5 ms·

It’s easy for a famous entrenched artist who mass produces their work thanks to legacy infrastructure to talk down on this but I’m seeing lots of independent cr

by snissn 6y ago

It’s easy for a famous entrenched artist who mass produces their work thanks to legacy infrastructure to talk down on this but I’m seeing lots of independent creator artist friends making some money for their work

Osmose 6y ago
What property of NFTs has suddenly made them make money where previously they weren't? Like how did adding NFTs to the mix suddenly make their art start selling?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- dimgl 6y ago
  This is exactly what I don't understand. If it's the same art, why does it matter if the art is in an NFT or in a physical representation? Like, why are people buying pieces of art using NFTs?
  - detaro 6y ago
    Digital art doesn't have a natural physical representation, and people find it interesting to get rid of the requirement for creating and maintaining one just to make it a thing to exist as art. I.e. fundamentally digital art pieces are today often sold as part of installations which are a pain to maintain long-term. Or as physical media, which also are difficult to maintain long-term, or if you don't require the specific media to be preserved you get into the chaos of which later copy is an "original". That really only works at an expensive high end. Or you don't create exclusivity and sell it cheaply, but while people do buy e.g. music that apparently doesn't work as well for other art forms (artists certainly have tried). Limited/unique prints apparently do work (as in people are willing to spend money on those), but limits you to static 2D media. In principle nothing stops you from selling digital art with licenses like we do sell software with licenses, but that hasn't caught on, for whatever reason. (I'm actually expecting that to be added to NFTs soon-ish) Enough people do seem to be currently willing to accept the concept of an NFT representing ownership of a digital thing to put a price on it, and that price is noticeably higher than what they pay for non-exclusive digital art. For many artists, that's reason enough to use this new avenue to sell their art.
- seibelj 6y ago
  One amazing use-case is recurring revenue on secondary market sales by coding royalties into the smart contracts. Artists used to die poor and their family saw nothing as their work skyrocketed in value. Not anymore with NFTs.
- Lazare 6y ago
  The problem I think, is that their art still isn't selling. NFTs aren't art, they are effectively trading cards referencing art. These trading cards are, somewhat mysteriously, selling, and that does get money into the hands of artists which is good, but they're not doing it by encouraging people to buy art or tip artists, and it's hard to see how "everyone can just print trading cards referencing things" is a sustainable anything.
  - scsilver 6y ago
    People pay for mods and skins all the time. People will pay secondlife furniture. They will pay to be be able to display it in their VR houses. They will display it like badges on their forum avatars. The speculation and whales will being the capital to generate a steady market and build out the partnerships and incentives for customers. Once people are used to digital wallets, sending a few bucks for instant delivery of some unique design is easier than etsy.
    - Lazare 6y ago
      > People pay for mods and skins all the time. People will pay secondlife furniture. They will pay to be be able to display it in their VR houses. They will display it like badges on their forum avatars. All of those are neat ideas which do not require NFTs, and are not enabled by NFTs. People already pay for Second Life furniture.
      - scsilver 6y ago
