Terms of Use

Anonymity of Collectors
ArtChain.info does not request or retain any personal information concerning purchases or transfers of art.  The anonymity of the bitcoin blockchain protects sellers and buyers since a transfer is identified only by the bitcoin address of the current owner and the new owner.  A current owner may link their bitcoin address (last address in the chain) to a webpage if desired, but otherwise the only information tracked by ArtChain.info is the anonymous bitcoin addresses in the chain of ownership.

Copyrights
Artists that register art pieces on ArtChain.info authorize the publication of an image of each art piece on ArtChain.info.  The artists retain all copyrights to the art piece images.  Galleries that register art pieces on ArtChain.info are assumed to have the right to offer each art piece for sale, and therefore their publication of the art piece images on ArtChain.info is considered a fair use and/or explicit grant by each artists to publish the art piece images similar to publishing the images on a gallery website.

General Liability
ArtChain.info assumes no responsibility for any incorrect information published on the website, including any incorrect or invalid registration of any art piece. Buyers of art pieces are encouraged to verify any chain of ownership published on ArtChain.info by evaluating the actual bitcoin blockchain transactions starting from the artist/gallery bitcoin address, for example, using BlockChain.info.  ArtChain.info is not responsible for lost private keys associated with a current owner of an art piece.  ArtChain.info will not re-register any art piece for any reason, including if a current owner loses a private key associated with an art piece.  ArtChain.info is not responsible for any damages suffered by any buyer if a forged art piece is represented as being an authentic art piece that is registered on ArtChain.info. The digital certificate of authenticity published by ArtChain.info is no different than a paper certificate of authenticity except that the ArtChain certificate cannot be forged.  However, similar to a paper certificate a criminal may attempt to sell a forged art piece and claim the art piece is authenticated by a corresponding ArtChain certificate.  In order for this to happen, the criminal would need access to the private key associated with the art piece. For example, a criminal would need to first purchase an authentic art piece in order to gain access to the private key associated with the art piece. Accordingly, ArtChain.info is not a perfect, fail-safe system for authentication, but the odds are fairly small a criminal will purchase an authentic art piece in order to forge and then sell a single fake art piece (and remove the authentic art piece from the chain of ownership tracked by ArtChain.info).  Again, the security provided by an ArtChain.info certificate is no different than the security provided by a paper certificate except that an ArtChain.info certificate cannot be forged whereas it is very easy to forge a paper certificate any number of times.

Lost Private Keys
The current owner of an art piece is responsible for the safe keeping of the private key that enables the transfer of an art piece to a new buyer. If a current owner loses a private key, the corresponding art piece will not be re-registered on ArtChain.info. Losing a private key associated with an art piece will be treated exactly the same as if a private key associated with a bitcoin address is lost (the bitcoin stored by the address is lost forever).

Deceased Artist
When an artist passes away, their ArtChain.info account will be disabled forever so that no new art pieces may be registered under the artist's account.  Art pieces that were not registered by a deceased artist and that are sold by a gallery may be registered under the gallery's ArtChain.info account after being authenticated by the gallery.