NASA Forbids Creators From Making NFTs Out Of Its Image Collection

Photo 84458773 © Kvaka9 | Dreamstime.com

Names of all allegiances, commercial and otherwise, have dived headfirst into the realm of non-fungible tokens. But one of the last organizations you should expect to skyrocket into this growing market is NASA, whose eyes are fixated on the cosmos instead.

As you might be aware, the space agency often releases imagery that people can use however they wish. Similar to other US government agencies, most of NASA’s media assets belong in the public domain, giving the public free license to remix them into mugs, T-shirts, and everything in between. Exceptions are its logos, of which express permission is required before businesses can put them on merchandise.

With the burgeoning interest—and exploitation—of NFTs, though, NASA is now setting some boundaries to prevent any of its content from being used beyond its control. As reported by Cointelegraph last month (via SlashGear), NASA has updated its merchandising guidelines to ban the creation of NFTs from everything in its media repository.

“Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) are, in essence, digital tokens owned by someone as a ‘one-of-a-kind’ digital asset. NASA does not wish for its images to be used for these purposes. It is unlawful to falsely claim copyright or other rights in NASA material,” the agency cautions.

“NASA is not approving any merchandising applications involving Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs), as they are not consistent with the categories of products the Agency is approved to merchandise,” it continues. “Further, as stated in the NASA Media Usage Guidelines, NASA does not wish for its images to be used in connection with NFTs.”

Although this means collectors can expect a limit on space-related NFTs in the future, it’s not to say that NASA hasn’t already had a brush in the NFT world. Back in April 2021, Richard Danne—the designer of NASA’s “worm” logomark—teamed up with Anicorn Watches to launch a logo-focused NFT that arrived with a physical NASA-branded watch.

In a similar vein, NASA also frowns upon the use of its branding on “alcohol, food, cosmetics, tobacco, underwear, [and] technology” as they “are not permissible given NASA’s role as a government agency.”

[via SlashGear and Cointelegraph, cover photo 84458773 © Kvaka9 | Dreamstime.com]