Abstract
When people buy a non-fungible token (NFT), they often say they have bought a piece of art. In law, this short phrase hides three separate things: the token recorded on a blockchain, the creative work the token points to, and the permission, if any, that lets the buyer do something with that work. This article argues that most confusion about NFTs disappears once these three layers are kept apart. It draws on the views of four scholars: Joshua Fairfield, Andres Guadamuz, Primavera De Filippi with Aaron Wright, and Aaron Perzanowski with Jason Schultz. It compares the position in Uzbekistan with that in England and Wales, the European Union and the United States. Uzbekistan turns out to be further ahead than commonly assumed, because its regulator already defines the non-fungible token as a separate kind of crypto-asset and treats it as a property right. What is still missing is a clear statement about how that token relates to the copyright in the work behind it. The article ends with practical suggestions for closing that gap. Where a sentence carries no reference number, it is the author's own reasoning rather than a report of a source.
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