NFTs in Intellectual Property: New Horizons

An artwork sold as an NFT for over sixty million dollars—yet the buyer didn’t automatically get the copyright. In this episode, we step into that gap: where a token proves you “own” something, but the law still asks, “Yes… but own *what*, exactly?”

US$69.3 million for a token linked to a JPEG, US$186 million from branded digital sneakers—these aren’t side hustles; they’re reshaping how creative rights are packaged and sold. In this episode, we move from *what* NFTs are to *how* they’re colliding with real-world intellectual property: contracts, trademarks, studio deals, and the court cases now quietly setting precedents.

Think of the early NFT boom as a stress test for IP law. Beeple’s auction, Nike’s virtual drops, and the Tarantino–Miramax dispute each probe the same fault line: when a blockchain record says one thing and a decades-old contract says another, which wins?