From exclusive ownership to zones of exclusivity

Abstract

Taking NFTs (non-fungible tokens) as a key example, this chapter explores new enclosure strategies in digital art contexts in which computationally enforceable and socially enacted access restrictions are emphasised over the legal concept of exclusive ownership. Early perspectives on NFT technology insisted that the economic value of digital artefacts can only be realised when such artefacts are treated as private property. Now, the initial focus on exclusive ownership of digital art objects is shifting away from traditional concerns with intellectual property, and towards the establishing of what is here discussed as ‘zones of exclusivity.’ Such zones take the form of restricted-access domains of online interaction within which the economic value of digital art objects is meant to be constituted, negotiated, and captured even while digital artefacts are permitted to be copied and freely circulated. The chapter explores and critiques several examples of new, computationally enforceable, socially enacted, and gamified enclosure strategies such as token-gating and white-listing.