從NFT藝術品探討非同質化代幣於著作權法之適用

Legal Study on Status of Non Fungible Token and It’s Application in Copyright Act

「非同質化代幣」（NFT）在近期快速攫取世人的目光，以數位藝術家Beeple創作所製作的NFT藝術品在2021年3月拍出6,900萬美元驚人價格，使得NFT藝術品在內的各式NFT應用頓時成為全球矚目焦點。建構於區塊鏈技術之上的NFT，背後必然存在著「基礎資產」，亦即NFT實際連結與具體表徵的價值為何，從而NFT藝術品於著作權法上之適用問題，必須分別就連結的「基礎資產」以及「NFT本身」加以探討。NFT藝術品連結的基礎資產可得為著作之原件、重製物或其他衍生概念，是否因購入NFT藝術品而取得基礎資產之相關權利，在基礎資產狀況不一且授權條款設定每有不同之下，必須按個案進行確認。「NFT本身」之定性現階段仍言人人殊，有論者主張NFT本身並不具任何創作性，自無構成著作之可能性，本文認為NFT本身存在三種定性可能：1.視為所表徵的價值之紀錄或證明；2.視同其所表徵之財產權；及3.界定為嶄新權利，在NFT本身可得「視同其所表徵之財產權」時，仍存在視為著作之可能。近期NFT可否適用權利耗盡原則亦備受關注，權利耗盡原則適用對象向以「實體重製物」為限，惟NFT在具備獨一無二特質且不存在因轉讓而再次重製之前提下，本文認為NFT應可等同實體重製物適用權利耗盡原則，在不具所有權轉讓概念之下，可得以著作權人是否明確且終局地放棄對著作數位重製物之支配作為適用標準。

Digital creators used the Blockchain technology to create a whole new art scene and Non Fungible Tokens (NFTs) are now rapidly going mainstream. When Beeple’s “Everydays – The First 5,000 Days” sold at Christie’s for a hallucinatory $69.3 million on March 11, 2021, all kinds of NFT applications including NFT artwork have caught people’s attention. NFTs offer the ability to proving ownership and authenticity of the underlying asset, thus, it is necessary to discuss the “underlying asset” and “NFT itself” separately when we discussing the legal issues of NFTs in Copyright Act. The underlying assets of the NFT artworks may be originals, copies or other derivative concepts of the work. Consider the variety of licensing terms, whether the purchaser has obtained relevant copyrights or not must be confirmed on a case-by-case basis. There is no consistent view on the legal status of NFT itself so far and some argue that NFT itself is not creative and does not constitute the work as defined by Copyright Act. The author holds that NFT itself has three possible interpretations: 1. regarded as a record of the underlying asset; 2. regarded as the same property right represented by underlying asset; and 3. defined as new types of rights. Where there is a possibility of being regarded as a work or a copy of a work, people began to discuss whether NFTs apply the Exhaustion Doctrine or not. The author thinks the application object of the Exhaustion Doctrine should be expanded from physical copies to digital copies based on specific technologies, such as NFTs based on Blockchain.