Digital Art and NFT. Legal uncertainty

Gallyamova Aisylu Airatovna 2nd year student of the Faculty of Law of the Moscow State University. M.V. Lomonosov 420111, Russia, Michurinsky Prospekt region, Moscow, Michurinsky Prospekt str., 5 gallyamova.aysylu@gmail.com

To consider another challenge faced in the process of intellectual property rights turnover in the digital environment, it is necessary to consider in more detail the object of intellectual property itself. Why are works posted in the CA protected by IP law at all? In order for a work to be recognized as an IP protected object, it must meet the criteria established by law: 1) it is provided by the Civil Code of the Russian Federation as a kind of RID (Article 1225); 2) it must be the result of creative work of a citizen (Article 1257); 3) it must be presented in some objective form (paragraph 3 of Article 1259); 4) it does not depend on the merits and purpose, as well as on the way it is expressed (paragraph 1 of Article 1259); 5) can be both publicized and unpublished (paragraph 3 of Article 1259); 6) has not passed into the public domain (Article 1282); 7) is not excluded by law from legal protection (sub-paragraphs 1-4 of paragraph 6 of Article 1259). Thus, any original work created by a person posted in the CA is a priori a protected object of IP law.

The author of the work (REED) is "a citizen whose creative work has created such a result" (paragraph 1 of Article 1228 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation). Only the author can own the entire range of intellectual rights in relation to the work: exclusive rights, personal non-property rights and other intellectual rights (Articles 1228, 1229, 1255 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation). If the author alienates the exclusive right or it passes by law to other persons, the latter become copyright holders (Articles 1229, 1255 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation). Accordingly, the subjects of RID in the digital environment can be ordinary users of Internet resources, authors of works, copyright holders, etc.

Let's look at what happens to a work in legal terms when the author places it on the Internet. In fact, this action does not have any legal consequences and does not affect the copyright of the work in any way. The copyright holder, accordingly, having full exclusive rights, can perform such actions as downloading the work from the CA to a personal digital device, placing the work in the CA for public access, copying the work, making changes to the downloaded work, forwarding, sharing his work with other users and other “third parties”, etc. Having analyzed the existing steam regulations, it can be established that in order to perform any of these actions, it is necessary to obtain the consent of the copyright holder in the following ways: conclusion of a license agreement in writing (Article 1286 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation); conclusion of a license agreement in a simplified manner (open license) (Article 1286.1 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation); through a statement publicly made by the copyright holder "on providing any person with the opportunity to use a work of science, literature or art belonging to him free of charge, or an object of related rights on conditions determined by the rightholder and within the period specified by him" (Article 1233 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation). The application must contain information that allows identifying the copyright holder and the work or object of related rights belonging to him (paragraph 3, paragraph 5, Article 1233 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation). Users cannot use the corresponding result of intellectual activity without the consent of the copyright holder, except in cases provided for by the Civil Code of the Russian Federation." The use of a work without the consent of the author (copyright holder) entails liability provided for by the Civil Code of the Russian Federation and other laws (for example, the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation).

The lawful posting of a work on the Internet (Articles 1273, 1274 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation) is a prerequisite for legal actions with works on the Internet. An indicator of legality can be considered a copyright protection mark, an indication of authorship, or an indication of the author's permission to use the work. It turns out that in the absence of an author's mark, it can be considered that the work is in the public domain or posted on the Internet illegally. However, according to Article 1271 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation, the use of a copyright protection mark is the right of the author (copyright holder), and not his obligation. Thus, it is almost impossible for the user to determine whether the information posted on the Internet is legitimate.

Today, a huge number of authors around the world use the digital environment as a space for distributing their works. At the same time, not all of them use the authorship mark and do not even indicate their own name or pseudonym. Also, the authors, when posting their works in the CA, do not always provide users with instructions on how they should deal with the information received. And in general, the understanding of the legality of the information used remains beyond the awareness of users. And even if Internet users want to sign a license to use a work, then finding its author and signing a license in accordance with all the requirements is an almost impossible task. This is how a situation develops in which authors continue to post works without complying with all these requirements, and users, having no way to establish the legality of the placement of the work, continue to use the work for their own purposes. It can be said that the concept of legality in this case is practically absent, about 70% of users interact with information illegally. In this regard, the number of abuse on the Internet is growing every year, an increasing number of users are gaining access to illegally posted information and this number is increasing every year. First of all, this is evidence of insufficient legal regulation of relations on the Internet. As already noted, digitalization has penetrated into all spheres of society. She did not bypass the sphere of art either. Today, the phenomenon of "digital art (crypto art)" is at the stage of its active development.

