5 ms·

Society deems that an original work of art by, say, Pablo Picasso is more valuable than an indistinguishable copy by an unknown or lesser known artist. Making

by cs702 6y ago

Society deems that an original work of art by, say, Pablo Picasso is more valuable than an indistinguishable copy by an unknown or lesser known artist. Making a good copy of a Picasso is not that difficult. Go to any decent art school, and you will find artists who can competently forge a Picasso. Many owners of Picasso artwork in fact display forgeries, which they call "replicas" in polite company, and keep the original works in secure storage, safe from any possible damage. Most people cannot distinguish between an original work and its forgery anyway. In fact, even expert collectors are routinely fooled by forgeries![a] The authenticity of many works of art can be ascertained only by looking at provenance, documentary evidence, and historical context -- an imprecise process riddled with human bias and error. Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are like authentic works of art, except that their authenticity, contents, ownership, and provenance (including date of origin) are protected by strong cryptography, making forgeries impossible for all practical purposes. And society deems that an NFT representing the authentic first tweet by Jack Dorsey -- with its contents, ownership, and provenance protected by cryptography -- is more valuable than an indistinguishable copy of the tweet made by an unknown or lesser known person. -- [a] For example, see https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=fake%20picasso https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=fake%20picasso and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_forgery https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_forgery

xref 6y ago
The analogy breaks down at a copied painting being hard to distinguish but a copied piece of digital art is literally impossible to distinguish, right down to its hash. People who collect Picasso’s want the piece the artists hands truly created, that’s why copies hold no real value. By copying digital art you _are_ getting the work the artists hands created, the identical hash can prove it.
- fullshark 6y ago
  Most of them want it for investment purposes + to be able to impress their peers/strangers. This might provide that same utility.
- qqii 6y ago
  NFT art pieces have an associated file that can be copied but the (nft token, public key) pair on the blockchain is unique, where the NFT token is created with a public key associated with the artist. Your copy of the associated file is just a copy of the file. You cannot associate another public key with the nft token. As far as we know this is the only reasonable and foolproof way to define digital ownership, digitally.
  - cphoover 6y ago
    What is to prevent duplication or deletion of the private key though?
    - qqii 6y ago
      There are 2^160 possible ethereum addresses so duplication is effectively impossible. Like any kind of asymmetric cryptography if you loose your private key that's game over.
orf 6y ago
It’s not really ownership though is it. The tweet is Jack’s, he can delete it if he wishes. It’s more like buying a slip of paper that says you own this particular Picasso, but the person you brought it from still has full control of it and the only thing you can do is look at it through glass like any other visitor regardless of your slip of paper. And the whole fake/original breaks down in the physical world. How do you tie it to the physical goods in a way that can’t be fraudulent?
- undefined1 6y ago
  > he can delete it if he wishes or by Twitter itself if Jack is at some point deemed problematic enough by modern puritans.
  - orf 6y ago
    If he turns out to be a Nazi, sure. Probably for the best.
    - garbagetime 6y ago
      Whether it's for the best seems irrelevant, the point is that it is a possibility.
- manjana 6y ago
  > It’s not really ownership though is it. The tweet is Jack’s, he can delete it if he wishes. Would there not be some liability in doing so? Legally the buyer does own it (it seems) and Jack simply has control over it.
  - bdonlan 6y ago
    First, is a tweet even a thing you can own, legally? You can own the copyright and you can enter into a contract where you promise not to delete it, but a tweet is ultimately something that is displayed and processed by, and exists at the pleasure of Twitter; they're not a party to your NFT shenanigans and therefore not bound to any of it. As for the hypothetical contract not to delete it yourself, you'd probably have a good argument that there was no clear meeting of the minds - without an explicit description of what the author intended to be bound to by selling a NFT you'll have a hard time getting the courts to enforce anything about it.
Turing_Machine 6y ago
There's a famous story about Picasso. People would often approach him asking him to authenticate their artworks. One day this happened while an art dealer friend was present. "Fake!", says Picasso. The art dealer was skeptical, so he gave one of his own Picassos to a third party and asked him to check. "Fake!", says Picasso. "But Pablo, I saw you draw that. You gave it to me with your own hands!" "Bah. Anyone can do a fake Picasso. I often do them myself."
dillondoyle 6y ago
art fakes are also a tax dodge. must have the piece in a museum share for a set % of time, in a freeport, etc. Was a great storyline on this in the recent half season of Billions! The billionaire keeps the real ones at his house & the fakes in a freeport (probably happens in real life a lot of Billions story lines are based in real world gossip - e.g. BDSM Schneiderman) In a funny scene prosecutor Chuck finds out and 'spills' wine on the real Van Gough and Bobby the billionaire has a epic grimace the end solution was the billionaire brought in the works by stealth helicopter at night then opened a new non-profit museum for fake art in his apartment to get the tax deduction. totally unreasonable and pointless but an entertaining show.
WalterBright 6y ago
It seems it's not that hard to create fakes that even experts cannot distinguish. See "Made You Look" documentary on Netflix. An authentic painting is one the painter touched. An NFT? He never touched it. I just don't see the attraction.
- detaro 6y ago
  Some counterpoints: Paintings largely done by assistants are nothing new. Bronze statues are cast by foundries, not the artist themselves. And the artwork connected to an NFT can very well be as directly created by the artist as a digital "object" can be. (obviously with selling NFTs for tweets there isn't exactly a quality artwork attached...) It also doesn't really appeal to me personally, but I can see how the logic works.
yowlingcat 6y ago
This is incorrect because it conflates non-fungibility with uniqueness. That is to say, if Jack Dorsey wanted to, he could simply mint /another/ NFT of his first tweet. Now, whether he does this or not is sorta up to him, but it's possible. As other folks have said, it's similar to an autograph or limited edition trading card rather than a one-of-a-kind.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

