Thread by @doctor_beatdown

To give insight into the last 48 hours... A thread about #IP, #Copyrights, #Trademarks, #cc0 and #Moonbirds 🧵↓ 👇

Intellectual Property is classically defined as any original works resulting from creativity (think along the lines of things that can be created physically like a movie, book, drawing or album.

You can then apply this line of thought to digital assets, like art NFTs or code)

In most places in the world, the right to COPYRIGHT OR PATENT these types of works are normally reserved to the producer of that content... whether that be the creator themselves, or someone they've assigned rights to via a contract.

As a producer, it then becomes your right to do what you'd like with your IP... that is, until you cross a few lines, which I'll discuss further below.

To license that IP, there are several frameworks in place to make it easy. In the US, the frameworks commonly used are GNU-GPL, the MIT license (with variations) and Creative Commons.
creativecommons.org/about/cclicens…
gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3…
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIT_Licen…

A trademark is a logo, design, words that identifies your company and products, as well as distinguishes your company from competitors in the market, hence why they're fiercely protected, but only within one trade market.

The most common example to give here is Dove. Two separate companies, one makes soap, the other makes chocolate. Two different markets, allowed to live in harmony.

To further illustrate the difference between a copyright and a trademark, I'll give a very degen example:

Say I create an NFT project with lots of art NFTs: That art and any original contract code would be my IP and could be copyrighted... and the name of my project, say, "Art of the Beatdown" and/or logo could be trademarked.

So, let's get into recent events, @kevinrose decided to shake things up by moving the IP of @Moonbirds from the token holders to the public domain: Selecting cc0, one of 6 available creative commons licensing tiers which allows any and all free public use of IP.

This frees up the copyright, however in all cases, Trademarks must be defended by the owner. So, when Moonbirds2 took the Moonbirds name & likeness they infringed on the Trademark and mb2 had a legal obligation to resolve the issue before the collection could be relisted.

To lose a copyright you must cross one of these lines: Time, Loss of Originality or Releasing your IP rights to the public, last of which is what the Moonbirds did. So now anyone can use the IP so long as they don't commit trademark infringement, even if PROOF sells the project.

Is this a bad play? When you had 5 other tiered options to choose from? When you surprise and upset some of your user base? Maybe... Let's explore...

Original cc0 projects can create a fund and work on new ideas, the system of contracts that any original project, from mfers to Moonbirds, is backed by the liquidity earned from minting, (sometimes) investments and other revenue:

So, the system utility can only be preserved in an original project, whether it's cc0 or not. What's really important is that specifically "cc0 clone projects" are unsustainable as businesses and should be viewed as for entertainment purposes.

I think what all the bird projects would like you to see is the differences between an original project and a cc0 clone: The utility derived from the token for it's holder and the project's ability to execute on new ideas.