The mistake that made me reconsider my fundamental rights on the web - by Flor Peña

by Flor Peña
[Read the original article in Spanish, here]

Hello, my name is Flower, and this is a new article where I’m going to tell you about the mistake that made me seriously reconsider my fundamental rights on the Internet.

MY MISTAKE: Rushing and not verifying the smart contract for my NFTs.

I love the idea that with the new internet (the Internet of Value) practically everything can be tokenized. Last year I created my first Bitcoin NFTs through the first platform to do so: Boom.money . I was very excited about the fact that each one was registered on the Bitcoin blockchain, and I didn't notice something VERY important in the smart contract that framed them (I guess it's the price I have to pay to start so fast).

My NFTs were successfully minted but their smart contract did not stipulate royalties for secondary sales, so if I sold them, I would only earn from the first sale but not from future ones, all this because by the time I made them smart contracts of this type were barely laying their foundations.

HOW DID I FIND OUT ABOUT THIS?

When I tried to sell my NFTs on other marketplaces like Gamma.io and Byzantion.xyz (two big Bitcoin NFT marketplaces currently). I placed the sale price and I only saw in the pop-up window the percentage that the Marketplace would receive and not mine, as the author.

Screenshot from Gamma.io:

Screenshot from Byzantion.xyz. Here the issue of author royalties is clearer: 0%.

This whole situation saddened me a bit, to be honest, because these illustrations are very special to me, not only because they were the first ones I coined as NFTs but because they represent key aspects of my life. I daresay that when I launched them there was no quality art when it came to NFT in Bitcoin, I don't mean to belittle, but nowadays VERY cool artists have joined and there is more variety to choose from, as opposed to when I started.

If my first NFTs were nonsense stripes or any cut and paste of graphics found for free on the internet I wouldn't worry, anything would happen, but that's not the case.

HOW WILL THIS ISSUE BE SOLVED?

With patience, I must wait for Boom.money to launch its market for buying and selling NFTs. I imagine that the smart contracts of these first NFTs can be wrapped in a new one with better features.

HOWEVER! This is not a criticism of Boom.money, it's not their fault to pave the way for everyone (that's brave!), and I appreciate them and I'm very grateful that they included me in their first Boombox paid in Bitcoin (Mushroom by Flower)

Fortunately, there are three large Marketplaces such as Gamma.io, Byzantion.xyz and Heylayer.com to mint NFTs in Bitcoin by customizing the smart contract ourselves and seeing it in detail before signing it, so great!

WHAT DO I EXPECT?

I think this error was necessary because it made me analyze my role as a content creator, investigate, pay attention to technical details of the smart contracts I sign, and give importance to my fundamental rights on the network. The most common thing is to take fundamental rights for granted, and normally we do not think about defending them until they are taken away from us...

To learn more about fundamental rights, I invite you to read this article from Smartists.net

Smartists.net and the app they are building was such a discovery for me, because their intention is to offer a service of licensing for authors and artists who self-manage like myself. This is another level, because it is not just about having or not some royalties form secondary sales stipulated in the smart contract. This has more about the legal terms for the use of our works and contents.

This issue of fundamental rights on the Internet is that it is in its infancy: even today most people don't even care, but sooner or later it will be an issue to put a giant magnifying glass on because if we really want to have a better Internet then it is essential.

It's great that with web3 everything will be connected to the blockchain and therefore we can verify what and everything that happens there, but what about the uses at the physical level or in the Metaverse? what if they use an NFT in a poster or movie without my consent? Whoa! I could spend the day asking myself questions that would go unanswered because there is no framework for it right now.

Currently, the moment we upload anything on the internet, its security is compromised because we are using an intermediary with confusing policies, which can be attacked, and in the case of social networks (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.) we lose the copyright for hosting on their servers.

In the physical world we see copies of works of art everywhere but yes or yes there are rights to the original works. In almost all countries there is an entity dedicated to collecting data regarding copyrighted works. This must happen in the digital world too! where do we go if not? Smartists.io wants to be a pioneer in this aspect, and being a pioneer is a great responsibility and bears many risks because they must open the way and shed light for others.

If you are interested in knowing more then follow me on Twitter as @flormpecasique and join Smartists.io by connecting your Hiro wallet. Author licenses will be offered soon in cooperation with marketplaces like Heylayer.com. The idea is that type can be acquired as a complementary sale to the NFT.

For today, that's fine, see you in my next content. Have a great day!

Flower.