Pakistani artists, studios and developers sell NFTs to buyers abroad, and Pakistani buyers hold tokens issued from platforms they will never be able to sue.
The recurring misunderstanding is simple and expensive: people believe buying a token means buying the thing it depicts. Usually it does not.
What a token is, and what it is not
An NFT is a record on a blockchain pointing to something — typically an image, a file, or an entry in a database. Buying it transfers the token.
Whether it transfers anything else depends entirely on the terms of sale, and in most cases:
Copyright does not transfer. Ownership of a copy, or of a token pointing to a copy, is not ownership of the copyright. Under Pakistani copyright law an assignment must be in writing, and a mint page with no terms is not an assignment.
The buyer usually gets a licence, if anything — often a personal, non-commercial licence, sometimes broader, sometimes nothing at all.
The asset may not even be stored on-chain. Many tokens point to a URL. If that server or gateway disappears, the token remains and the image does not. Where the file is on decentralised storage, the position is better but depends on someone continuing to pin it.
Moral rights — attribution and integrity — remain with the author regardless.
For sellers and buyers alike, the practical conclusion is the same: the terms are the product. Publish them, and read them.
See copyright for creators and content businesses and who owns AI-generated content.
For Pakistani creators selling
Decide and publish, before you mint:
- What the buyer gets — display rights, commercial use, resale, derivative works
- What you retain — including the right to license the work elsewhere
- Royalties on secondary sales, and the honest position: enforcement depends on marketplace policy, not on the blockchain, and many marketplaces have made them optional
- Whether you actually own the rights you are selling. Minting work you do not own — a photograph, a character, a brand, or work produced by a contractor without a written assignment — is straightforward infringement
- Where the file lives, and for how long
Also deal with the money properly. Sales to foreign buyers are export receipts, and proceeds should reach Pakistan through the banking channel with documentation — the same discipline as any other IT export, and it matters more here because crypto rails attract scrutiny. See cryptocurrency and digital assets and setting up a software house.
For buyers
Ask four questions before paying:
- Who is selling, and can they be identified and sued?
- What rights come with the token, in writing?
- Where is the underlying file, and who guarantees its availability?
- Do they own it? Minting someone else's work is common, and the marketplace's remedy is to delist — not to refund you.
Understand that a transfer of crypto is generally irreversible, that platforms are usually offshore with terms selecting a foreign forum, and that recovery is consequently difficult. See enforcing foreign judgments and awards.
Tokenised real-world assets: a different and heavier question
Tokens representing real estate, shares in a company, revenue shares, gold, or "investment units" are not the same as digital collectibles.
Where an arrangement involves people contributing money in expectation of a return generated by others' efforts, it looks like an investment offering — and offering securities or collective investment arrangements to the public in Pakistan without authorisation is a regulated matter, whatever technology wraps it.
Structuring a tokenised property or revenue-share offering therefore requires:
- Advice on whether the instrument is a security or a collective investment scheme under the applicable law
- The authorisation position with SECP, and the payments and foreign exchange position with the State Bank
- The legal link between the token and the underlying asset. A token is a record; ownership of Pakistani immovable property is transferred by a registered deed. If the token does not connect to a legally enforceable interest, holders own nothing but an entry. See stamp duty and registration
- AML obligations on whoever operates it
See fintech licensing and cloud contracts and data localisation.
Anyone selling tokenised property returns to Pakistani retail investors without having resolved these questions is running a significant risk — and so are the investors. See investment scams and Ponzi schemes.
Fraud patterns to recognise
Rug pulls — a project raises funds and disappears.
Wash trading to manufacture the appearance of a market.
Fake collections copying a known project's art and branding, which is both infringement and fraud. See counterfeits and brand enforcement.
Fake marketplaces and phishing for wallet keys. Signing a malicious approval can drain a wallet in one transaction, and it is irreversible.
"Free mint" and airdrop scams requiring a wallet connection.
If you have been defrauded, preserve wallet addresses, transaction hashes, screenshots and the counterparty's details, and report promptly to the platform and to the FIA Cyber Crime Wing. See reporting online fraud and cybercrime and an FIA notice.
Tax, and passing it on
Gains on disposal of digital assets have to be considered under the Income Tax Ordinance, and — more importantly in practice — the source of funds used to acquire them will be examined if they are ever converted into visible assets in Pakistan. Keep acquisition records, exchange statements and wallet addresses.
On death, tokens held in self-custody are lost unless someone can access the wallet. Deal with digital assets expressly in estate planning. See making a will where assets are in two countries.
How the firm can help
We draft NFT sale terms and licences that say what a buyer actually receives, advise creators on rights they hold and can sell, review tokenisation structures against the securities, payments and property law position before launch, and act where work has been minted without permission or where a client has been defrauded.
See intellectual property or regulatory and compliance, or contact the firm.