4 ms·

Good for her. This could be a way for "meme stars" - who mostly got nothing out of their popularity besides anxiety, some weird talk show invites or webshop mug

Good for her. This could be a way for "meme stars" - who mostly got nothing out of their popularity besides anxiety, some weird talk show invites or webshop mug sales - to properly cash in on their immense cultural impact. Regardless of the value the buyer gets.

user-the-name 6y ago
Good for her, but, she's just being used here to trick people into pumping money into a huge scam.
- poisonborz 6y ago
  Anyone interested would just buy some other NFT instead. I'd say this is still a more valid """art piece""" to own compared to a random generated pixel dude.
- bellyfullofbac 6y ago
  As Winston Zeddemore said during his interview to be a Ghostbuster, "If there's a steady paycheck in it, I'll believe anything you say.": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NFX4fmldZFs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NFX4fmldZFs Of course a one-time six-digit check is also enough...
- jrochkind1 6y ago
  She's the one who just made $500K, I agree it's a huge scam, but she doesn't seem to be the one getting exploited.
  - e-clinton 6y ago
    Why is this a huge scam but paying 500k for a baseball card isn’t? To me, a baseball card is equally useless.
    - setr 6y ago
      perhaps because NFT's offer no meaningful version of ownership -- you don't control it according to the government (no copyright/ip transfer), you don't control it according to the physical universe (you don't actually have anything -- not even bits), you don't control it according to the internet (others have just as much access and distribution as they did before), you don't control it according to blockchains in general (you can trivially establish a second NFT chain and claim ownership there). The thing that's being traded is a certificate of ownership that is enforced and considered by almost no one. It's equivalent to trading on emails that say "I own the Eiffel Tower". The fundamental question is why the hell does anyone want an NFT in the first place? "it's art" doesn't cut it, and "it's like baseball cards" doesn't really cut it either, because you aren't buying the card in a way that you can claim ownership over -- you're buying a certificate that contains a link to the card, and trading on that. Entirely independent of the object under question. In fact, you don't need the digital asset in the first place. You might as well trade tokens directly, and let go of the farce. But I suppose you just have a normal coin then.
      - dmarcos 6y ago
        NFTs are probably more similar to baseball cards and other collectables than you give credit. I can easily find an image on any card and print it. Still we value the original. NFTs are a proof the you own an original and not a copy. A piece of cardboard is all you own with a baseball card. Value comes from artificial scarcity that owner has no control over. Baseball card companies can easily print more cards and destroy value. They don’t. There’s a social contract between collector and producer. Similar to NFTs.
        tompazourek 6y ago
        I think it's more like if the player portrayed on the baseball card sold a certificate saying it's actually him on the baseball card with his signature on the certificate. The actual original of the card isn't traded. As the buyer, you don't end up owning anything new, you get just a signature from some guy.
bluefirebrand 6y ago
The weird part to me is the issue of ownership. Why would she own the photo or the meme just because she appears in it? Usually the photographer owns photos they take, unless they give it away or are paid for the rights to it? And once something is uploaded online, it becomes more murky. Don't a lot of services will claim ownership of any photo uploaded to them, in their TOS? Like others in this discussion I think NFTs are just a scam
- cblconfederate 6y ago
  That leads to the question what is IP. NFTs may not answer that, but they put a price to it
  - jrochkind1 6y ago
    Not really. It's not clear to me that any IP in the photo was sold. The OP says "And as is the case with many NFT sales, the Roths also retain the copyright to the image and will make 10 percent off any future sales of the NFT." If you want to buy the copyright to something (or a license to it), you don't need an NFT. There was already a market price put on IP, you don't need NFTs for that. I have no idea what NFTs are for.
    - cblconfederate 6y ago
      Nothing, no legal base. This is an unregulateable market, nothing is enforced, but they all participate voluntarily. If a concept of ownership emerges it will be out of consensus not enforcement
- ghaff 6y ago
  >Why would she own the photo or the meme just because she appears in it? It's somewhat complicated IANAL. She has certain publicity rights to her own image. So while the photographer probably holds the copyright, if a company wanted to use the image in an ad after obtaining rights from the photographer, she would likely have a claim. That's why stock photography typically requires model releases for recognizable people in the photo.
ashtonkem 6y ago
It’s hard to say that this a way for meme stars to cash in when it’s not exactly clear why in the hell someone would pay $500K for the meme. Not “I hate it personally, but I understand someone would like it”, but more “oh, it’s tulips again”.
- e-clinton 6y ago
  It’s art. More so than a lot of the pieces at The Whitney who haven’t had an ounce of the cultural impact that this image has. I don’t fault you though, the one constant in the art world throughout time is contemporary work being thought of as unworthy.
  - ashtonkem 6y ago
    The issue here isn’t whether or not the meme is art, I genuinely don’t care about that, it’s whether or not the NFT represents ownership in a way that should convert to a currency value. Given that NFTs give you literally no ownership over the thing, it strikes me less as a tulip and more of a paper tulip being bid up to stratospheric prices. > I don’t fault you though Spare me the patronizing attitude, thanks.
  - samstave 6y ago
    I dont get it at all, but thats because it has always been claimed that a digital copy is not the same as stealing, say an originally hand painted - not exactly reproducable oil painting... So exactly, aside from may bragging rights, does a tokenized digital "original" mean. Are they checking the file creation date? Must the original be in the original file-format it was created in (meaning a .psd, .ai, .dwg etc) file? I just dont understand the value.
dfxm12 6y ago
Yeah, when I first stumbled upon NFTs, it looked like it was going to be a great way for small time creators/artists to cash in on their work. Some people might not want to donate to them, but if they're technically buying something for their donation, even something as ethereal as an NFT, they'll gladly fork over some money. I considered buying some, not because I wanted to own an NFT, but because I wanted to put cash in the pocket of some illustrators/artists I like, especially in a time where they couldn't perform or have shows, etc. I wound up not buying any because the ones I was interested in were limited and sold out too quickly. Then that Christie's auction happened and prices got kinda out of hand...

