Ever post something online and feel like it instantly belonged to everyone but you?
That’s the broken system we’re moving away from. In today’s article, you’ll learn three foundational shifts that are changing how creators get paid, stay in control, and connect with real fans—forever.
This is the kind of stuff you’ll want to share with that one friend who is always dreaming up brilliant ideas but doesn’t know how to protect them.
Scroll to the end for a visual infographic that recaps all three ideas.
Let’s reframe what it means to own your work in the digital age.
🎁Today’s Article Bonuses for our Monthly and Annual Plan Subscribers
The “Mint a Memory” Walkthrough Guide
A “Middlemen Map” Template (free for everyone)
A NFT Royalty Calculator Worksheet
The Ownership Revolution: NFTs and the Future of the Creator Economy 42 page eBook (details at the end)
1. VERIFIABLE DIGITAL OWNERSHIP
Proof creates value; copies don’t.
How do you prove you own something that doesn’t physically exist? In a world of infinite copies, where a right-click can duplicate a masterpiece, the idea of owning a digital file has always felt flimsy, almost imaginary. This is where the core of the Non-Fungible Token (NFT) revolution lies. It’s not about owning a JPEG; it’s about owning a one-of-a-kind, verifiable receipt on a global, public ledger called the blockchain. This receipt, or token, is cryptographically linked to your digital file, creating an unbreakable chain of title. For the first time, your ownership isn't dependent on a platform’s terms of service or the file's location; it's recorded on an immutable, decentralized network. This means your digital art, music file, or even a ticket to an event has the same legitimacy of ownership as a physical deed to a house. Can you feel the shift? It’s the difference between a flimsy print and the original, signed canvas.
What is it like? Imagine you’ve written a beautiful, original poem.
In the old digital world, you could post it online, but anyone could copy and paste it, claiming it as their own. It’s like photocopying your poem; the copies are identical, and the original’s specialness is lost. Now, imagine taking that original poem, written in your own hand, to a master notary who records its existence, your signature, and the exact date in a global, indestructible book that everyone can see but no one can alter. Your poem is now "notarized." People can still make photocopies, but only one person can hold the officially notarized original, and its authenticity and ownership can be verified by anyone, anywhere, at any time. That notarized document is the NFT.
What It Looks Like In Action
Maria, a digital painter, sat across from her gallerist, Leo, in his sleek, minimalist office. A large screen behind him displayed her latest series—vibrant, swirling digital abstracts.
“They’re stunning, Maria. Truly,” Leo said, steepling his fingers. “But the collectors are hesitant. They love the work, but they ask, ‘What am I actually buying? A file I can’t hang on my wall?’”
Maria took a deep breath. “That’s the old way of thinking, Leo. Let me show you something.” She pulled out her tablet and navigated to a public blockchain explorer. She typed in a long string of characters. On the screen, a clear record appeared: ‘Genesis Bloom #1, Created by Artist_Maria_V, Acquired by Collector_0x4b2…’.
“This,” she said, pointing to the screen, “is the new gallery wall. This is the deed. The provenance. Anyone in the world can see that I created it and that only one person owns the original token. They aren’t just buying a file; they are buying the verifiable, singular fact of ownership. We aren't selling prints; we're selling the original manuscript.”
Leo stared at the screen, a slow smile spreading across his face. “So… the bragging rights are publicly recorded forever?”
“Exactly,” Maria grinned. “Forever.”
Remember:
An NFT makes your digital creation provably and uniquely yours on a public ledger. So, your NFT-backed digital creation holds inherent, transferable value.
Do It:
Verify an Asset: Go to an NFT marketplace like OpenSea or Rarible. Find a project you find interesting and click on an item. Find the “Details” section and look for the “Contract Address” and “Token ID.” Click on them. See how it takes you to a public blockchain explorer? You are now independently verifying ownership, no company required.
Explain the Deed: Try explaining this concept to a friend using the house deed analogy. Start by asking them, 'How do you prove you own your house?' Then, transition to the digital world. The goal isn't to make them an expert, but to practice articulating the core value of verifiable ownership yourself.
Mint a Memory: Take a digital photo that has personal meaning—not for sale, but for you. Use a simple minting platform to turn it into an NFT on a low-cost blockchain like Polygon. Experience the process of creating a verifiable digital object that is uniquely yours. Just like Maria showed Leo, you need to see the record to truly get it.
🎁BONUS RESOURCE - For Our Monthly and Annual Substack Subscribers: “Mint a Memory” Walkthrough Guide. A step-by-step PDF that walks you through minting your first NFT on a low-cost platform—perfect for beginners. It helps you see the blockchain record and demystifies the tech. You’ll find it in the Not Theoretical Bonus Resource Library under today’s article name.
2. DISINTERMEDIATION
Skip the middle, speak to your people.
