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Understand IP ownership, blockchain technology, and how Medialane works.

Programmable Licensing

Every IP asset minted on Medialane carries a machine-readable license embedded in its on-chain metadata. Creators define the rules once — and they apply automatically to every holder, forever.

Why On-Chain Licensing?

Traditional licensing requires negotiating and signing contracts with each individual user. This is impractical for digital content distributed at scale. Creative Commons solved part of this problem with standardised license text — but even CC licenses rely on platforms to honour them and provide no automatic enforcement.

Medialane takes licensing further: the terms are embedded in the NFT's IPFS metadata as structured attributes, readable by any application, and linked permanently to the token. They travel with the asset through every transfer and are surfaced to every buyer in the marketplace UI.

License Types

ARR

All Rights Reserved — no use permitted beyond viewing. Full copyright retained by the creator.

CC BY

Creative Commons Attribution — free to use, share, and adapt with credit to the original creator.

CC BY-SA

Attribution + ShareAlike — derivatives must be licensed under the same terms.

CC BY-NC

Attribution + NonCommercial — free for non-commercial use with credit.

CC BY-NC-SA

Attribution + NonCommercial + ShareAlike — non-commercial use, same-license derivatives.

CC BY-ND

Attribution + NoDerivatives — sharing permitted but no modifications allowed.

CC0

Public Domain dedication — creator waives all rights. Anyone can use for any purpose.

Custom

Creator-defined terms specified as freeform text alongside structured attributes.

Commercial Use

Creators specify whether commercial use of their work is permitted. Options range from full commercial rights (any entity may use the work commercially) to personal-only (non-commercial individuals only) to no commercial use at all. This is surfaced as a discrete attribute on the asset page so buyers can understand what they are purchasing.

Derivative Works

The license specifies what buyers or licensees may do with the original work:

  • Not allowed — the work may not be modified or adapted
  • Allowed — derivatives are permitted under the same license
  • Allowed with attribution — derivatives must credit the original creator
  • Allowed, share-alike — derivatives must carry the same license terms

AI Training Policy

Medialane is one of the first platforms to include explicit AI policy as a structured license attribute. Creators choose from:

  • Allowed — the work may be used to train AI models
  • Not allowed — AI training use is explicitly prohibited
  • With permission only — AI training requires prior written consent from the creator

While enforcement of AI policy remains a legal grey area globally, the explicit declaration in machine-readable metadata creates a clear record of the creator's intent — relevant in any future legal or regulatory context.

Geographic Scope

Creators can restrict the geographic scope of their license — specifying whether rights apply worldwide, to specific regions, or excluding particular jurisdictions. This is particularly useful for works subject to local copyright restrictions or distribution agreements.

Royalties

At mint time, creators set a royalty percentage (0–100%) applied to every secondary sale on the Medialane marketplace. This is enforced by the marketplace smart contract, not by platform policy — meaning it cannot be bypassed by listing through a different interface that calls the same contract.

Royalties are distributed instantly on transaction settlement, with no manual claim step required from the creator.