token--through a process of technological abstraction and artificial scarcity effectuated by NFTs. Ownership becomes virtual. What Cubism did in radically changing the twentieth-century perspective of creating and viewing art through cubes, Tokenism does today in altering our perspective of owning art and other things through tokens. Both movements radically reimagine what's possible.</p> <p>Creators and businesses have seized upon this profound transformation. In a short time, they have developed a new market for digital art, important new rights for creators, innovative business models based on decentralized collaboration, and a new type of interactive ownership that enables identity, community, and patronage through NFTs. These innovations are just the start of revolutionary changes to society. Lee shows how NFTs create a new form of decentralized intellectual property, or De-IP. Comparable to the movement to decentralized finance (DeFi), De-IP empowers creators to take control of their artistic productions and livelihood.</p> <p>Lee's intellectual tour de force is filled with practical insights--and hope--for fostering creativity and a Virtual Renaissance for the ages.</p>