For generations, creators have relied on intermediaries. Think about it: musicians need record labels, authors need publishing houses, artists need galleries. These "gatekeepers" provide distribution, marketing, and validation, but they also take a significant cut of the revenue and often hold immense power over the creator's career and creative choices. What if you could remove that step? Disintermediation is the process of cutting out the middleman, allowing creators to connect and transact directly with their audience. NFTs facilitate this by providing the tools for ownership, sales, and transactions to happen on an open, permissionless network. It’s a fundamental reordering of power, moving from a top-down, gatekept model to a peer-to-peer ecosystem where the primary relationship is between the one who creates and the one who appreciates.
Imagine you're a farmer who grows the most delicious, organic apples.
Traditionally, to sell them, you'd have to go through a large distributor. The distributor buys your apples for a low price, transports them, stores them, and sells them to a supermarket, which then marks them up again before selling to the final customer. By the end, you’ve received a fraction of the final price, and the customer has no connection to you or your farm. Now, imagine setting up a stall right at the entrance of your orchard. You use a simple, trusted cash box where anyone can pay you directly. Customers come, meet you, hear the story of your farm, and buy the apples straight from the source. You get the full retail price, and the customer gets a fresher product and a genuine connection. The NFT marketplace is that farm stall and trusted cash box, open to the whole world.
What It Looks Like In Action
Jamal, a young music producer, was bouncing his leg nervously in a coffee shop, his laptop open to his latest track. Across from him, his older sister, Chloe, took a sip of her latte.
“I just got another rejection email,” Jamal sighed. “The label said the sound is ‘too niche for mainstream radio.’ They want me to add a generic pop vocalist and change the entire beat.”
Chloe leaned forward. “So, don’t go to them. Who cares about mainstream radio? How many true fans do you think you have right now? People who love your actual sound?”
“I don’t know… a few hundred? Maybe a thousand on a good day?”
“Okay,” Chloe said, her eyes lighting up. “So sell the song directly to them. Not as a stream, but as a limited edition collectible. Mint 100 NFT copies of the track. You set the price. You write the rules. No gatekeeper tells you to change your art. You’re not trying to get on the radio; you’re trying to build a career with the 1,000 people who already believe in you.”
Jamal looked at his laptop, then back at Chloe. The frustration in his eyes was slowly replaced by a spark of determination. “So, I just… open up my own shop?”
“You open up your own world,” she replied. “And you invite your fans in directly.”
Remember:
NFTs provide a direct, peer-to-peer system for sales and distribution. So, creators can bypass traditional gatekeepers and monetize their work directly.
Do It:
Map Your Middlemen: Think about a creative skill you have. Who are the traditional gatekeepers between you and a paying customer? A publisher? A gallery? A stock photo site? A record label? Write them down. Now, imagine what a direct-to-fan relationship would look like. This isn’t about burning bridges; it’s about recognizing the path, just as Jamal did.
Follow a Creator: Find an independent creator on a platform like X or Instagram who is using NFTs. Don't buy anything. Just watch. See how they talk to their community? Notice how they announce their drops directly to their followers? You're observing disintermediation in its natural habitat.
Conduct a Direct Sale: Sell something—anything—directly to another person. It could be an old book to a friend or a craft at a local market. Pay attention to the feeling of the direct transaction, the conversation, and the absence of a corporate entity in the middle. This physical act mimics the core principle of the digital version.
🎁BONUS RESOURCE - Free for Everyone: The “Middlemen Map” Template. A worksheet that helps you list traditional gatekeepers for your creative work and imagine alternate paths to direct sales. Helps creatives mentally shift into ownership mode.
3. PROGRAMMABLE ROYALTIES
Your art shouldn’t stop paying when you sell it.
In the traditional art world, an artist might sell a painting for $1,000. Years later, that same painting could be resold at auction for $1,000,000, and the original artist receives nothing. Zero. The same is true for many musicians and writers. The value they created continues to grow and change hands, but their participation in that growth ends with the very first sale. Programmable royalties fundamentally fix this broken model. An NFT can be coded so that the original creator automatically receives a percentage (typically 5-10%) of every future sale of that token, forever. It’s not based on a legal contract that’s difficult to enforce; it’s baked into the code of the asset itself. This happens automatically, peer-to-peer, across any marketplace that honors the standard. Can you imagine the implications? It turns every piece of art into an ongoing revenue stream, aligning the creator's long-term success with the success of their work in the secondary market.
What is it like? Imagine you are a brilliant inventor who creates a new type of self-watering seed.
You sell the first batch of seeds to a local nursery. The nursery owner plants them, and they grow into beautiful, fruit-bearing trees. The nursery then sells those trees to homeowners for a much higher price. Then, the homeowners sell cuttings from those trees to their neighbors. Your original seed has created a whole ecosystem of value, but you only got paid for that first batch. Now, what if your seed was magical? What if every time a tree grown from it, or a cutting from that tree, was sold, a single golden coin magically appeared back in your pocket? The seed itself is coded to reward its creator as the value it produces spreads throughout the world. That magical seed is an NFT with programmable royalties.
