4 ms·

> The distributed work is valued not because of the material (a piece of paper) or its contents (a rendered image), because it was distributed and signed by the

by GDC7 5y ago

> The distributed work is valued not because of the material (a piece of paper) or its contents (a rendered image), because it was distributed and signed by the artist's hand. Anybody could photocopy that print to produce the same rendered contents, or even print their own copy if they have access to a high resolution file and inkjet printer, but the copy would be worth no value, because it did not come from the artist's hand. But that would require a distribution of NFT in excess of 1. People are not minting 50 or 500 NFTs which are all the same as in your example. People are minting 1 NFT and selling it . At that point one person (the buyer) has the original and the rest of people on the internet just screenshots it to have a 1:1 identical piece of art, which are all just the same as the original. Plus your example also forgets one important element: the scarcity of the time and the social relationships of the artist. The 50 printed and signed editions are considered worthy because the artist had to subtract time from whatever other activity they had planned in order to sign the copies. Once you make the process of "signing NFTs" automatized (like for example making a transaction on the blockchain via smart contract) the whole magic and scarcity of it disappears. Maybe you could secure the scarcity by making it expensive for the artist to mint the NFT, but then they'd be the ones protesting and not adopting the tech.

mattdesl 5y ago
Some NFTs are distributed as 1/1 (like a single-edition print of a photographic negative), while others are distributed as an edition of 50 or 1000. In the case of platforms like ArtBlocks[1], each edition is itself unique and tied to the transaction hash, hence their tagline "1 of 1 of X." The buyer holds the token (cryptographically secured to their wallet). Any person can save the JPG that is conceptually tied to the token, but that does not give them ownership over the artistic token (i.e. they cannot transfer it to another wallet). Part of the challenge here is that it gets to the question of "art ownership" in a digital domain. If you own a JPG, do you own the artwork? According to the artist who is distributing the work as a token, and also according the social consensus of others who are collecting art in this way, the answer is no. It does take time and fees to deploy to the blockchain, in the same way that it takes time and fees to produce a series of print artworks. My own project (Subscapes[2]) required a significant investment, to upload 17kb of generative art code onto the blockchain. [1] - https://artblocks.wiki/ https://artblocks.wiki/ [2] - https://mattdesl.substack.com/p/subscapes-part-1-preface https://mattdesl.substack.com/p/subscapes-part-1-preface
- GDC7 5y ago
  > If you own a JPG, do you own the artwork? According to the artist who is distributing the work as a token, and also according the social consensus of others who are collecting art in this way, the answer is no. But according to the rest of the world the answer is 'Yes' The rest of the world thinks that in order for something to be considered original that thing has to be hard to replicate Replicating an NFT is as easy as doing a screenshot or Right clic > 'Save as' . And any random internet user stumbling upon that NFT can do it. In order to replicate a painting such as the Mona Lisa you need millions of dollars of equipment and millions of dollars to pay experts who'd do so without ruining the sole original, and still won't be the same as the original. Maybe subtle nuances not even discernible by the human eye, but still after millions of dollars of equipment, millions of man hours you don't have something which is 1:1 as the original Mona Lisa. With NFTs is again as easy as screenshots or Right clic > 'Save as'
  - mattdesl 5y ago
    > But according to the rest of the world the answer is 'Yes' It depends who you ask, and when you ask it. The understanding of 'digital ownership' may be shifting, as we can see in real-time with the OP thread, where Visa is making a claim that their ownership over the digital token is distinctly different than their ownership over the digital JPG file (and, apparently, distinct enough that they felt it worth paying a large sum to acquire). Indeed, anybody can reproduce a JPG by right clicking and saving the image, and there are many valuable artworks in art history that can be reproduced with seemingly little effort — such as all white canvases (Malevich), splashes of paint (Pollock), and handwritten instructions on scrap paper (LeWitt). And I do not think anybody previous to NFTs would make a claim that they "own" an artist's work because they captured it via "Right Click > Save As." Another way to view this is: ownership of digital art is not a notion that had much social consensus around it before the advent of NFTs.
    - GDC7 5y ago
      > ownership of digital art is not a notion that had much social consensus around it before the advent of NFTs. I don't mean to disrespect artists but when all is said and done the only question that matters is: "Will a museum pay me, the owner of the piece of art to have it in their collection, so I can generate passive income from it?" In the case of real pieces of art the answer is positive. If this critical component is missing then you are left with a market where you can only sell for profit to an individual bigger fool. 2-D NFTs won't ever pass this test, 3-D NFTs are also in bad shape because museums are a social activity, something the regular person does to shield themselves from the summer heat while at the park with their SO. Nobody dreams of logging into a 3-D museum , alone in their living while wearing an Oculus. Art is a real world, social activity. The process of distributing art is a real world, social activity. Blockchain won't change this.
detaro 5y ago
> People are not minting 50 or 500 NFTs which are all the same as in your example. Of course they are. Same as with prints: singular pieces, editions of X, editions of "only available for 48 hours, everyone who buys in that time gets one", ... all are options artists use.

