NFTs and what they do not grant

A non-fungible token (NFT) is a unique ledger entry with an owner and, often, a link to a file. Owning the entry is not the same as owning a copyright, a brand, or a piece of land.

People pay for a picture and walk away thinking they own the rights. Unless a separate agreement says so, they own a token.

Fungible tokens are interchangeable. One unit is like another. An NFT is numbered. The ledger can show who holds that number and can transfer it. The file the token points at might live on a website. If the website dies, the token can remain and the picture can vanish. The ledger does not store the promise you heard in a video.

Rights live in contracts and law: who may copy the art, who gets paid on a resale, what a land token actually gives you. A transfer fee on the ledger only moves if the ledger’s rules run it. A sentence in a marketing page does not.

Real example: the XRP Ledger can mint NFTs, transfer them, and burn them, and it can take a transfer fee to the minter when they are sold on-ledger. That fee is a ledger rule, not a copyright. Source: Non-Fungible Tokens.