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An NFT is like a piece of paper titled with the name of the artwork and signed by the artist. Meanwhile, the artwork hangs in a museum and you have no control o

An NFT is like a piece of paper titled with the name of the artwork and signed by the artist. Meanwhile, the artwork hangs in a museum and you have no control over it. Imagine going to the museum and showing people this paper. “Look, I bought this piece of art!” But even though you bought it, you don’t own it, so you aren’t able to take it home or anything like that.

Kiro 6y ago
At least the paper has their signature. This is like a paper with the artwork's name printed on it. The only value is that it was printed by the artist with the promise that they will not print any more. It's like buying useless memorabilias from celebrities. The only value is the fact that the item was used by the celebrity.
- jimkleiber 6y ago
  It seems like a digital signature of the work. If the artist signs 100,000 copies of photographs, the signed versions are worth a lot less, but if they only sign 5 in their lifetime, then they have more value. At least this is how I'm going to currently reinterpret NFTs—as digitally signed artwork/merchandise—I may see it differently tomorrow.
- krrrh 6y ago
  This is actually how lots of photographer artists operate. For instance it’s common for a piece to have 3 editions, and I don’t know of any cases where the artist just decided to produce extra copies after te original production, except for at cost to replace a damaged edition for a collector. It would be professional suicide to devalue work like that. The same goes for film, where a handful of editions may sell, and the collector essentially buys the right to display and loan the work in certain contexts. That is nominally dealing with physical world realities, and the complex social norms at work through networks of galleries, museums, and collectors is a big part of what drives and maintains value and there’s really no reason that the title and provenance systems that work for photographic prints can’t work for digital art in the same way. In fact it has for a couple of decades already without NFTs.
  - Kiro 6y ago
    That's still a physical copy. The token just contains an URL to the hosted image. What are they buying exactly?
avian 6y ago
> An NFT is like a piece of paper titled with the name of the artwork and signed by the artist. I know nothing about NFTs, but in the last few days I’ve seen a few people turn their Twitter accounts private where they previously posted their artworks. Supposedly to prevent sales of NFTs of their art without their approval. No idea if that’s a real issue or not. However there is another comment here saying they sold a NFT of Mona Lisa. It seems that a “piece of paper with a, possibly forged, signature” might be a better comparison.
- dividuum 6y ago
  > Supposedly to prevent sales of NFTs of their art without their approval. No idea if that’s a real issue or not. It is. I guess like with every new crypto pyramid scheme, a bunch of fraudsters show up trying to profit from the FOMO. Have a look at https://twitter.com/simonstalenhag https://twitter.com/simonstalenhag for some examples of what one artist is facing right now.
  - bitbuilder 6y ago
    I'm having a hard time believing what I just read. Posting his work as an NFT without his permission is of course ridiculous, but then to viciously lash out at the artist not being ok with this? It's just unbelievable to me that people can think this way. These people sold someone else's art, and then called him a luddite for not being ok with it.
    - deckard1 6y ago
      > then called him a luddite for not being ok with it. yeah, my jaw dropped. Holy shit. Every time I enter the crypto twittersphere, I'm more convinced it's all just a huge cult. Half zealots and true believers and half trolls. Much like QAnon. "You don't understand it's the future!" No, no I'm quite capable of understanding. The internet brought a lot of like-minded people together under a shared mass delusion.
- capableweb 6y ago
  > No idea if that’s a real issue or not. It is a real issue and the issue has nothing to do with NFTs. People been copying others art without their permission for as long as "art" has existed as a concept.
dagmx 6y ago
I liken it more to (over)paying for the rights to a specific print of the art. Much like prints, you don't own the art itself, or the rights to the image. The rarity of the print can change at any point. Like many prints, a lot are not even from the original artist and are instead stolen and resold on any number of markets. There's no real world value to a print, but in this case there's a significant real world environmental cost to acquiring it. It's sheer stupidity of the masses IMHO. Do cease and desists even apply here? For example could you tangibly ruin the market for a future NFT artist by flooding the market with their artwork before they get on it?
ecommerceguy 6y ago
>>Meanwhile, the artwork hangs in a museum and you have no control over it. One can most certainly remove their artwork from museums pretty much as they please or at the very least according to terms of a loan contract. Not to mention special access and privileges loaned artwork bestows upon the owner...
JMTQp8lwXL 6y ago
Exactly. There is no element of conspicuous consumption here to signal to others you own this expensive, one-of-a-kind thing. No, you bought a JPEG file and millions of it exist and you have no legal control of its usage by possessing the NFT.
- krrrh 6y ago
  Traditionally collectors do have legal control over the display of a work even if it is digital. For instance a film artist may sell three editions of a short film and keep an artists edition for loaning to museums. If one of the copies is loaned to a gallery for a show then the owner might send a DVD or a digital file to the gallery. A gallery assistant might make a copy of the file, and watch it on their laptop. But they can’t show the film in public and doing so outside of the social and institutional context where it establishes its value would be 100% verboten. There would also be strong social norms against sharing the file online or with friends. It’s false scarcity but it’s maintained by everyone involved because it’s part of the ruleset that creates a functioning economy. Anyone who exhibited a work they didn’t own or have loaned to them would be an instant pariah in the art world. All of this has worked reasonably well for years without NFTs. It wouldn’t be uncommon for Jeff Wall to mail high resolution images of his work to a magazine and even though the art director that received them could go out and print a copy that would look like one of the three legal editions, it wouldn’t allow them to participate in the work. But they would get to hang a nice photo on their wall even though they would pay the cost of all their artist and artist adjacent friends would considering them a philistine. It’s possible that what we’re witnessing now is a true disintermediation of the institutions that make up the art world and the creation of independent pathways for meaning to be discovered and valuation to be determined. Is the art world changing or being disrupted by NFTs? Probably not really, they may be incorporated into art collecting in some limited way over time once the hype dies down. The social context is still missing in the idea of pure NFT collecting and is missing engaging with or recreating a culture of art appreciation and patronage. Beeple aside, 99% of the NFT stuff out there is much more of a mix of speculation, consumption, and more appropriate for collectibles than art. A lot of the content is basic meme stuff, and memes derive their value from ubiquity, and democratization. The ethos of Reddit where people won’t even repost stuff that has a small watermark on it is more appropriate for this sort of consumable than anything you’d apply the word art to. But I could be totally wrong, I definitely never anticipated what is happening now back in 2013 when bitcoin folks were going on about “coloured coins”.
jiofih 6y ago
Aren’t many artworks on loan to a museum? Not much different. Being the owner, you can take your painting or NFT home by not giving permission for any exhibitions.

