Draft on Public Domain minting

Does Teia allow Public Domain (PD) material to be minted and/or sold?

There is currently an inconsistency in the CoC wording regarding PD material, and potentially a technical issue if PD work is allowed.

Teia is a platform for artists of all kinds to show artistic work of all kinds. Normal copyright rules apply and use of 3rd party material is covered in the Teia Code of Conduct. Copyright has a limited lifetime (the length varies in different countries) but all work usually becomes public domain after some time. Copyright comes in different forms and gives or withholds different rights – read [Creative Commons] on the various levels of rights given. This document is specifically about the notion of letting public domain work be minted by people who have not created that work, and the wording in the CoC. The use of PD work in collage and other derived uses is allowed and not intended to be covered by this wording, but the wording is currently not clear. In order for the copymint team to make fair decisions, the philosophy on this and CoC wording needs to be resolved. CoC – relevant wording:

“open and supportive space for all artists and collectors” “we want to make sure there are as few restrictions as possible” “some forms of art need to use the works of others”

The following paragraph is one that needs addressing:

“Artists should avoid uses of existing copyrighted material that do not generate new artistic meaning, being aware that a change of medium, without more, may not meet this standard. (((or: minting any work/content from other authors - even if it falls under public domain - without generating new artistic meaning is not allowed as it goes against the idea of authenticity and verifiable provenance on the blockchain. A change of medium alone may not meet this standard.)))”

The first part refers only to copyrighted work. The second part attempts to include PD works.

The main question is, does teia disallow only unaltered copyrighted work, or does it disallow all unaltered work? A decision on this would allow the above paragraph to be resolved.

Note that there may be legitimate exceptions, for instance when an artist is using direct copies as a valid artistic statement, of which they can articulate honestly and clearly. This is already part of the CoC: “artists who deliberately repurpose copyrighted works should be prepared to explain their rationales”

Background

Although a work in the Public Domain is open to any use, including commercial use (unless that has been limited by the supplier of the work), the CoC currently suggests to discourage minting on teia (and on h=n, with their CoC). This is because teia wants to encourage artistic experiment and original work. Wording in the CoC has been developed to take this into account.

PD minters not following extra conditions

Public domain work is often released online by museums and art institutions, by wiki-commons and other groups interested in giving free access to various material (artistic and otherwise). But, often these organisations apply their own conditions around the use, such as giving attribution to the creator and/or owner, not implying that the user has affiliation with the organisation or using their name in conjunction with the use etc.

Many of the known minters of public domain work on h=n have either wilfully or ignorantly avoided the rules of an organisation when minting public domain work, which involves the copymint team in a lot of searching, reading and dialogue to resolve rights and ownership.

Double-minting

Also a technical issue arises if public domain work is allowed to be minted. That revolves around double-minting, which is an identical work that is minted twice. On most if not all platforms it is disallowed (it would deceive the collector and diminish the value of the work). Teia and h=n automatically flag a work that is minted twice by the same user, and ban an account that mints a work that someone else has already minted. Allowing public domain work to be minted creates the problem that the first minter would be allowed and subsequent minters would get banned. This is not just theoretical, it has already occurred, because some public domain material is well known and popular.