NFT Royalties: How Creators Earn Forever and Why It Matters

When you buy an NFT royalty, a smart contract rule that gives the original creator a percentage of every future sale. Also known as secondary sales commission, it’s the only way digital artists get paid long after their work leaves their hands. Before NFTs, if someone bought your digital art and resold it for ten times more, you got nothing. Now, thanks to blockchain, you can earn 5%, 10%, even 25% every time it changes hands—no middleman, no negotiation, just code doing its job.

This system relies on NFT marketplaces, platforms like OpenSea, Blur, or Magic Eden where NFTs are bought and sold to enforce those rules. But here’s the catch: not all marketplaces play fair. Some, like OpenSea, used to honor royalties automatically. Now, they let buyers ignore them. That’s a big deal. If buyers can skip paying creators, the whole system starts to break. Artists lose income. New creators get discouraged. The incentive to make unique art fades. And suddenly, NFT royalties aren’t a promise—they’re a suggestion.

It’s not just about money. digital art ownership, the idea that you can truly own a unique digital item with proof on the blockchain only has value if the creator benefits too. Without royalties, NFTs feel like buying a print of a painting with no rights to the original. The artist doesn’t win. The collector doesn’t win. The whole ecosystem loses trust. That’s why some collectors still pay royalties even when they don’t have to—they believe in the system. And that belief keeps the art alive.

Real NFT projects—like music NFTs on HUSL or AI art on APENFT—rely on royalties to fund future work. If royalties die, those projects die too. That’s why the fight over royalties isn’t just technical. It’s ethical. It’s about who gets to thrive in a digital economy built on creativity. Some platforms say they’re "user-friendly" by letting buyers opt out. But what’s really user-friendly? A marketplace where artists starve, or one where creators keep making because they know they’ll be paid?

Below, you’ll find real reviews and breakdowns of NFT platforms, scams, and projects that either honor creators—or ignore them. Some posts show you how royalties are enforced. Others expose marketplaces that let buyers cheat. You’ll see which NFTs still pay their artists, which ones don’t, and why it matters more than ever in 2025.