Kiro 6y ago

At least the paper has their signature. This is like a paper with the artwork's name printed on it. The only value is that it was printed by the artist with the promise that they will not print any more. It's like buying useless memorabilias from celebrities. The only value is the fact that the item was used by the celebrity.

jimkleiber 6y ago
It seems like a digital signature of the work. If the artist signs 100,000 copies of photographs, the signed versions are worth a lot less, but if they only sign 5 in their lifetime, then they have more value. At least this is how I'm going to currently reinterpret NFTs—as digitally signed artwork/merchandise—I may see it differently tomorrow.
krrrh 6y ago
This is actually how lots of photographer artists operate. For instance it’s common for a piece to have 3 editions, and I don’t know of any cases where the artist just decided to produce extra copies after te original production, except for at cost to replace a damaged edition for a collector. It would be professional suicide to devalue work like that. The same goes for film, where a handful of editions may sell, and the collector essentially buys the right to display and loan the work in certain contexts. That is nominally dealing with physical world realities, and the complex social norms at work through networks of galleries, museums, and collectors is a big part of what drives and maintains value and there’s really no reason that the title and provenance systems that work for photographic prints can’t work for digital art in the same way. In fact it has for a couple of decades already without NFTs.
- Kiro 6y ago
  That's still a physical copy. The token just contains an URL to the hosted image. What are they buying exactly?

avian 6y ago

> An NFT is like a piece of paper titled with the name of the artwork and signed by the artist. I know nothing about NFTs, but in the last few days I’ve seen a few people turn their Twitter accounts private where they previously posted their artworks. Supposedly to prevent sales of NFTs of their art without their approval. No idea if that’s a real issue or not. However there is another comment here saying they sold a NFT of Mona Lisa. It seems that a “piece of paper with a, possibly forged, signature” might be a better comparison.

