⚠️ Enforcement Challenges: Optional Royalties
Discover why marketplaces can choose to ignore royalties
Understand how creators earn from secondary sales
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0 / 5 completed⚔️ The Royalty Wars: Enforcement Reality
EIP-2981 provides a standard way to declare royalties, but it cannot enforce them. NFT transfers happen on-chain, while royalty payments are marketplace-dependent. This creates a fundamental tension: creators want guaranteed income, collectors want lower costs, and marketplaces compete for volume.
The Core Problem
ERC-721 tokens can be transferred directly between wallets without any marketplace involvement. A buyer can check royaltyInfo(), then simply ignore it and transfer the NFT using transferFrom(). There's no technical way for the smart contract to prevent this—royalties are purely a marketplace-layer convention.
🔄 Interactive: Platform Policy Comparison
Compare how different marketplace enforcement strategies impact creators and collectors.
Enforcing Platforms
Royalties required on all sales
🎨 Creator Impact
💼 Collector Impact
Implementation Methods
- •Operators blocklist (blocks zero-royalty platforms)
- •On-chain validation before transfers
- •Allowlist of approved marketplaces
- •Creator Earnings Enforcement (CEE) by OpenSea
📅 Timeline: The Royalty Wars (2022-2023)
🛠️ Creator Solutions
On-Chain Enforcement
- •Operator Filter Registry (blocklists)
- •Custom transfer validators
- •Allowlist-only transfers
Alternative Models
- •Membership models (revenue share)
- •Staking rewards instead of royalties
- •Harberger tax / continuous auctions
💡 Key Insight
The royalty wars revealed a harsh truth: technical standards cannot enforce business models. EIP-2981 works perfectly as designed—it communicates royalty terms clearly. But marketplace competition for trading volume created a race to the bottom. The future likely involves hybrid approaches: on-chain enforcement for collections that want it, optional royalties for maximum liquidity, and alternative revenue models that don't rely on resale fees.