8 ms·

What would happen if I put up a NFT for sale of something I had no part in making?

AlexandrB 5y ago
This is already happening[1] to smaller creators, and people still buy them because NFTs don't offer any guarantees of authenticity beyond what you'd see on eBay. [1] https://www.theverge.com/2021/3/20/22334527/nft-scams-artists-opensea-rarible-marble-cards-fraud-art https://www.theverge.com/2021/3/20/22334527/nft-scams-artist...
nerfhammer 5y ago
there's nothing stopping you from doing that
recursive 5y ago
Someone might buy it but probably not.
vaer-k 5y ago
What would happen if you sold to someone the deed to a house you do not own?
- endisneigh 5y ago
  This is not the equivalent situation. It's more like I decide to sell an NFT to your comment.
  - vaer-k 5y ago
    It totally disagree. I think it is quite equivalent. The difference is that we don't have a centralized authority to recognize valid NFTs, as we do for deeds. But if we did have a central authority, like perhaps the artist responsible for the work protected by the NFT, and if the artist made it clear and public that only the NFTs she recognizes could be considered valid proof of ownership of her works, then indeed an NFT would function like a deed.
    - endisneigh 5y ago
      A common misunderstanding of NFTs is that they give you some level of legal rights. NFTs do not inherently give you rights. That's why a comparison with a deed is fundamentally flawed. A deed is a legal construct - inherently it gives you ownership. So even if it were sold, without the institutions notarizing the transaction it would not be a valid sale and could be easily reversed by the original owner. I could sell an NFT to your comment trivially because it doesn't mean anything. You can think of it as the digital equivalent of me taking a screenshot of your comment and selling that - sure it doesn't give the purchaser rights to your comment, but that isn't what was for sale anyway.
      - kbelder 5y ago
        I can sell an NFT to your house just as easily as I can to your comment, and it confers exactly the same amount of legal rights.
        endisneigh 5y ago
        Yes, exactly. You get equal rights, that is to say, nothing. Are you agreeing or disagreeing? It's unclear.
      - vaer-k 5y ago
        I have no misunderstanding about this whatsoever, in fact. I understand that NFTs confer no rights, which is why I posited the idea of a necessary authority who can declare which NFTs are valid representations of ownership of their works. It is the pairing of NFT and authority which grant the possibility of ownership. Many people immediately jump on the idea that NFTs cannot confer ownership, and thus are worthless as a concept, but they fail to recognize that it is only one half of ownership, just as a deed to a house is just a piece of paper (that anyone can photocopy) without an authority to recognize it.
        endisneigh 5y ago
        again a deed is referring to a specific thing. a photocopied deed is not a deed anymore than a photocopied dollar bill is legit money. in other words a deed is already authorized by definition. if you have an authority to confer rights then the NFT itself was unnecessary to begin with. anyway, the original point I was trying to make is that situation you described (selling a deed to a house you don't own) doesn't make sense since by definition the own who does not own the deed can not sell it. if, somehow the sale did go through, the original owner could easily get it back. this situation is not possible with NFTs without a central authority, but with a central authority NFTs would not be necessary to begin with.
