Chinese multinational east-commerce business firm Alibaba Grouping Holding has launched a new nonfungible token (NFT) marketplace allowing trademark holders to sell tokenized licenses to their intellectual property.

The new NFT marketplace, dubbed "Blockchain Digital Copyright and Asset-Trade," can be accessed via Alibaba'due south Auction platform. NFTs launched via the platform will be issued on the "New Copyright Blockchain" — a distributed ledger technology platform centrally operated by the Sichuan Blockchain Association Copyright Committee.

Co-ordinate to a Tuesday report from Alibaba-endemic news publication South Prc Morning Mail (SCMP), the market hopes to target writers, musicians, artists and game developers.

The market place is already alive, hosting several NFTs that are ready to be auctioned side by side calendar month. Bidders must post a deposit of 500 yuan (roughly $77) to participate in auctions. Each upcoming auction has set a reserve toll of $15 each.

Buyers can view their collections via crypto portfolio application Scrap Universe, which is integrated into WeChat.

Commenting on the new marketplace, SCMP reporter Josh Ye tweeted that "although the engineering itself does not forestall unauthorised copying. Sales include complete ownership of works purchased through the platform."

Many NFTs on brandish do non articulate what rights are afforded to purchasers, with one NFT even appearing to describe unlicensed Star Wars fan art.

Related: Musician sells rights to deepfake her voice using NFTs

While this is Alibaba'south biggest NFT announcement to engagement, many of the business firm's subsidiaries take already embraced nonfungible tokens.

In July, Cointelegraph reported that Alibaba-owned e-commerce platform Taobao showcased NFTs for the first time at its almanac Maker Festival, which celebrates Chinese fine art and entrepreneurship. The event hosted the sale of NFT-based real estate created by Chinese creative person Huang Heshan.

In the same month, SCMP launched an NFT project named "Artifact" that included tokenized historical moments reported by the publication from its 118-yr-old archive, such as the handover of Hong Kong from the Uk to Communist china in 1997.