Current use cases, benefits and challenges of NFTs in the museum sector: toward common pool model of NFT sharing for educational purposes

Abstract

ABSTRACT NFTs, non-fungible tokens, can represent ownership of unique things based on a relatively new technology of blockchain (ethereum.org). Because of this mechanism, people use NFTs to sell, share and transfer various rights of digital media or tangible objects. Generally, museums, which tend to be risk-averse, are slow to examine or utilize NFTs. This paper discusses the current use cases of NFTs in the museum sector addressing both benefits and challenges that come with museum NFT use to answer how NFTs can be better utilized in the future. Despite a number of challenges, NFTs are untapped resources that could have a wider application for museums. Using the theory of the commons, this paper further develops a model for a common pool of NFT sharing based on the fair use doctrine of copyright and open access model among global museums that are willing to participate, where they can share their NFT collections digitally.