The field of art has acquired a globalized significance today. A large number of intangible objects find their expression in the digital environment. The online art market has grown significantly, which is replenished not only with digital copies of material objects, but also with objects that do not have their material analogues and exist only in a digital environment. The results of creative activity that are available for public viewing through their broadcast in the information environment are called digital art (crypto art). At the moment, the legislation has not yet established a common understanding of digital art, therefore, different authors in the literature propose different approaches to this concept. Depending on the method of emergence of digital art, it is proposed to consider as material results of intellectual activity embodied in cyberspace or as a type of creative human activity carried out through the use of various technological devices, as a result of which intangible cultural objects existing in cyberspace are created. That is, digital art today can be considered as material works of art "digitized" into the digital environment, as well as creative works originally created in the digital environment.

Due to the development of technology, completely different forms of modern art are emerging in the modern art market. Technologies such as cryptocurrency and blockchain have led it to massive changes. Within the framework of blockchain technology, two extremely dynamic digital assets are increasingly being used: smart contracts and NFT - or non-interchangeable tokens.

For further study of non-interchangeable tokens, first let's look at how the process of buying crypto art goes.

Today, artists have the opportunity to place their works on one of the online markets such as SuperRare, Foundation, OpenSea, Origin, Rare, Known, Nifty Gateway. First, the author of the work must upload the work of art to the gallery of one of the platforms, then a transaction is created in the blockchain. As a result of this transaction, a non-interchangeable token (NFT) associated with the work of art arises and transfers the token to the cryptographic wallet of the artist. The transaction is digitally signed by the artist using asymmetric encryption, which is a confirmation of the uniqueness of the work. Thus, since the token is directly related to a work of art and in fact represents a single asset confirming ownership of the underlying intellectual property object. In simple terms, the platform then distributes the downloaded file through the system and the work begins to exist in the blockchain. Now it becomes available to buyers and later it can be exchanged, sold or stored with collectors. As a rule, works of art are sold through auctions: bidders make offers, and the current owner of the asset has the opportunity to accept the offer. When an asset is sold, the corresponding token is directly transferred to the buyer's wallet, and the corresponding price in the ether is the cryptocurrency used in the blockchain.

So, having read a simple description of the process of turnover of crypto art, it is necessary to define the following concepts. Crypto art (English Crypto art — crypto art) is a trend in modern visual art that uses blockchain technology in the format of a non-interchangeable token. Due to the novelty and lack of widespread practice, there is still debate about the definition of this type of art. A token is a unit of account that is not a cryptocurrency, but rather a substitute for securities in the digital world, managed by a smart contract. Tokenization allows you to transform a real thing into a set of tokens – parts of a digital object, the rights to each such component can become separate subjects of civil transactions.

Before further consideration of the topic of non-interchangeable tokens, it is important to make a reservation that the concept of "token" is ambiguous. In Distributed Ledger Technology, in order to empower users and acquire additional functions, the token began to be used as conditional payment units. Various legal systems have classified tokens, but the most popular classifications are those conducted by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (eng. The United States Securities and Exchange Commission; hereinafter – SEC), which is based on an assessment of the economic function of tokens and the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (eng. Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority, hereinafter – FINMA), which is based on the similarity of tokens with securities. Based on this, they differentiate existing tokens into the following categories: consumer (utilitarian) tokens, asset tokens, and payment tokens.

With the advent of the blockchain, tonification has become available to users. A blockchain is a continuous sequential chain of blocks (a connected list) containing information built according to certain rules. To describe it in simple terms, these are certain blocks that are connected in synchronized chains. Each transaction that uses this technology acts as a new block in the transaction chain. Each block contains its own hash amount and the hash amount of the previous block. The distributed ledger allows the buyer to track the transaction history in relation to the purchased object. Information receives a special degree of protection as a result of the fact that it is distributed to several computers at once, as a result of which it is almost impossible to delete or change data.

So, the blockchain is a specially structured data warehouse in a distributed network. Transactions in the blockchain occur between two parties, without an intermediary, which gives it certain advantages. Moreover, blockchain technology is based on principles such as decentralization, verifiability and anonymity. According to the World Economic Forum, blockchain provides such opportunities as the creation of transparent P2P transactions, smart contracts, effective pricing, etc. One of the most obvious advantages that have become available thanks to blockchain technology is the anonymity and security of transactions.

