When A Museum Buys An NFT: Legal Challenges And Considerations

The story of our NFT self-experiment does not end with the selling of the token. To the contrary, it is only the start: The buyer - in our case the Museum Francisco Carolinum in Linz - wants to use the artwork for their purposes. In general, what legal considerations should a museum keep in mind?

The tasks of a museum

The Austrian Federal Museums Act 2002¹ describes the tasks of federal museums, in accordance with an international standard, as follows: The federal museums are cultural institutions which, within the framework of a permanent social discourse, are to collect, conserve, scientifically process and document the testimonies of the past and present, including those of the arts, entrusted to them and make them accessible to a broad public. They are intended to increase and preserve the collection entrusted to them and to present it to the public in such a way that the processing awakens understanding for developments and connections between social,