The New NFT License - "Can't be Evil" License by 16zCrypto

Developed by Latham Watkins, DLA Piper in association with 16z Crypto (US Venture Capital Firm Andeersen Horowitz). These are a set of 6 licenses that can be adopted by NFT artists, creators, developers as per individual requirement while putting up their work on the public domain. For long, Creative Commons - CCO has catered to a wide range of creators from being adopted to Flickr, Wikipedia, etc. 

Now that web3 innovations are testing the limits of traditional legal frameworks, it’s time for a new set of licenses, designed specifically for non-fungible tokens, or NFTs. The recent wave of CC0 (no-rights reserved) NFT projects, for example, has spotlighted the Creative Common’s most permissive agreement, but prominent creators (including record-smashing graphic artist Beeple) have used some form of CC license for years, while other NFT projects choose different customized terms. However, many NFT projects omit licenses altogether, or draft licenses that create more ambiguity than they resolve. Some copyright vulnerabilities have led to significant confusion around NFT licenses, and a number of other legal problems. 

To help address these issues, 16z Crypto has released a set of free, public “Can’t Be Evil” Licenses, designed specifically for NFTs and inspired by the work of Creative Commons. The licenses are freely available for use by the community, and serve three goals: (1) to help NFT creators protect (or release) their intellectual property (IP) rights; (2) to grant NFT holders a baseline of rights that are irrevocable, enforceable, and easy to understand; and (3) to help creators, holders, and their communities unleash the creative and economic potential of their projects with a clear understanding of the IP framework in which they can work.

The 6 types of licenses are as follows:

(Refer: https://a16zcrypto.com/introducing-nft-licenses/)

Sample terms often used by NFT Creators 

OWNERSHIP

i. You Own the NFT. When you purchase an NFT, you own the underlying  Art, completely. Ownership of the NFT is mediated entirely by the Smart Contract and the Ethereum Network: at no point may we seize, freeze, or otherwise modify the ownership .

ii. Personal Use. Subject to your continued compliance with these Terms, XXXXXX LLC grants you a worldwide, royalty-free license to use, copy, and display the purchased Art, along with any extensions that you choose to create or use, solely forthe following purposes: (i) for your own personal, non-commercial use; (ii) as part of a marketplace that permits the purchase and sale of your Purchased Art, provided that the marketplace cryptographically verifies each  owner’s rights to display the Purchased Art  to ensure that only the actual owner can display the Art; or (iii) as part of a third party website or application that permits the inclusion, involvement, or participation of your Purchased Art, provided that the website/application cryptographically verifies each Purchased Art owner’s rights to display the Purchased Art for their  to ensure that only the actual owner can display the Purchased Art, and provided that the Purchased Artis no longer visible once the owner of the Purchased Art leaves the website/application.

iii. Commercial Use. Subject to your continued compliance with these Terms, XXXXXXX LLC grants you an unlimited, worldwide license to use, copy, and display the Purchased Art for the purpose of creating derivative works based upon the Art (“Commercial Use”). Examples of such Commercial Use would e.g. be the use of the Art to produce and sell merchandise products (T-Shirts etc.) displaying copies of the Art. For the sake of clarity, nothing in this Section will be deemed to restrict you from (i) owning or operating a marketplace that permits the use and sale of Purchased Art generally, provided that the marketplace cryptographically verifies each Purchased Art owner’s rights to display the Art  to ensure that only the actual owner can display the Art; (ii) owning or operating a third party website or application that permits the inclusion, involvement, or participation of Purchased Art generally, provided that the third party website or application cryptographically verifies each Purchased Art owner’s rights to display the Art  to ensure that only the actual owner can display the Art, and provided that the Art is no longer visible once the owner of the Purchased Art leaves the website/application; or (iii) earning revenue from any of the foregoing.

(refer https://boredapeyachtclub.com/#/terms)

16zCrypto believes that by making the licenses easy (and free) to incorporate the same would lead to democratize access to high quality licenses and encourage standardization across the web3 industry and that greater adoption could lead to incredible benefits for creators, owners, and the NFT ecosystem as a whole. When creators of a new NFT project incorporate art from existing projects, the sales of the new NFT could automatically result in royalties paid to both the original creators, and the current NFT holder. Through these licenses 16ZCrypto is predicting benefits that could inspire a proliferation of licensed work that contribute to a more just, more efficient, and ultimately more creative NFT ecosystem.

https://lawnotesbyasa.blogspot.com/2022/09/the-new-nft-license-cant-be-evil.html