OpenSea Sunsets Unilateral NFT Creator Royalty Fees

Non-Fungible Token (NFT) Marketplace OpenSea has announced a forthcoming change that will alter how creator royalty fees are handled for secondary sales of NFTs.

This adjustment will specifically affect artists and teams who earn passive income from their creations being resold.

Starting from August 31, artists who launch new projects on OpenSea will no longer be able to impose creator royalty fees on buyers.

What are NFT Creator Royalty Fees on OpenSea?

NFT creator royalty fees make up a small percentage of money, added to the original cost of the NFT, that artists get whenever their digital creations are sold again by someone else.

As such, users that sell NFTs can still get a bit of money every time that NFT is sold to someone new.

Traditionally, these fees, which range from 2.5% to 10%, are added to the cost of NFTs during secondary sales, contributing to the earnings of the creators.

Instead, artists can suggest their desired creator fee, which buyers have the choice to pay as a voluntary tip.

Source: OpenSea

For existing collections on non-Ethereum blockchains and projects that employed OpenSea's Operator Filter, a tool that restricted collections from being sold on rival platforms that didn't enforce creator fees, this setup will persist until February 29, 2024.

Beyond that date, creator fees for NFTs will be made entirely optional across the entire platform.

OpenSea's co-founder and CEO, Devin Finzer said:

"To be clear, creator fees aren't going away—simply the ineffective, unilateral enforcement of them."