NFT Marketplace OpenSea Shared Plan for NFT Royalties

Art is always known by its creator's name. In the digital era, NFTs are the art people display and get rewards but in between the huge reward noises, the creator’s name goes unheard.

In recent weeks, several NFT platforms have turned away from recognizing creator-set royalties, although leading marketplace OpenSea has stayed mute on the topic, presumably assessing its options. On Saturday night, the $13.3 billion firm officially revealed its strategy—but many notable Web3 artists aren't happy with it.

OpenSea revealed a "thoughtful, ethical approach" to NFT royalties in a Twitter thread, including the implementation of a mechanism that would allow authors of new projects to ban particular marketplaces that do not compel traders to pay royalties. The new mechanism goes into effect on November 8.

OpenSea further Tweets, “It’s clear that many creators want the ability to enforce fees on-chain & we believe that choice should be theirs–not a marketplace’s–to make. So we’re building tools we hope will balance the scales by putting more power in creators’ hands to control their business model.”

OpenSea co-founder and CEO Devin Finzer explained the company's history of fulfilling NFT royalties, which are generally a 5% to 10% charge determined by the inventor and paid by the seller on each secondary market transaction, in an accompanying blog post. Although these royalty expectations are not entirely enforced on-chain, the main markets (including OpenSea) have generally respected them.

Many traders choose not to pay creator royalty payments when they are not necessary. In late October, data from X2Y2 published by pseudonymous Proof Director of Research Punk9059 revealed that just 18% of dealers bothered to pay any royalty payment. "Free riding is too simple," they said.

Why NFT Royalties are Important?

NFT royalties are automatic payments paid to NFT artists on the resale of their NFT artwork. The royalties for each NFT are stored in the NFT's smart contract. When a secondary sale occurs, the smart contract pays the marketplace a percentage of the royalties as requested by the inventor. The creator is then paid royalties by the marketplace that facilitated the purchase.

Beeple's NFT "Crossroads" was auctioned on the secondary market for $6.6 million in February 2021. Beeple received a 10% royalty on that transaction. This specific case demonstrates the significance of NFT royalties.

Historically, producers and artists could not track later trades on their works. All they would make from their artwork was the first sale.

And, regardless of how popular or lucrative their artwork became over time, they stood to profit nothing from originally sold work. Buyers of their work may be able to resell it for a high price. As a result, secondary sales were ineffective for artists.

Related: NFT Creators Gained Royalties Surpassing $1.8 Billion: Galaxy Digital