  - thih9 5y ago
    I know nothing about NFTs. I’d guess it wouldn’t be a sale of rights to the comment (because you don’t own them). If you advertised it as the sale of rights to the comment, then it would be a fraud? Or you could advertise it as “a collectible item representing one of endisneigh’s parent comments as issued by endisneigh, collect them all”?
- Tabular-Iceberg 5y ago
  That would be fraudulent, but that's not what I'm suggesting. I suppose I could sell a token for Hacker News, I just couldn't claim that the holder of the token gets any kind of special privilege here.
  - vaer-k 5y ago
    In that case sure, you could do it, just as you could sell someone a deed to a rock you picked up off the street.
    - Tabular-Iceberg 5y ago
      It's even less than that. A deed contains some language to the effect of "the holder of this deed owns the house at such-and-such address", whereas most of these NFTs seem to stop at "the house at such-and-such address". Is there a way to see the actual language of these NFTs that receive press attention? Do any of them actually claim anything one way or the other?
  - Hamuko 5y ago
    >I just couldn't claim that the holder of the token gets any kind of special privilege here. Sounds like an NFT alright.
- pontifier 5y ago
  You can sell a "quit claim deed" for any property. All it means is that you assign all your interest in the property to another party. If you have no interest in the property then you have transfered nothing, but the document itself is valid.
reyalejandro 5y ago
people will know and they will value it accordingly but no one will stop you for doing it, at least for now.
- AlexandrB 5y ago
  > people will know How will they know?
matkoniecz 5y ago
I seriously considered doing this (while clearly mentioning it!). Not sure whether NFT situation got dumb enough for this to work.
- kbelder 5y ago
  You could do it to public domain art. Maybe set yourself up a shell business, 'NFT Certification Enterprise', and offer your official NFT for each object, with a guarantee you be generating only one NFT for each object. Deceptive, but not fraudulent. It's not very different than selling overpriced and numbered collectibles.
basch 5y ago
What would happen if you tried to sell imitation autographs, labeled as such? Im guessing there would be no market, unless you yourself were famous.
- Tabular-Iceberg 5y ago
  The difference is that a facsimile autograph would inevitably be of worse quality. The phony NFT on the other hand would be indistinguishable from "the real thing". Beyond the payload it's just pseudo-random bits generated by an arbitrary CPU, isn't it?
  - basch 5y ago
    > indistinguishable I am not sure what you mean by this. Are you referring to art being duplicated, or a digital signature? You can verify that its a forgery, or from a different account than the first author. The digital signature isnt something you can replicate. You can print another one, but you cant duplicate the property of "first" itself.
    - Tabular-Iceberg 5y ago
      I can't replicate the exact numbers, but I don't see how one random string looks more authentic than the other. Whereas a handmade autograph with all its human inconsistencies looks more authentic than one made with a mechanical device. I'm just as good as the most accomplished artist at reading numbers from /dev/random, that's why I don't see why one random-looking string would be more valuable than the other.
      - basch 5y ago
        Because it's timestamped earlier, or its proven to have been generated by a person who exclusively had a certain private key.
        Tabular-Iceberg 5y ago

