Looking back on our history, we can see that change sometimes comes about gradually but sometimes with a considerable jolt. Often this jolt, for example, in a market like the art market, occurs so suddenly that only a few players have enough time to react adequately to this trend. The market participants are, so to speak, overrun by the developments - and only chance decides how much of the old world remains after the change.

The art world is currently in such a phase, which is being triggered by digitization. NFTs and artificial intelligence are leveraging the previously applicable laws in the market. Many need to be rethought in a new and very fundamental way. Terms like "intellectual property" needs to be redefined. As long as one deals with texts or music, the matter seems clear - even though enormous changes are also occurring here. But the situation is even more complicated in art. In addition to the purely ideal value of a work of art, there is also the material value. And in the best case, the value of the artwork increases with each resale.

Until now, artists have been excluded from this process of increasing value. For a long time, this was the sore point of a business model that least rewards the people most closely and personally connected to the "product." With the advent of NFTs, that changed. Suddenly, it was possible to collect sales shares on NFT retail sites such as Open Sea or Super Rare, which were given the lovely name of royalties and were around 10 percent.

But here, too, old market mechanisms took hold: Few collectors wanted to give up a privilege in the new art world that they already had in the old. Under pressure from collectors, dealers refrained from charging royalties or left it to artists and collectors to negotiate this in turn. Which in the end leads to the same result.

But there are already new considerations: How would it be if there were marketplaces to which only those with access are willing to pay royalties? Those who pay would then have the chance to get hold of the best works of art. Those who pay may also say of themselves that they treat artists fairly. It would be a meaningful, long overdue step.