        And advantage I see is the shared protocols and blockchains offer quick and seemless ownership validation even after the original merchant has gone out of business or stopped selling. And for the merchants, its painless and seemless to sell and delegate ownership without having to manage that inhouse, or pay a large fee for the service.
  - detaro 6y ago
    I don't have the impression people buying NFT art consider there to be much difference between the art and what you call a "trading card" referencing art. (sure, many probably buy for speculation, but that happens with meatspace art too) Thought experiment: if they sold a digital art piece in traditional terms, would you consider the printed licensing contract (which is our usual legal tool represent selling a file) to be a "trading card" and the art itself to be not sold? (the legal meaning of an NFT is less defined, true, but I suspect people will tie licensing contracts into that soon enough) Especially in art, a lot of this comes ultimately down to social convention of what people do consider to have value, and as long as enough people agree it doesn't really matter what the rest of us thinks. (I think I get how the logic works for NFTs, but it doesn't work for me in the sense that I currently don't consider owning an NFT to be meaningful to me, unlike owning other kinds of (representations of) art)
- lmm 6y ago
  Previously there was no way to credibly sell an "original". You can produce a commission for someone, but the nature of a digital artwork is that anyone you show it to has the whole thing. To a certain extent this was already the case with photos, and IMO that's part of the reason that prices for photographic artwork are much lower than other media. You'll sometimes see photographers selling a series of 500 numbered prints (or whatever) as a sort of a way around that, and NFTs are kind of a more digital version of that.
  - tigen 6y ago
    No, the NFTs are a separate thing which apparently has some sort of sentimental value. The digital artwork is still whatever it was before. I could sell an NFT for my cuckoo clock. It has nothing to do with my cuckoo clock.
    - lmm 6y ago
      It's akin to a certificate of authenticity for a numbered print in a series. Anyone can make another copy of the print, and it doesn't really matter which copy a certificate goes with, but without the certificate the print is worthless.
- knrz 6y ago
  I think it has to do with the money being held in crypto... the whales have more than they’ll need and are looking for reasons to spend it.
- jb775 6y ago
  Well for one, NFTs on art create a unique money laundering strategy. Drug dealer buys an art NFT for $1k (using legit money), sells the NFT plus a bag of drugs to someone for $10k. They just made $9k in "artwork" profit, which is clean money....and since the value of art is always subjective, it can't really be questioned. On top of that, all monetary exchanges and transactions can be handled via smart contracts, so this reduces risk to everyone involved.
  - herbst 6y ago
    Yeah i am not going to buy relevant amount of drugs on something that has a visible public history when i easily cant. I think you highly underestimate how liquid the crypto craze market really is.
- dorkwood 6y ago
  I suppose the reality one would have to buy in to is that people were previously sitting around with tens of thousands in disposable cash ready to spend on art, but were held back by the fact that ownership of the art could not be proven digitally.
- thepasswordis 6y ago
  Access to markets. Like it or not, there are many, many wealthy cryptocurrency holders. NFTs are a way of exposing the new artist class to the new rich.
centizen 6y ago
It's also easy to discount someone's arguments by writing them off as an "entrenched artist" and implying their opinion is invalid and old fashioned. I'm not so convinced, especially when Seth has been a major proponent of digital currencies and economies for decades now.

