RFC: JournoDAO should help lead a discussion on NFTs and recognition of ownership by US law

I had an interesting discussion with Nick the other day in which he pointed out that all the NFT activity around trading and ownership has not been validated by US courts.

We’re all assuming that buying an NFT from someone on OpenSea and then receiving it in our wallets constitutes a legal commercial transaction and that ownership in the eyes of the law was with the original holder and then transferred to the purchaser along with the actual NFT.

I don’t believe any of this has been tried in court, or established on any precedent. I think we’re assuming that the same rules around traditional e-commerce and digital goods will apply to NFTs. They might, or they might not.

If this is the case, web3 evangelists/advocates should probably band together to make sure that if/when a case goes to court that may establish a precedent, that it is a good case that fairly represents the industry and state of play among good faith actors. It would be a shame for some scam NFT project to set some bad legal precedents that would ice the industry.

Should JournoDAO be a part of this legal battle? If so, in what way should we be involved? I’m hoping for a pretty robust discussion that yields a clear action item for one or more people to take.

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Sorry if I’m missing this, but what are some of the ways JournoDAO could be involved in the legal fight?

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Hey! You’re not missing anything, this is kind of vague to me as well. I’m just putting this out there in case it energizes someone and to make sure our community members are not blind-sided by assumptions of NFT ownership before it is tried in court. It may already be the case that common usage is so prevalent that following laws and precedents will just be a formality.

This came from a discussion with another team member and they’re supposed to follow up here with some more concrete resources when they get a chance. I’d say this is on ice until they do.

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