This is already happening[1] to smaller creators, and people still buy them because NFTs don't offer any guarantees of authenticity beyond what you'd see on eBay. [1] https://www.theverge.com/2021/3/20/22334527/nft-scams-artists-opensea-rarible-marble-cards-fraud-art https://www.theverge.com/2021/3/20/22334527/nft-scams-artist...

nerfhammer 5y ago

there's nothing stopping you from doing that

recursive 5y ago

Someone might buy it but probably not.

vaer-k 5y ago

What would happen if you sold to someone the deed to a house you do not own?

endisneigh 5y ago
This is not the equivalent situation. It's more like I decide to sell an NFT to your comment.
- vaer-k 5y ago
  It totally disagree. I think it is quite equivalent. The difference is that we don't have a centralized authority to recognize valid NFTs, as we do for deeds. But if we did have a central authority, like perhaps the artist responsible for the work protected by the NFT, and if the artist made it clear and public that only the NFTs she recognizes could be considered valid proof of ownership of her works, then indeed an NFT would function like a deed.
  - endisneigh 5y ago
    A common misunderstanding of NFTs is that they give you some level of legal rights. NFTs do not inherently give you rights. That's why a comparison with a deed is fundamentally flawed. A deed is a legal construct - inherently it gives you ownership. So even if it were sold, without the institutions notarizing the transaction it would not be a valid sale and could be easily reversed by the original owner. I could sell an NFT to your comment trivially because it doesn't mean anything. You can think of it as the digital equivalent of me taking a screenshot of your comment and selling that - sure it doesn't give the purchaser rights to your comment, but that isn't what was for sale anyway.
    - kbelder 5y ago
      I can sell an NFT to your house just as easily as I can to your comment, and it confers exactly the same amount of legal rights.
      - endisneigh 5y ago
        Yes, exactly. You get equal rights, that is to say, nothing. Are you agreeing or disagreeing? It's unclear.
    - vaer-k 5y ago
      I have no misunderstanding about this whatsoever, in fact. I understand that NFTs confer no rights, which is why I posited the idea of a necessary authority who can declare which NFTs are valid representations of ownership of their works. It is the pairing of NFT and authority which grant the possibility of ownership. Many people immediately jump on the idea that NFTs cannot confer ownership, and thus are worthless as a concept, but they fail to recognize that it is only one half of ownership, just as a deed to a house is just a piece of paper (that anyone can photocopy) without an authority to recognize it.
      - endisneigh 5y ago
        again a deed is referring to a specific thing. a photocopied deed is not a deed anymore than a photocopied dollar bill is legit money. in other words a deed is already authorized by definition. if you have an authority to confer rights then the NFT itself was unnecessary to begin with. anyway, the original point I was trying to make is that situation you described (selling a deed to a house you don't own) doesn't make sense since by definition the own who does not own the deed can not sell it. if, somehow the sale did go through, the original owner could easily get it back. this situation is not possible with NFTs without a central authority, but with a central authority NFTs would not be necessary to begin with.
- thih9 5y ago
  I know nothing about NFTs. I’d guess it wouldn’t be a sale of rights to the comment (because you don’t own them). If you advertised it as the sale of rights to the comment, then it would be a fraud? Or you could advertise it as “a collectible item representing one of endisneigh’s parent comments as issued by endisneigh, collect them all”?
Tabular-Iceberg 5y ago
That would be fraudulent, but that's not what I'm suggesting. I suppose I could sell a token for Hacker News, I just couldn't claim that the holder of the token gets any kind of special privilege here.
- vaer-k 5y ago
  In that case sure, you could do it, just as you could sell someone a deed to a rock you picked up off the street.
  - Tabular-Iceberg 5y ago
    It's even less than that. A deed contains some language to the effect of "the holder of this deed owns the house at such-and-such address", whereas most of these NFTs seem to stop at "the house at such-and-such address". Is there a way to see the actual language of these NFTs that receive press attention? Do any of them actually claim anything one way or the other?
- Hamuko 5y ago
  >I just couldn't claim that the holder of the token gets any kind of special privilege here. Sounds like an NFT alright.
pontifier 5y ago
You can sell a "quit claim deed" for any property. All it means is that you assign all your interest in the property to another party. If you have no interest in the property then you have transfered nothing, but the document itself is valid.

reyalejandro 5y ago

people will know and they will value it accordingly but no one will stop you for doing it, at least for now.

AlexandrB 5y ago
> people will know How will they know?

matkoniecz 5y ago

I seriously considered doing this (while clearly mentioning it!). Not sure whether NFT situation got dumb enough for this to work.

kbelder 5y ago
You could do it to public domain art. Maybe set yourself up a shell business, 'NFT Certification Enterprise', and offer your official NFT for each object, with a guarantee you be generating only one NFT for each object. Deceptive, but not fraudulent. It's not very different than selling overpriced and numbered collectibles.

basch 5y ago

What would happen if you tried to sell imitation autographs, labeled as such? Im guessing there would be no market, unless you yourself were famous.

Tabular-Iceberg 5y ago
The difference is that a facsimile autograph would inevitably be of worse quality. The phony NFT on the other hand would be indistinguishable from "the real thing". Beyond the payload it's just pseudo-random bits generated by an arbitrary CPU, isn't it?
- basch 5y ago
  > indistinguishable I am not sure what you mean by this. Are you referring to art being duplicated, or a digital signature? You can verify that its a forgery, or from a different account than the first author. The digital signature isnt something you can replicate. You can print another one, but you cant duplicate the property of "first" itself.
  - Tabular-Iceberg 5y ago
    I can't replicate the exact numbers, but I don't see how one random string looks more authentic than the other. Whereas a handmade autograph with all its human inconsistencies looks more authentic than one made with a mechanical device. I'm just as good as the most accomplished artist at reading numbers from /dev/random, that's why I don't see why one random-looking string would be more valuable than the other.
    - basch 5y ago
      Because it's timestamped earlier, or its proven to have been generated by a person who exclusively had a certain private key.
      - Tabular-Iceberg 5y ago