--- title: "The Illusion of Ownership in Digital Art | Mondoir Research" description: "'The Illusion of Ownership in Digital Art' by Amir Soleymani — a consumer-protection paper on why an NFT sale cannot transfer true ownership of the artwork." url: "https://mondoir.com/research" dateModified: "2026-06-20" --- Position Papers · Technical–Legal Analysis # Research Independent inquiry at the intersection of art, technology, and law — examining the systems behind digital ownership and the gap between what consumers are told and what they actually receive. [Read the overview](https://mondoir.com/#paper) Consumer-Protection Position Paper — 20 June 2026 ## The Illusion of Ownership *in Digital Art* Why a "sale" of a digital asset cannot transfer true ownership or control to the consumer. A technical and legal analysis for regulators, courts, and practitioners across all jurisdictions. By Amir Soleymani — founder of Mondoir 7 Major NFT platforms shut down (2017–2026) 650,000+ Artworks placed at risk by a single closure $69.3M Beeple sale minted on a now-closed platform $230M+ Primary sales on Foundation before it closed The Central Finding A collector sees an artwork and pays for a token marketed as securing blockchain-guaranteed ownership of it. What they receive is a token that genuinely has those properties — attached to an artwork that has none of them. The blockchain's properties — immutability, verified scarcity, transparent provenance — apply to the token record. They cannot apply to the image or video stored on someone else's server, controlled by someone else's contract, accessible only through someone else's infrastructure. The Four Structural Failures ### Four independent reasons true ownership is impossible 01 #### The smart contract is controlled The artist or platform can change what the token points to — altering, redirecting, or destroying the artwork — at any time, without the holder's consent and often without any trace. 02 #### The asset is not stored with the owner The artwork lives on private corporate servers, or at best on decentralised storage that depends on third parties continuing to pay for it. Either can disappear, leaving the token pointing to a blank page. 03 #### Access to the blockchain is centralised In practice, nearly all consumers reach the blockchain through a handful of commercial gateway providers who have already restricted access from certain jurisdictions — and can do so again. 04 #### The asset cannot exist without infrastructure A digital artwork needs electricity, a device, software, and usually the internet just to be seen. Remove any of these and the artwork does not exist — a constraint that does not apply to a physical painting. The Regulatory Gap ### Sold as a purchase, structured as a subscription. The buyer pays in full, up front, for access that depends entirely on a provider's continued operation and good faith. Subscription services that are honest about this dependency are regulated accordingly. NFTs — which carry the same dependency while marketing the opposite — are not. What the Paper Asks ### Three remedies for regulators and practitioners The paper does not call for a ban on digital art or blockchain technology — only for what should be uncontroversial in any developed legal system. 1. #### Honest marketing Prohibit the unqualified use of "own," "permanent," and "sale" where the underlying facts do not support those terms. 2. #### Point-of-sale disclosure A standardised label that tells buyers, in plain language, where the artwork is stored, who controls it, and what happens if the platform closes. 3. #### Service classification Treat dependency-bearing NFTs as service transactions for consumer protection — attracting the same disclosure and continuity duties as subscriptions. Full paper published — free download ### Read the complete paper The full analysis — technical evidence, legal framework, a concrete case study, and detailed recommendations — is published here in full and free to download as a PDF. [Download the full paper (PDF)](https://mondoir.com/papers/the-illusion-of-ownership-in-digital-art.pdf) [Contact the author →](mailto:gm@mondoir.com?subject=Research%20enquiry) ## Structured data ```json { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@graph": [ { "@type": "Organization", "@id": "https://mondoir.com/#organization", "name": "Mondoir LLC FZ", "alternateName": "Mondoir", "url": "https://mondoir.com", "logo": { "@type": "ImageObject", "url": "https://mondoir.com/mondoir-logo.png" }, "description": "Dubai-based innovation company building products across art technology, AI education, and autonomous agents.", "founder": { "@type": "Person", "@id": "https://mondoir.com/#amir-soleymani", "name": "Amir Soleymani", "alternateName": "Mondoir", "url": "https://mondoir.com", "jobTitle": "Founder & CEO", "sameAs": [ "https://linkedin.com/in/mondoir", "https://instagram.com/mondoir", "https://twitter.com/mondoir", "https://www.mondoir.xyz/", "https://www.artsy.net/artist/amir-mondoir-soleymani" ] }, "address": { "@type": "PostalAddress", "addressLocality": "Dubai", "addressRegion": "Meydan Freezone", "addressCountry": "AE" }, "contactPoint": { "@type": "ContactPoint", "email": "gm@mondoir.com", "telephone": "+971-4-834-3296", "contactType": "General" }, "sameAs": [ "https://instagram.com/mondoir", "https://twitter.com/mondoir", "https://linkedin.com/in/mondoir", "https://tiktok.com/@mondoir" ] }, { "@type": "WebSite", "@id": "https://mondoir.com/#website", "url": "https://mondoir.com", "name": "Mondoir", "publisher": { "@id": "https://mondoir.com/#organization" }, "inLanguage": "en" }, { "@type": "WebPage", "@id": "https://mondoir.com/research#webpage", "url": "https://mondoir.com/research", "name": "The Illusion of Ownership in Digital Art | Mondoir Research", "description": "'The Illusion of Ownership in Digital Art' by Amir Soleymani — a consumer-protection paper on why an NFT sale cannot transfer true ownership of the artwork.", "isPartOf": { "@id": "https://mondoir.com/#website" }, "about": { "@id": "https://mondoir.com/#organization" }, "publisher": { "@id": "https://mondoir.com/#organization" }, "breadcrumb": { "@id": "https://mondoir.com/research#breadcrumb" }, "mainEntity": { "@id": "https://mondoir.com/research#article" }, "inLanguage": "en" }, { "@type": "BreadcrumbList", "@id": "https://mondoir.com/research#breadcrumb", "itemListElement": [ { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 1, "name": "Home", "item": "https://mondoir.com" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 2, "name": "Research", "item": "https://mondoir.com/research" } ] }, { "@type": "ScholarlyArticle", "@id": "https://mondoir.com/research#article", "headline": "The Illusion of Ownership in Digital Art", "alternativeHeadline": "Why a sale of a digital asset cannot transfer true ownership or control to the consumer", "url": "https://mondoir.com/research", "dateModified": "2026-06-20", "creativeWorkStatus": "Published — full paper available as a free PDF download on mondoir.com/research", "encoding": { "@type": "MediaObject", "contentUrl": "https://mondoir.com/papers/the-illusion-of-ownership-in-digital-art.pdf", "encodingFormat": "application/pdf" }, "inLanguage": "en", "author": { "@type": "Person", "@id": "https://mondoir.com/#amir-soleymani", "name": "Amir Soleymani" }, "publisher": { "@id": "https://mondoir.com/#organization" }, "about": [ "Digital art", "NFT", "Consumer protection", "Blockchain", "Digital ownership" ], "abstract": "A consumer-protection position paper arguing that, on prevailing market practice, the sale of an NFT does not transfer true ownership or control of the underlying digital artwork, and proposing disclosure and classification remedies for regulators." } ] } ```