user-the-name 6y ago

Good for her, but, she's just being used here to trick people into pumping money into a huge scam.

poisonborz 6y ago
Anyone interested would just buy some other NFT instead. I'd say this is still a more valid """art piece""" to own compared to a random generated pixel dude.
bellyfullofbac 6y ago
As Winston Zeddemore said during his interview to be a Ghostbuster, "If there's a steady paycheck in it, I'll believe anything you say.": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NFX4fmldZFs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NFX4fmldZFs Of course a one-time six-digit check is also enough...
jrochkind1 6y ago
She's the one who just made $500K, I agree it's a huge scam, but she doesn't seem to be the one getting exploited.
- e-clinton 6y ago
  Why is this a huge scam but paying 500k for a baseball card isn’t? To me, a baseball card is equally useless.
  - setr 6y ago
    perhaps because NFT's offer no meaningful version of ownership -- you don't control it according to the government (no copyright/ip transfer), you don't control it according to the physical universe (you don't actually have anything -- not even bits), you don't control it according to the internet (others have just as much access and distribution as they did before), you don't control it according to blockchains in general (you can trivially establish a second NFT chain and claim ownership there). The thing that's being traded is a certificate of ownership that is enforced and considered by almost no one. It's equivalent to trading on emails that say "I own the Eiffel Tower". The fundamental question is why the hell does anyone want an NFT in the first place? "it's art" doesn't cut it, and "it's like baseball cards" doesn't really cut it either, because you aren't buying the card in a way that you can claim ownership over -- you're buying a certificate that contains a link to the card, and trading on that. Entirely independent of the object under question. In fact, you don't need the digital asset in the first place. You might as well trade tokens directly, and let go of the farce. But I suppose you just have a normal coin then.
    - dmarcos 6y ago
      NFTs are probably more similar to baseball cards and other collectables than you give credit. I can easily find an image on any card and print it. Still we value the original. NFTs are a proof the you own an original and not a copy. A piece of cardboard is all you own with a baseball card. Value comes from artificial scarcity that owner has no control over. Baseball card companies can easily print more cards and destroy value. They don’t. There’s a social contract between collector and producer. Similar to NFTs.
      - tompazourek 6y ago
        I think it's more like if the player portrayed on the baseball card sold a certificate saying it's actually him on the baseball card with his signature on the certificate. The actual original of the card isn't traded. As the buyer, you don't end up owning anything new, you get just a signature from some guy.