NFT is a type of digital certificate, a string of numeric code that certifies the rights to objects, the second copy of which cannot be recognized as authentic. It is precisely because of their uniqueness that NFTs are the safest way of law for works of art.

An art object involved in civil circulation with the help of blockchain technologies can take the form of a real object that exists directly in the real world of things. In this case, the NFT contains information about this work: painting, sculpture, and other things that have value and exist in physical form. When applying for such an NFT, as a rule, an agreement on the alienation of exclusive rights is concluded or a license agreement is drawn up.

Another group of generated NFT tokens are those that directly include an object of digital art. In this case, the work is fully loaded into the blockchain. These are independent works on the blockchain, and they are often referred to as work on the block chain (onchainworks). Perhaps these are the only truly unique objects of digital art (crypto art), in respect of which, at the time of writing this study, not a single case of forgery has been recorded. They can be exchanged and transferred to other people only on the blockchain.

The next group and the most common group are non-interchangeable tokens that contain only links to an information resource that hosts digital art objects. At the same time, such a work can be created in the real world, while remaining a digital copy, or it can be directly the result of intellectual activity carried out by the author in cyberspace. It should be emphasized that the real object of art is not an NFT or a part of it. In this case, the token contains only a URL indicating the placement of digital art. Perhaps the greatest number of legal issues arise in connection with the last group of these tokens.

There are common problems traditionally associated with each type of NFT. For example, on which sites participants sell and buy; how to ensure the transfer of intellectual property rights; how to determine their volume and much more. In particular, with the development of the market for non-interchangeable tokens, the number of violations of the interests of copyright holders of tokenized objects has increased.

What is being sold and bought in the crypto art market? To answer this question, it is necessary to trace the history of the development of NFT. As a rule, its countdown begins in 2014, when the Monegraph platform was created in connection with the increasing cases of forgery of works in the digital environment. Monegraph has become the first startup to provide artists with blockchain-based tools to monetize their digital work. Tech entrepreneur Anil Dash teamed up with artist Kevin McCoy at the Rhizome Seven on Seven conference in New York. The main task of the developers was to provide protection to authors who posted their works in a digital environment, which is why it was decided to record the image of the object in the blockchain. It was at this moment that the foundation was laid, which is still part of the implemented NFTS. Further, in 2017, Larva Labs implemented one of the most widely known and recognizable projects, “Crypto Punks". Their popularity is primarily due to the fact that Cryptopanks represent one of the first examples of "non-interchangeable tokens" in Ethereum. Simply put, cryptopanks represent 10,000 unique characters generated using special algorithms in the style of pixel art. Cryptopanks are 24x24 pixel art images generated algorithmically. Most of them are guys and girls who look like punks, but there are also a few rarer types: monkeys, zombies and even aliens. Each punk has his own profile page, which shows his attributes, as well as the status of ownership/sale. Today, any user of the platform, after performing a number of simple actions, can purchase their own cryptopank.

The next high-profile event related to the sale of NFT occurred when the founder of Twitter sold his first tweet in the form of an NFT token. As a result, the tweet was sold for $2.9 million. The sale of a collage entitled "Daily: the first 5,000 Days" by American artist Mike Winkelmann received equally wide publicity. It was the first digital painting to be auctioned by Christie's. Artist Mike Winkelmann (working under the pseudonym Beeple) worked on the creation of the work for about 13 years, creating one digital painting per day, and then combining all his creations into one painting.  The auction ended at $69.34 million. What made this sale unique was not only that it was sold by a traditional auction house, but also that this work could be paid for in Etherium.

Etherium is a cryptocurrency that many call the new Bitcoin. The creator of "Ethereum" or "ether" is Vitaly Buterin. This one differs from other cryptocurrencies in that the creators offer its exchange units as a means to register transactions with assets or to exchange resources, in particular, the authors called ether a "crypto fuel" for the execution of smart contracts by a peer-to-peer network.

The purchase of an NFT is considered as the purchase of a file with metadata, and not the main object as such. Comparing an NFT with a signed copy of a digital art object cannot always be considered correct. This is due to the high risk of the spread of non-interchangeable tokens, the content of which does not include the objects of art themselves, but only information about them, recorded through the prism of tools that guarantee the purity of transactions.

