OpenSea promises to enforce NFT royalties

OpenSea, an NFT marketplace, declared this afternoon that it would keep enforcing creator royalty fees in the future.

Following strong opposition from the community, OpenSea, the largest NFT marketplace by trading volume, today announced that it will keep enforcing creator royalties on NFTs.

Following a wave of competing marketplaces that had either rejected such fees or made them optional for traders to pay, OpenSea announced on November 5 that it was rethinking its policy towards enforcing creator royalty fees on NFTs.

The NFT artist or creator determines the royalty fee, which typically ranges from 5% to 10% of the secondary sale price.

The company noted that they began soliciting advice from their community in order to understand a variety of perspectives, which would aid them in making sense of the trends and behaviors they were observing.

OpenSea set a self-imposed deadline of December 8 to collect community feedback and consider potential courses of action, which included making creator fees optional for traders, only enforcing them on certain types of NFT collections, or implementing new enforcement methods.

The prospect of the market’s largest NFT platform ceasing to enforce royalties did not sit well with many prominent creators, including the creator of Bored Ape Yacht Club, Yuga Labs, who vocally resisted OpenSea and began organizing amongst themselves.