by GDC7 5y ago

mattdesl 5y ago

Some NFTs are distributed as 1/1 (like a single-edition print of a photographic negative), while others are distributed as an edition of 50 or 1000. In the case of platforms like ArtBlocks[1], each edition is itself unique and tied to the transaction hash, hence their tagline "1 of 1 of X." The buyer holds the token (cryptographically secured to their wallet). Any person can save the JPG that is conceptually tied to the token, but that does not give them ownership over the artistic token (i.e. they cannot transfer it to another wallet). Part of the challenge here is that it gets to the question of "art ownership" in a digital domain. If you own a JPG, do you own the artwork? According to the artist who is distributing the work as a token, and also according the social consensus of others who are collecting art in this way, the answer is no. It does take time and fees to deploy to the blockchain, in the same way that it takes time and fees to produce a series of print artworks. My own project (Subscapes[2]) required a significant investment, to upload 17kb of generative art code onto the blockchain. [1] - https://artblocks.wiki/ https://artblocks.wiki/ [2] - https://mattdesl.substack.com/p/subscapes-part-1-preface https://mattdesl.substack.com/p/subscapes-part-1-preface

GDC7 5y ago
> If you own a JPG, do you own the artwork? According to the artist who is distributing the work as a token, and also according the social consensus of others who are collecting art in this way, the answer is no. But according to the rest of the world the answer is 'Yes' The rest of the world thinks that in order for something to be considered original that thing has to be hard to replicate Replicating an NFT is as easy as doing a screenshot or Right clic > 'Save as' . And any random internet user stumbling upon that NFT can do it. In order to replicate a painting such as the Mona Lisa you need millions of dollars of equipment and millions of dollars to pay experts who'd do so without ruining the sole original, and still won't be the same as the original. Maybe subtle nuances not even discernible by the human eye, but still after millions of dollars of equipment, millions of man hours you don't have something which is 1:1 as the original Mona Lisa. With NFTs is again as easy as screenshots or Right clic > 'Save as'
- mattdesl 5y ago
  > But according to the rest of the world the answer is 'Yes' It depends who you ask, and when you ask it. The understanding of 'digital ownership' may be shifting, as we can see in real-time with the OP thread, where Visa is making a claim that their ownership over the digital token is distinctly different than their ownership over the digital JPG file (and, apparently, distinct enough that they felt it worth paying a large sum to acquire). Indeed, anybody can reproduce a JPG by right clicking and saving the image, and there are many valuable artworks in art history that can be reproduced with seemingly little effort — such as all white canvases (Malevich), splashes of paint (Pollock), and handwritten instructions on scrap paper (LeWitt). And I do not think anybody previous to NFTs would make a claim that they "own" an artist's work because they captured it via "Right Click > Save As." Another way to view this is: ownership of digital art is not a notion that had much social consensus around it before the advent of NFTs.
  - GDC7 5y ago
    > ownership of digital art is not a notion that had much social consensus around it before the advent of NFTs. I don't mean to disrespect artists but when all is said and done the only question that matters is: "Will a museum pay me, the owner of the piece of art to have it in their collection, so I can generate passive income from it?" In the case of real pieces of art the answer is positive. If this critical component is missing then you are left with a market where you can only sell for profit to an individual bigger fool. 2-D NFTs won't ever pass this test, 3-D NFTs are also in bad shape because museums are a social activity, something the regular person does to shield themselves from the summer heat while at the park with their SO. Nobody dreams of logging into a 3-D museum , alone in their living while wearing an Oculus. Art is a real world, social activity. The process of distributing art is a real world, social activity. Blockchain won't change this.

detaro 5y ago

> People are not minting 50 or 500 NFTs which are all the same as in your example. Of course they are. Same as with prints: singular pieces, editions of X, editions of "only available for 48 hours, everyone who buys in that time gets one", ... all are options artists use.