Online markets such as SuperRare, Foundation, OpenSea, Origin, Rare, Known, Nifty Gateway, where digital art certified by NFT is traded, usually operate on the principle of auction houses. Smart contracts are used on these trading platforms. Smart contracts are a contract that is written in the form of a computer program. Ethereum, already mentioned above, became the first blockchain with full integration of smart contracts. In the blockchain, such contracts are an algorithm of certain actions written into the code. If all the conditions specified in the contract are met, an automatic sequence stratum will start. The use of smart contracts allows you to remain anonymous and at the same time prevent abuse and fraud on the part of both parties. However, it is important to note that the existence and operation of smart contracts is possible only if the cryptocurrency is enshrined in legislation as a digital right in the form of an interchangeable token, which at the same time confirms its value.

There is no definition of NFT in modern Russian legislation, but many authors believe that it can be considered as another property in accordance with Article 128 of the Civil Code.^[1] However, this statement is not universally recognized and in the context of this article it is also necessary to bring other points of view to the place of non-interchangeable tokens in the legislation of the Russian Federation.

The term "token" is not used in Russian legislation, instead the term "digital rights" is used (as noted in the explanatory note to the draft law, which introduced digital rights in the Civil Code of the Russian Federation, "a concept corresponding to the traditions of Russian law is proposed"). Which has been repeatedly criticized.

As mentioned above, the concept of a "token" is ambiguous. If we consider a token as an asset that can be invested, then in this role, according to M.A. Rozhkova, it becomes extremely close to the concept of non-documentary securities. It is due to this property that in a number of countries tokens are regulated by the securities legislation applicable to them.

It is also important to mention the division proposed by M.A. Rozhkova into "the right to record" and "the right to record":

"The above, in my opinion, allows us to state the occurrence of the right holder of undocumented securities, relatively speaking, "rights from the record" (that is, rights certified by the account and constituting a security; see paragraph 1 of Article 149 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation) and "rights to record" (the right to require the entry of appropriate records on accounts; see paragraphs 2, 3 of Article 149 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation). At the same time, from the meaning of paragraph 2 of paragraph 1 of Article 149 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation, it turns out that the right to record follows the right to record"

Based on the concept proposed by the author, it can be concluded that the digital code that secures the token is a "right to record", but at the same time the token is also a confirmation of other property rights belonging to its owner, that is, it certifies the "right to record". A clear difference between non-documentary securities and tokens is that under the "shell" of a token, not only property rights can be hidden, as is the case with securities, but also other benefits of interest to their owner. That is why it is impossible to completely equate tokens with non-documentary securities and clearly distinguish which tokens such legislation can be applied to and which not.

Let's take a closer look at the legal regulation of NFT. There are no norms specifically regulating NFT in Russian law today. In this regard, this article will consider possible options for applying the rules to non-interchangeable tokens by analogy with the law. As noted above, NFT is a non-interchangeable token. Along with non-interchangeable objects, there are also interchangeable ones. These concepts exist in common law (USA, England). Examples of interchangeable ones, for example, are raw materials, currencies, stocks, etc. Their main property is that one such object can be easily replaced by another (one ruble can be replaced with another ruble), which greatly simplifies the exchange and trading processes with such objects. Non-interchangeable tokens, on the contrary, do not have this property and cannot be freely replaced.

Such concepts are not typical for the Russian legal system. In our law, their equivalents are associated with a thing, in connection with which individually defined things and things distinguished by generic characteristics are distinguished. The Civil Code of the Russian Federation does not fix a special division of these categories, but they can be found in the relevant articles 398 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation and 807 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation.^[2] Individually-a certain thing differs by a certain set of features, which makes it possible to distinguish it from other things and, accordingly, cannot be replaced. Things defined by generic characteristics can be replaced, they are determined by number, weight and measure. Thus, since we know that each NFT has its own unique non-reproducible digital code, it has a great similarity with the signs of an individually defined thing. The Civil Code of the Russian Federation does not define the concept of "thing", however, from the text of the law it becomes clear that a thing is something existing, material, existing in reality. NFT does not apply to such objects, however, if you still try to determine the place of non-interchangeable tokens among the objects of civil rights, then they can be attributed to "other property", which also include digital rights. That is, based on the interpretation of the law, it can be concluded that Article 128 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation can be applied to non-interchangeable tokens that grant their rightholder only the rights of ownership, use and disposal.

