A16z launches free NFT-specific licenses

Venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz launched six debut NFT licenses inspired by the Creative Commons model under the brand ‘Can't Be Evil’. These NFT licenses will grant its holders a baseline of irrevocable intellectual property rights a project protects or releases and serves to unleash the creative and economic potential of their projects. 

The ‘Can’t Be Evil’ slogan represents a guiding principle in the world of Web3, which reflects that paradigm of blockchains that are creating a trustless version of the internet for people to interact. Instead of trusting other internet users or corporations to not be evil, we can trust the code to ensure they ‘can’t be evil’. 

In a blog post, A16z general counsel Miles Jennings and general partner Chris Dixon explained that, the licenses aim to provide copyright licensing to replace the current problems including lack of licensing or poorly drafted licenses that create ambiguity and copyrights vulnerabilities that lead to confusion and other legal problems. 

The Can't Be Evil licenses are designed specifically to resolve these issues by providing varying rights across six license types:  CCO 1.0 Universal, Personal Use License, Non-Exclusive Commercial Rights, Non-Exclusive Commercial Rights & Termination for Hate Speech, and Exclusive Commercial Rights. All the licenses are available as smart contracts on the a16z crypto GitHub under the most permissive Creative Commons license and they provide options for potential modifications. 

The licenses would also allow creators to grant holders additional rights and can be tracked and enforced on the blockchain so that users can clearly reference and easily understand their IP rights.

Photo: Twitter @16z