bluefirebrand 6y ago

The weird part to me is the issue of ownership. Why would she own the photo or the meme just because she appears in it? Usually the photographer owns photos they take, unless they give it away or are paid for the rights to it? And once something is uploaded online, it becomes more murky. Don't a lot of services will claim ownership of any photo uploaded to them, in their TOS? Like others in this discussion I think NFTs are just a scam

cblconfederate 6y ago
That leads to the question what is IP. NFTs may not answer that, but they put a price to it
- jrochkind1 6y ago
  Not really. It's not clear to me that any IP in the photo was sold. The OP says "And as is the case with many NFT sales, the Roths also retain the copyright to the image and will make 10 percent off any future sales of the NFT." If you want to buy the copyright to something (or a license to it), you don't need an NFT. There was already a market price put on IP, you don't need NFTs for that. I have no idea what NFTs are for.
  - cblconfederate 6y ago
    Nothing, no legal base. This is an unregulateable market, nothing is enforced, but they all participate voluntarily. If a concept of ownership emerges it will be out of consensus not enforcement
ghaff 6y ago
>Why would she own the photo or the meme just because she appears in it? It's somewhat complicated IANAL. She has certain publicity rights to her own image. So while the photographer probably holds the copyright, if a company wanted to use the image in an ad after obtaining rights from the photographer, she would likely have a claim. That's why stock photography typically requires model releases for recognizable people in the photo.

ashtonkem 6y ago

It’s hard to say that this a way for meme stars to cash in when it’s not exactly clear why in the hell someone would pay $500K for the meme. Not “I hate it personally, but I understand someone would like it”, but more “oh, it’s tulips again”.

e-clinton 6y ago
It’s art. More so than a lot of the pieces at The Whitney who haven’t had an ounce of the cultural impact that this image has. I don’t fault you though, the one constant in the art world throughout time is contemporary work being thought of as unworthy.
- ashtonkem 6y ago
  The issue here isn’t whether or not the meme is art, I genuinely don’t care about that, it’s whether or not the NFT represents ownership in a way that should convert to a currency value. Given that NFTs give you literally no ownership over the thing, it strikes me less as a tulip and more of a paper tulip being bid up to stratospheric prices. > I don’t fault you though Spare me the patronizing attitude, thanks.
- samstave 6y ago
  I dont get it at all, but thats because it has always been claimed that a digital copy is not the same as stealing, say an originally hand painted - not exactly reproducable oil painting... So exactly, aside from may bragging rights, does a tokenized digital "original" mean. Are they checking the file creation date? Must the original be in the original file-format it was created in (meaning a .psd, .ai, .dwg etc) file? I just dont understand the value.

dfxm12 6y ago

Yeah, when I first stumbled upon NFTs, it looked like it was going to be a great way for small time creators/artists to cash in on their work. Some people might not want to donate to them, but if they're technically buying something for their donation, even something as ethereal as an NFT, they'll gladly fork over some money. I considered buying some, not because I wanted to own an NFT, but because I wanted to put cash in the pocket of some illustrators/artists I like, especially in a time where they couldn't perform or have shows, etc. I wound up not buying any because the ones I was interested in were limited and sold out too quickly. Then that Christie's auction happened and prices got kinda out of hand...