If we talk about another category of NFTs, which, in addition to the "usual" ones, also endow their copyright holders with additional properties (utilitarian tokens), for example, a token for obtaining a physical copy of sneakers purchased at NFT. Some authors^[3] propose to classify such tokens, which endow their copyright holders with various rights, as individually defined digital rights. Digital rights are regulated by the law "On Digital Financial Assets".^[4] However, it does not define individual digital rights, moreover, based on the text of the law, it can be concluded that digital rights are generic, since unlike NFT, the copyright holder of a digital asset needs to have only a certain amount of an asset inside the digital system. That is, NFTs, which also endow the copyright holder with additional properties, can be regulated by the CFA law only by analogy with the law.

The lack of clear legal regulation of non-interchangeable tokens is typical not only for Russia. In foreign countries, the legal regulation of NFT is also practically absent. So, in the USA there is no single law that would regulate non-interchangeable tokens, but at the same time their regulation is carried out by separate instructions created by regulatory authorities. In the UK, there is also no direct regulation, NFT is considered a type of crypto asset, which is divided into such types as: a security token, an "electronic money token" and an unregulated token.

As mentioned above, non-interchangeable tokens are used to a greater extent to consolidate the right to digital art. In this regard, many people today conclude that NFT belongs to the field of intellectual property and not even the objects of digital art themselves, but the token itself. However, this position is extremely incorrect in Russian legislation. In Russian law, the acquirer of digital art does not become its owner. The Civil Code of the Russian Federation clearly separates intellectual property rights to the results of intellectual activity and property rights to tangible media of the RID, which include objects of art (in particular, art canvases, sculptures, design works).^[5] This provision is enshrined in article 1227, which states that "Intellectual rights do not depend on the right of ownership and other proprietary rights to a tangible medium (thing) in which the corresponding result of intellectual activity or means of individualization are expressed." In this regard, by purchasing a particular piece of art, the buyer acquires at the same time only a property (real) right. The exclusive right to the work remains with its creator.

Since a non-interchangeable token is an intangible object, and in Russian legal reality, the emergence of ownership rights is possible only for tangible objects, while only for those that are expressly specified in the law. In this regard, intangible objects seem to "fall out" of legal regulation. This causes concern to many authors, for example, M.A. Rozhkova proposes to introduce the category of "property rights to new intangible objects", which she substantiates in her works.

Thus, today there are no direct provisions in the Russian legal system or in foreign legislation that regulate the relations of subjects regarding the circulation of digital objects certified according to NFT standards.

To confirm the above, let's look at examples of the sale and purchase of digital art using NFT, which occurred relatively recently. The Hermitage State Museum has made a significant breakthrough in the use of NFT in Russia. In September 2021, he held an auction of tokenized copies of famous works of art on the Binance platform. Binance is a blockchain system that creates conditions for the cryptocurrency industry. The museum emphasized that it did not want to reproduce the token auction previously held by the Uffizi Gallery with a simple digital copy of the painting. The auction organizers have created a non-interchangeable token consisting of three files. The first is a copy of the painting, which contains the signature of the director of the museum, the date and time of signing. The second is a video in which the director of the museum talks about the painting and the third is a cryptographic signature fixed in a digital code. Thus, the NFT tokens offered by the Hermitage represent independent art objects. According to Yuri Borisov, head of the LFCS Legal Support law firm, who accompanied the deal with Binance from the Hermitage, the buyer of the token will at least receive the right to resell the work. However, a deal on the marketplace may include one or another type of license, for example, the right to exhibit a reproduction or print it on T-shirts. The main idea of this project was the use by the historical and rather conservative museum of technologies that had just begun their development. The organizers of the auctions paid great attention to making each digital copy unique. Each of the five tokenized paintings was signed by Mikhail Piotrovsky, Director of the State Hermitage Museum, who also indicated on each painting the date and time of their signing; the place of signing — the Hermitage halls was fixed in a digital code. The painting sold at the highest price was "Madonna Litta", painted by Leonard da Vinci. Some other world museums have followed the same path. For example, the Uffizi Gallery has auctioned a tokenized copy of Michelangelo's Madonna Doni and plans to do the same with some other masterpieces. The State Hermitage Museum used NFT tokens to create unique copies of its objects. At the same time, two digital copies of each piece of art were created before the sale, one of which was transferred to the buyer, and the second remained in the museum.