by snissn 6y ago

Osmose 6y ago

What property of NFTs has suddenly made them make money where previously they weren't? Like how did adding NFTs to the mix suddenly make their art start selling?

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
dimgl 6y ago
This is exactly what I don't understand. If it's the same art, why does it matter if the art is in an NFT or in a physical representation? Like, why are people buying pieces of art using NFTs?
- detaro 6y ago
  Digital art doesn't have a natural physical representation, and people find it interesting to get rid of the requirement for creating and maintaining one just to make it a thing to exist as art. I.e. fundamentally digital art pieces are today often sold as part of installations which are a pain to maintain long-term. Or as physical media, which also are difficult to maintain long-term, or if you don't require the specific media to be preserved you get into the chaos of which later copy is an "original". That really only works at an expensive high end. Or you don't create exclusivity and sell it cheaply, but while people do buy e.g. music that apparently doesn't work as well for other art forms (artists certainly have tried). Limited/unique prints apparently do work (as in people are willing to spend money on those), but limits you to static 2D media. In principle nothing stops you from selling digital art with licenses like we do sell software with licenses, but that hasn't caught on, for whatever reason. (I'm actually expecting that to be added to NFTs soon-ish) Enough people do seem to be currently willing to accept the concept of an NFT representing ownership of a digital thing to put a price on it, and that price is noticeably higher than what they pay for non-exclusive digital art. For many artists, that's reason enough to use this new avenue to sell their art.
seibelj 6y ago
One amazing use-case is recurring revenue on secondary market sales by coding royalties into the smart contracts. Artists used to die poor and their family saw nothing as their work skyrocketed in value. Not anymore with NFTs.
Lazare 6y ago
The problem I think, is that their art still isn't selling. NFTs aren't art, they are effectively trading cards referencing art. These trading cards are, somewhat mysteriously, selling, and that does get money into the hands of artists which is good, but they're not doing it by encouraging people to buy art or tip artists, and it's hard to see how "everyone can just print trading cards referencing things" is a sustainable anything.
- scsilver 6y ago
  People pay for mods and skins all the time. People will pay secondlife furniture. They will pay to be be able to display it in their VR houses. They will display it like badges on their forum avatars. The speculation and whales will being the capital to generate a steady market and build out the partnerships and incentives for customers. Once people are used to digital wallets, sending a few bucks for instant delivery of some unique design is easier than etsy.
  - Lazare 6y ago
    > People pay for mods and skins all the time. People will pay secondlife furniture. They will pay to be be able to display it in their VR houses. They will display it like badges on their forum avatars. All of those are neat ideas which do not require NFTs, and are not enabled by NFTs. People already pay for Second Life furniture.
    - scsilver 6y ago
      And advantage I see is the shared protocols and blockchains offer quick and seemless ownership validation even after the original merchant has gone out of business or stopped selling. And for the merchants, its painless and seemless to sell and delegate ownership without having to manage that inhouse, or pay a large fee for the service.
- detaro 6y ago
  I don't have the impression people buying NFT art consider there to be much difference between the art and what you call a "trading card" referencing art. (sure, many probably buy for speculation, but that happens with meatspace art too) Thought experiment: if they sold a digital art piece in traditional terms, would you consider the printed licensing contract (which is our usual legal tool represent selling a file) to be a "trading card" and the art itself to be not sold? (the legal meaning of an NFT is less defined, true, but I suspect people will tie licensing contracts into that soon enough) Especially in art, a lot of this comes ultimately down to social convention of what people do consider to have value, and as long as enough people agree it doesn't really matter what the rest of us thinks. (I think I get how the logic works for NFTs, but it doesn't work for me in the sense that I currently don't consider owning an NFT to be meaningful to me, unlike owning other kinds of (representations of) art)
lmm 6y ago
Previously there was no way to credibly sell an "original". You can produce a commission for someone, but the nature of a digital artwork is that anyone you show it to has the whole thing. To a certain extent this was already the case with photos, and IMO that's part of the reason that prices for photographic artwork are much lower than other media. You'll sometimes see photographers selling a series of 500 numbered prints (or whatever) as a sort of a way around that, and NFTs are kind of a more digital version of that.
- tigen 6y ago
  No, the NFTs are a separate thing which apparently has some sort of sentimental value. The digital artwork is still whatever it was before. I could sell an NFT for my cuckoo clock. It has nothing to do with my cuckoo clock.
  - lmm 6y ago
    It's akin to a certificate of authenticity for a numbered print in a series. Anyone can make another copy of the print, and it doesn't really matter which copy a certificate goes with, but without the certificate the print is worthless.
knrz 6y ago
I think it has to do with the money being held in crypto... the whales have more than they’ll need and are looking for reasons to spend it.
jb775 6y ago
Well for one, NFTs on art create a unique money laundering strategy. Drug dealer buys an art NFT for $1k (using legit money), sells the NFT plus a bag of drugs to someone for $10k. They just made $9k in "artwork" profit, which is clean money....and since the value of art is always subjective, it can't really be questioned. On top of that, all monetary exchanges and transactions can be handled via smart contracts, so this reduces risk to everyone involved.
- herbst 6y ago
  Yeah i am not going to buy relevant amount of drugs on something that has a visible public history when i easily cant. I think you highly underestimate how liquid the crypto craze market really is.
dorkwood 6y ago
I suppose the reality one would have to buy in to is that people were previously sitting around with tens of thousands in disposable cash ready to spend on art, but were held back by the fact that ownership of the art could not be proven digitally.
thepasswordis 6y ago
Access to markets. Like it or not, there are many, many wealthy cryptocurrency holders. NFTs are a way of exposing the new artist class to the new rich.

centizen 6y ago

It's also easy to discount someone's arguments by writing them off as an "entrenched artist" and implying their opinion is invalid and old fashioned. I'm not so convinced, especially when Seth has been a major proponent of digital currencies and economies for decades now.