Effectively, NFT owners get a digital certificate stating that the owner owns that image or photo or artwork. However, even after the NFT is sold to someone else, the artist will usually retain copyright.
“The artist benefits as they usually get to keep their work, and the purchaser or investor also benefits because the ownership of the tokens is fixed and secured without any risk of them ever being destroyed, replicated or stolen.
“Another way to think of an NFT is having a receipt to verify that you have the piece of art, but not having the art itself. Analogies have been made along the lines of having a Certificate Of Title, rather than the house itself. It’s the receipt you have to prove ownership. It is not all that surprising therefore that some people have cynically described it as a ‘bragging right’. They have certainly landed into the luxury market with people paying hundreds of thousands of dollars for one work.
“I always make a distinction between tangible and intangible. Because NFTs are digital in nature, they are always intangible. For instance, a common example I give my clients is that of a painting. The painting itself is a physical object and is therefore tangible. Meanwhile, the exclusive rights provided by copyright laws are intangible.
“The irony is that even though one is seen and touched, the other isn’t; in this current pandemic bubble, the intangible can sometimes be even more valuable than something you can hang up on the wall!