Consider the process of selling the above-mentioned work "Everydays: the First 5000 Days" by Mike Winkelman (Beeple). If we analyze the contract concluded between the seller and the buyer, we can conclude that the exclusive rights were not transferred by the buyer. The art object was tokenized on the MarkersPlace platform, the terms of use of this platform stipulate that the service receives a license for the uploaded material, and the object can be sold by one user to another. However, the transfer of exclusive rights to the tokenized art object is not mentioned in this act. Despite this, it can be concluded that such licenses concluded between the author of the work and the platform on which it is tokenized in the future may include reservations that by purchasing the work, the exclusive rights to the object are transferred to the buyer.

In this regard, buyers of digital art today do not have the legal right to use the art objects they have purchased. They do not have the right to make a profit, for example, by creating products with their image for sale on the commercial market or by exhibiting them in special galleries for a fee. This significantly violates the interests of the subjects, which requires the introduction of ideas into the legal sphere about the legal status of NFT as a technology capable of certifying the rights to objects in a digital environment.

In what way is it possible to overcome this legal uncertainty? The logical answer to this question, based on the identified problems, is to amend the Civil Code of the Russian Federation, namely, fixing the definition of a non-interchangeable token in it, as well as including it in the list of results of intellectual activity. These provisions are part of Draft Law No. 126586-8 "On Amendments to Article 1225 of Part Four of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation"^[6] This draft law proposes the following amendments to the article: "a non-interchangeable token of a unique digital asset (images, videos or other digital content or asset) in the form of non-interchangeable data stored in a distributed storage system registry (blockchain system)".  The authors of the bill believe that these amendments will ensure the protection of those who currently own non-interchangeable tokens and face various kinds of fraud. For the same purpose, it is proposed to supplement Article 1225 and include a non-interchangeable token in the closed list of results of intellectual activity and means of individualization.

Some experts agreed that this draft law reflects the key characteristics of the NFT and, therefore, when adopted, it will have a positive impact on legal regulation. At the same time, it also cannot but raise certain questions. So, the partner of ASB Consulting Group Tatyana Lukyanova believes that a digital asset that is identified by a token is not always unique. For example, an author can put his work on the NFT exchange and use the same work as a performance under a license agreement.

The conclusion of the Legal Department of the State Duma on the draft law also indicates that fixing the definition of a non-interchangeable token in the legislation is not enough to provide it with legal protection. "However, the legal regime of tokens is not defined in the legislation of the Russian Federation, therefore, only the introduction of the relevant term in the law is not enough to provide a token as a result of intellectual activity with legal protection in accordance with part four of the said Code. In addition, the implementation of the proposed change will require regulation of issues related to the validity period of the exclusive right to a token as a result of intellectual activity, the basis and procedure for the emergence of this right, its extension, transfer, termination, and so on. These issues have not been resolved in the draft law."^[7] The Legal Department of the State Duma has established that in order to provide legal protection to the NFT, it is also necessary to resolve issues such as the procedure for the emergence and validity of the exclusive right, etc. Moreover, there is no legislative definition of the components of a non-interchangeable token, for example, blockchain, digital asset, digital content, etc. Some experts also believe that amendments are only in The Tax Code of the Russian Federation is not enough, for more thorough regulation of the NFT market, amendments should be made not only to the Civil Code of the Russian Federation, but also to the Law "On Digital Financial Assets" and the federal draft "Regulatory Regulation of the digital Environment".

Thus, NFT and digital art today represent a very contradictory phenomenon. On the one hand, crypto-art attracts a significant number of young artists around the world. This is directly indicated by both artists and gallery owners who love and appreciate their community of colleagues and clients. Artist Sergio Scalet of the Hackatao art duo emphasizes that digital art allows them to move through physical and digital spaces with unprecedented speed and freedom of experimentation. Technology allows creators of digital art to interact with colleagues around the world, increase the amount of art sold, which is also important for galleries and museums, which are only happy to "attract" new buyers. In addition, the uniqueness of NFT, as mentioned earlier, allows you to almost completely eliminate the possibility of forgery of a work of art, as well as to ensure anonymity, transparency and authenticity between authors and purchasers. For artists, digital art also offers a way to directly sell their works without mediation and at an unprecedented speed, which is also an extremely profitable advantage.

At the same time, from a legal point of view, digital art and non-interchangeable tokens raise many questions. This is primarily due to the lack of unified legislation and chaotic legal acts in various legal systems. This leads to a large number of disputes and in the future the situation can only worsen if the relevant legal acts are not adopted in the near future.