What It Looks Like In Action
Anya, a photographer, was reviewing her quarterly earnings. Most of it came from new print sales and a few commercial gigs. She scrolled down to a section labeled "NFT Secondary Sales" and saw a line item for $850.
Her partner, Ben, looked over her shoulder. "What's that? I thought you only sold two NFTs this month, for like, $200 each."
"I did," Anya said, a smile creeping onto her face. "This isn't from a new sale. This is from old sales. Remember that 'Tokyo Glow' piece I sold two years ago for about $150?"
Ben nodded.
"Well, the collector who bought it just sold it to another collector for $5,000. And because I coded a 10% royalty into the NFT, I automatically got $500 of that sale. The 'Desert Mirage' piece from last year was resold too, for $3,500. That's another $350 for me. It's… like my old work is still working for me."
Ben’s eyes went wide. "Without you having to do anything? No lawyers? No invoices?"
"Nope," Anya said, leaning back in her chair. "The code is the lawyer. The network is the bank. It just shows up. It’s the first time I feel like I'm a true partner in the long-term value of my own art."
Remember:
NFTs can have rules coded into them that automatically pay the original creator a percentage of all future sales. As a result, creators can finally earn from the long-term appreciation of their work.
Do It:
Calculate the Royalty: The next time you see a headline about a famous painting selling for millions at auction, look up what it originally sold for. Calculate the difference. Remind yourself that the artist’s estate received none of that secondary sale. This internalizes the problem that programmable royalties solve.
Set Your Terms: If you were to sell a piece of your own work—a photo, a song, a poem, a design—what would you consider a fair royalty percentage? 5%? 8%? 10%? Decide on a number. The act of choosing your own terms, like Anya did, is a powerful mental shift away from the old model where you had no say.
Find the Clause: Go back to an NFT marketplace. Click on a collection and look for the creator royalty percentage. It's usually listed clearly on the main page or in the details. See how transparent it is? This is public information, not hidden in a 50-page legal contract.
🎁BONUS RESOURCE - For Our Monthly and Annual Substack Subscribers: NFT Royalty Calculator Worksheet. A simple spreadsheet that lets you plug in sale prices and royalty percentages to visualize long-term income potential from your creative work. You’ll find it in the Not Theoretical Bonus Resource Library under today’s article name.
TYING IT TOGETHER
In the NFT age, proof, connection, and lifetime value are finally yours.
These three ideas—Verifiable Ownership, Disintermediation, and Programmable Royalties—are not separate concepts; they are a chain reaction. Because you can prove you own a digital item, you no longer need a middleman to legitimize it, allowing for disintermediation. And because you’re operating in this new, direct-to-fan world, you can use smart, programmable royalties to ensure you are compensated for the life of your work. It’s a shift from renting your talent to platforms to building your own creative enterprise. I challenge you to pick one of the "Do It" exercises this week and see how it reframes your perspective. Let me know how it goes. And if you’re ready to see how this foundation can be used to build vibrant communities and navigate this new landscape, look for Part 2 of this series. Now, scroll down for a handy infographic to help you remember what you've learned today.
Remember:
NFTs offer proof, direct access, and lifetime revenue.
🎁Monthly and Annual Plan Subscriber Extras For This Article
1. The Ownership Revolution: NFTs and the Future of the Creator Economy eBook
Tired of chasing algorithms and feeling like you're building your business on rented land? The promise of the creator economy feels out of reach for many, but a fundamental shift is underway.
Understanding these concepts is so important, we developed this 42-page ebook as a practical guide that will teach you:
How to Actually Make Money: Learn about direct-to-fan sales and programmable, lifelong royalties that reward you as your work’s value grows.
How to Build a Real Community: Discover how to use NFTs as a digital key to turn your audience into true stakeholders who are invested in your success.
The Step-by-Step Process: Get a clear, actionable guide to minting your first NFT, choosing the right blockchain, and navigating the ecosystem safely.
2. A “Mint a Memory” Walkthrough Guide
Step-by-step PDF that walks you through minting your first NFT on a low-cost platform—perfect for beginners. It helps you see the blockchain record and demystifies the tech. Supports: Verifiable Ownership
3. A “Middlemen Map” Template
A worksheet that helps you list traditional gatekeepers for your creative work and imagine alternate paths to direct sales. Helps creatives mentally shift into ownership mode. Supports: Disintermediation
4. NFT Royalty Calculator Worksheet
A simple spreadsheet that lets you plug in sale prices and royalty percentages to visualize long-term income potential from your creative work. Supports: Programmable Royalties
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