by cs702 6y ago

xref 6y ago

The analogy breaks down at a copied painting being hard to distinguish but a copied piece of digital art is literally impossible to distinguish, right down to its hash. People who collect Picasso’s want the piece the artists hands truly created, that’s why copies hold no real value. By copying digital art you _are_ getting the work the artists hands created, the identical hash can prove it.

fullshark 6y ago
Most of them want it for investment purposes + to be able to impress their peers/strangers. This might provide that same utility.
qqii 6y ago
NFT art pieces have an associated file that can be copied but the (nft token, public key) pair on the blockchain is unique, where the NFT token is created with a public key associated with the artist. Your copy of the associated file is just a copy of the file. You cannot associate another public key with the nft token. As far as we know this is the only reasonable and foolproof way to define digital ownership, digitally.
- cphoover 6y ago
  What is to prevent duplication or deletion of the private key though?
  - qqii 6y ago
    There are 2^160 possible ethereum addresses so duplication is effectively impossible. Like any kind of asymmetric cryptography if you loose your private key that's game over.

orf 6y ago

It’s not really ownership though is it. The tweet is Jack’s, he can delete it if he wishes. It’s more like buying a slip of paper that says you own this particular Picasso, but the person you brought it from still has full control of it and the only thing you can do is look at it through glass like any other visitor regardless of your slip of paper. And the whole fake/original breaks down in the physical world. How do you tie it to the physical goods in a way that can’t be fraudulent?

undefined1 6y ago
> he can delete it if he wishes or by Twitter itself if Jack is at some point deemed problematic enough by modern puritans.
- orf 6y ago
  If he turns out to be a Nazi, sure. Probably for the best.
  - garbagetime 6y ago
    Whether it's for the best seems irrelevant, the point is that it is a possibility.
manjana 6y ago
> It’s not really ownership though is it. The tweet is Jack’s, he can delete it if he wishes. Would there not be some liability in doing so? Legally the buyer does own it (it seems) and Jack simply has control over it.
- bdonlan 6y ago
  First, is a tweet even a thing you can own, legally? You can own the copyright and you can enter into a contract where you promise not to delete it, but a tweet is ultimately something that is displayed and processed by, and exists at the pleasure of Twitter; they're not a party to your NFT shenanigans and therefore not bound to any of it. As for the hypothetical contract not to delete it yourself, you'd probably have a good argument that there was no clear meeting of the minds - without an explicit description of what the author intended to be bound to by selling a NFT you'll have a hard time getting the courts to enforce anything about it.

Turing_Machine 6y ago

There's a famous story about Picasso. People would often approach him asking him to authenticate their artworks. One day this happened while an art dealer friend was present. "Fake!", says Picasso. The art dealer was skeptical, so he gave one of his own Picassos to a third party and asked him to check. "Fake!", says Picasso. "But Pablo, I saw you draw that. You gave it to me with your own hands!" "Bah. Anyone can do a fake Picasso. I often do them myself."

dillondoyle 6y ago

art fakes are also a tax dodge. must have the piece in a museum share for a set % of time, in a freeport, etc. Was a great storyline on this in the recent half season of Billions! The billionaire keeps the real ones at his house & the fakes in a freeport (probably happens in real life a lot of Billions story lines are based in real world gossip - e.g. BDSM Schneiderman) In a funny scene prosecutor Chuck finds out and 'spills' wine on the real Van Gough and Bobby the billionaire has a epic grimace the end solution was the billionaire brought in the works by stealth helicopter at night then opened a new non-profit museum for fake art in his apartment to get the tax deduction. totally unreasonable and pointless but an entertaining show.

WalterBright 6y ago

It seems it's not that hard to create fakes that even experts cannot distinguish. See "Made You Look" documentary on Netflix. An authentic painting is one the painter touched. An NFT? He never touched it. I just don't see the attraction.

detaro 6y ago
Some counterpoints: Paintings largely done by assistants are nothing new. Bronze statues are cast by foundries, not the artist themselves. And the artwork connected to an NFT can very well be as directly created by the artist as a digital "object" can be. (obviously with selling NFTs for tweets there isn't exactly a quality artwork attached...) It also doesn't really appeal to me personally, but I can see how the logic works.

yowlingcat 6y ago

This is incorrect because it conflates non-fungibility with uniqueness. That is to say, if Jack Dorsey wanted to, he could simply mint /another/ NFT of his first tweet. Now, whether he does this or not is sorta up to him, but it's possible. As other folks have said, it's similar to an autograph or limited edition trading card rather than a one-of-a-kind.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]