OpenSea changes policies for NFT creator’s royalties upon resale

OpenSea, one of the leading NFT marketplaces, said in a blog post last week that the company is retiring its Operator Filter that enables creators to restrict secondary NFT sales to certain web3 marketplaces that enforce creator loyalties.

Operator Filter was introduced by OpenSea only in November of last year and has been adopted by NFT creators to ensure their passive income from the resale of their creations.

According to OpenSea’s X post, the new changes were made following the post-launch findings of the filter that “it relied on opt-in from the entire ecosystem, which didn’t happen”, “creator fees choice is important for collectors and creators”, and “creator fees are just one of many revenue streams available to creators in web3.”

The change doesn’t remove NFTs biggest promise for artists to earn creator fees upon the resale of their creations though. 

Instead, the new policy allows NFT creators to set a preferred fee for buyers to follow while buyers can pay creators’ preference or customize their own amount, which can be set to zero.

The optional creator fees will first apply to those collections that didn’t apply the Operator Filter before Aug 31 and the new NFT collections to be released after Aug 31. 

Existing collections that started applying the Operator Filter before Aug 31 and those on non-Ethereum blockchains will continue to enforce the typically 5 to 10 percent designated creator fees through to the end of Feb 2024 before becoming optional.

With the new optional creator fee, OpenSea said it’s adjusted “in an effort to better reflect the principles of choice and ownership that drive this decentralized ecosystem.”