dividuum 6y ago
> Supposedly to prevent sales of NFTs of their art without their approval. No idea if that’s a real issue or not. It is. I guess like with every new crypto pyramid scheme, a bunch of fraudsters show up trying to profit from the FOMO. Have a look at https://twitter.com/simonstalenhag https://twitter.com/simonstalenhag for some examples of what one artist is facing right now.
- bitbuilder 6y ago
  I'm having a hard time believing what I just read. Posting his work as an NFT without his permission is of course ridiculous, but then to viciously lash out at the artist not being ok with this? It's just unbelievable to me that people can think this way. These people sold someone else's art, and then called him a luddite for not being ok with it.
  - deckard1 6y ago
    > then called him a luddite for not being ok with it. yeah, my jaw dropped. Holy shit. Every time I enter the crypto twittersphere, I'm more convinced it's all just a huge cult. Half zealots and true believers and half trolls. Much like QAnon. "You don't understand it's the future!" No, no I'm quite capable of understanding. The internet brought a lot of like-minded people together under a shared mass delusion.
capableweb 6y ago
> No idea if that’s a real issue or not. It is a real issue and the issue has nothing to do with NFTs. People been copying others art without their permission for as long as "art" has existed as a concept.

dagmx 6y ago

I liken it more to (over)paying for the rights to a specific print of the art. Much like prints, you don't own the art itself, or the rights to the image. The rarity of the print can change at any point. Like many prints, a lot are not even from the original artist and are instead stolen and resold on any number of markets. There's no real world value to a print, but in this case there's a significant real world environmental cost to acquiring it. It's sheer stupidity of the masses IMHO. Do cease and desists even apply here? For example could you tangibly ruin the market for a future NFT artist by flooding the market with their artwork before they get on it?

ecommerceguy 6y ago

>>Meanwhile, the artwork hangs in a museum and you have no control over it. One can most certainly remove their artwork from museums pretty much as they please or at the very least according to terms of a loan contract. Not to mention special access and privileges loaned artwork bestows upon the owner...

JMTQp8lwXL 6y ago

Exactly. There is no element of conspicuous consumption here to signal to others you own this expensive, one-of-a-kind thing. No, you bought a JPEG file and millions of it exist and you have no legal control of its usage by possessing the NFT.

krrrh 6y ago
Traditionally collectors do have legal control over the display of a work even if it is digital. For instance a film artist may sell three editions of a short film and keep an artists edition for loaning to museums. If one of the copies is loaned to a gallery for a show then the owner might send a DVD or a digital file to the gallery. A gallery assistant might make a copy of the file, and watch it on their laptop. But they can’t show the film in public and doing so outside of the social and institutional context where it establishes its value would be 100% verboten. There would also be strong social norms against sharing the file online or with friends. It’s false scarcity but it’s maintained by everyone involved because it’s part of the ruleset that creates a functioning economy. Anyone who exhibited a work they didn’t own or have loaned to them would be an instant pariah in the art world. All of this has worked reasonably well for years without NFTs. It wouldn’t be uncommon for Jeff Wall to mail high resolution images of his work to a magazine and even though the art director that received them could go out and print a copy that would look like one of the three legal editions, it wouldn’t allow them to participate in the work. But they would get to hang a nice photo on their wall even though they would pay the cost of all their artist and artist adjacent friends would considering them a philistine. It’s possible that what we’re witnessing now is a true disintermediation of the institutions that make up the art world and the creation of independent pathways for meaning to be discovered and valuation to be determined. Is the art world changing or being disrupted by NFTs? Probably not really, they may be incorporated into art collecting in some limited way over time once the hype dies down. The social context is still missing in the idea of pure NFT collecting and is missing engaging with or recreating a culture of art appreciation and patronage. Beeple aside, 99% of the NFT stuff out there is much more of a mix of speculation, consumption, and more appropriate for collectibles than art. A lot of the content is basic meme stuff, and memes derive their value from ubiquity, and democratization. The ethos of Reddit where people won’t even repost stuff that has a small watermark on it is more appropriate for this sort of consumable than anything you’d apply the word art to. But I could be totally wrong, I definitely never anticipated what is happening now back in 2013 when bitcoin folks were going on about “coloured coins”.

jiofih 6y ago

Aren’t many artworks on loan to a museum? Not much different. Being the owner, you can take your painting or NFT home by not giving permission for any exhibitions.