Fat Cats CC0 Revote

The question of IP rights has become a big one. Currently there are three camps:

Fully owned by the team: This is how Cryptopunks initially was setup ie the team owned all the IP rights. Shared with the holders: This is the BAYC model and the one we currently use in Fat Cats ie the Team/DAO owns the overall IP rights and the DAO shares those rights with you the individual holder of the NFT Collective Commons (CC) which requires attribution & (CC0) which does not require attribution: This is where the IP rights are given over to the greater Web3 community at large. Good examples of this are Cryptoadz, Tubby Cats, NounDAO & GoblinTown.This means that we are essentially allowing any and all people to use the art style of Fat Cats as well as specific Fat Cats in any derivative or form they so wish. 

This vote is on whether we should go CCO or not. It is worth noting that we will always encourage attribution but as with anything you officially demand, it requires enforcement would be needed and it seems that in the NFT space CCO has won over CC. This is likely for pragmatic reasons. In addition the name Fat Cats and our logo are not being made CC0. Though anyone could do a parody derivative of our logo (look at Goblincatz). Those wanting our official endorsement will need to ask us for the use of our name and logo.

I have been looking into the concept of CC0 for many months and the recent resurgence of CC0 in the form of Goblintown, as well as the very pragmatic issue of us discovering post mint barriers of entry when trying to get Fat Cats integrated into different games and collections has pushed me strongly towards the CC0 camp. To be clear both IP rights and CC0 have their place. It  really depends on what the project's goals are. In the case of something like My Pet Hooligan or Cool Cats where the express goal is to create games, tv shows and other media it makes a lot of sense for them to want to hold on tightly to the IP rights.

However in the case of Fat Cats, as counter intuitive as CC0 seems at first, it actually makes a ton of sense and will likely propel our integration forward in a big way way. Here are the main reasons why.

The whole reason we made profile pictures and not a pass token like Adidas was because we understood that having pfps granted us the opportunity to weaponize our community into brand ambassadors and keep our name in the news cycle as much as possible. In other words our value proposition is our Fund & business club/think tank, our art, as fabulous as it is, is a means to an end not an end unto itself. So giving the greater Web3 community the freedom to play with our art, make derivatives and so on greatly increases our chance of being noticed and remembered. There is also a strong argument to be made that our art is somewhat CCO already because we created a parody of Disney art and not a 'unique' art style.

Web3 is about connecting people. There is a reason that CCO and free mints often do very well. The OGs and whales of crypto consider this to be the ultimate expression of the ideals of Web3. It continues the philosophy of Satoshi Nakamoto and is seen as very brave and self assured, i.e. we are telling Web3 that we have enough value to give to our holders that we do not have to heavily police our IP. In addition many people just do not understand basic IP rights and so whenever in doubt they tend to just shy away and move on. How many amateur artists have not posted a Tweet of their sketch or NFT fan art out of concern for legal action? Let us not also forget that there are a number of very influential libertarians in the space that have a very strong view when it comes to art and intellectual property, to them art is primarily a commodity product because there are tons of super talented artists who will create superb work for a low price and so the value of the art lies in the brand or utility built around the art not the art itself intrinsically. One does not pay a massive premium on a Rolex because it tells superior time but because it is a massive symbol of prosperity, wealth and so on. The fact it is, a quality timepiece is expected.

Policing IP is extremely difficult and expensive. In addition to the perception issue the fact that Web3 is still very anonymous means that in practice it is very difficult to police IP rights and when communities like Cryptopunks have tried to and the Web3 community at large were very upset at them. This is also important in regards to OpenSea who feel the need to police first and ask questions later. I would hate for OpenSea to just remove a Fat Cats derivative because some zealous holder filed a DMCA. What a lost opportunity for publicity! If we clearly state we are CC0, Opensea will not do so.

Getting onboarded into other collections, games and metaverse platforms is extremely important to us because if people regularly bump into Fat Cats all over the place they will of course remember us or ask who the fuck are Fat Cats. I only found out post Fat Cats mint that the only people who do actually take IP very seriously are the games like the Arcade and merchandize manufacturers. They want the council to sign a bunch of paperwork before they proceed. However, if we were CCO they would be able to just make mockups, incorporate us and ask questions later. Getting 1 of 1s in other collections is turning out to be extremely valuable press for us as we always need a good excuse to Tweet! So why not remove the barriers. I have it on good authority that Cryptoadz did not explicitly give YugaLabs permission to onboard them into the Otherside advert. To be clear Fat Cats retained the rights to use everyone's Cats anyway in things like games or the like so as to not handy cap the entire Fat Cats community with the need for tons of paperwork every time we wanted to use a specific Cat in a game. However, the overly careful entertainment providers still seem to have lawyers driving them nuts.

Your NFT's value does not decrease in value for the same reason that right click save has not decreased the value of NFTs. The reality is that when images become famous they get more and more exposure and more and more hardcore collectors want the flex of owning the real deal. The fact that the IP rights are public domain does not change the fact that if you hold Fat Cat x you are still the legitimate owner. Just look at the Mona Lisa she gets free press coverage all day every day and it has pushed up her value considerably over the years in the fine arts world. Also if you want NFT examples have a look at Cryptoadz & NounDAO their rarer ones sell at considerable premiums. Also I am going to say it, most of you are not likely to monetize your specific Fat Cat and if you are exclusive IP rights vs the collective IP does not change that you are the specific holder on the blockchain. And for those of you creating merchandise for sale, being CC0 will not mean you can't have the DAO's official endorsement so that you can use the logos and attract our holders.

Official derivatives and collaborations still carry tremendous weight! Just because we go CCO does not mean that, as we grow in size and influence, projects will not reach out for official endorsements and the blessing from us to be an official derivative or go through our incubator program. People bang down the door of Cryptoadz and now GoblinTown for said endorsement every day. Goblincatz proved this. It is CC0 and yet Fat Cats official endorsement helped us sell out and garner trust in our contract.

The strongest argument against CC0 is that if a holder of Fat Cats had planned to go and create a game, movie or the like with a Fat Cats character(s) that they own, then assuming they intended to make the brand huge, they would not be able to stop eg: Aliexpress from making posters of their NFT and selling them (not that it is particularly easy now). The reality is though that almost no individuals have monetized their specific NFTs into big brands. The most notable examples are the Jenkins the Butler NFT & The Kingship band. It does seem that those who can build in Web3 tend to just form their own project and brand rather than try and monetize a few NFTs they own the rights to.

That said the DAO can certainly acquire assets from valuable brands like BAYC and monetize them as we see fit; be it merchandize or more. In addition, just because we are making Fat Cats CC0, in order to propel ourselves forward quickly, does not mean that once we are bigger we cannot choose to incubate or create a project that is intended to have valuable IP.

In short I am glad we started with IP rights so that we could study the space more together and weigh up the pros and cons. I think given our goals and agenda it makes perfect sense for us to go CC0 and to use the Goblintown moment to spread the word and put even more eyes on us.

If I have learned anything from my last year in the NFT space it is that the more I give the more I get. If we keep focusing on attracting the right people, creating genuine value for our holders and creating opportunities for them day in and day out (whether it be with WL spots, drops, networking or job creation) then we will keep winning and build one of the most powerful community whales in the space.

PS: we recorded an AMA on this topic you can check it out in Podcast recordings.