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Thing is, NFTs don't represent ownership, absent some external legal documents which tie ownership to the NFT. (And even with such external documents p perhaps

Thing is, NFTs don't represent ownership, absent some external legal documents which tie ownership to the NFT. (And even with such external documents p perhaps not; see e.g. the statute of frauds which restricts in what form land ownership can be transferred.) I can sell NFTs of bridges all day long; doesn't mean anyone is buying a bridge.

Joeboy 5y ago
An NFT is decent evidence in favour of the keyholder being the creator of a work, if there's no earlier evidence of somebody else being the creator of the work. When people first started talking about them I thought that was the idea - a kind of people's copyright registry on the blockchain. Which seems like a fairly reasonable idea, as far as it goes. Edit: To be clear, I mean a copyright registry that is used for the sort of thing copyright registries are used for, ie. adjudicating copyright disputes. I am not saying an NFT of the Mona Lisa is good evidence you painted the Mona Lisa (unless you minted it in 1502), and I'm definitely not saying the current market in NFTs is sensible.
- root_axis 5y ago
  > An NFT is decent evidence in favour of you being the creator of a work, if there's no earlier evidence of somebody else being the creator of the work It's really not at all reliable. I could create an NFT for the "Joeboy" HN account right now, and ostensibly become the owner of your HN account since such an NFT does not already exist. Obviously, this makes no sense, the NFT is meaningless.
  - Joeboy 5y ago
    If there was no evidence of the account existing before you registered the NFT, I think that would be a reasonably credible bit of evidence in your favour.
  - capableweb 5y ago
    No, you could create an NFT that supposedly represents that but unless people buy into the idea, no is becoming the owner of anything. If instead Ycombinator would release each user as an NFT, and allow people to buy/sell then, then yes you could become the owner of an HN account via NFTs. But until then, the one who knows the password is the owner. People seems to have some sort of problem with trying to understand NFTs were all thoughts and logic go out the window as soon as NFTs are mentioned.
    - Joeboy 5y ago
      As I understood their comment, they were pointing out the absurdity of the idea you are also pointing out the absurdity of.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
- meheleventyone 5y ago
  It's not at all there is rampant fraud in the NFT market. So much so Deviantart made some detection software to help alert artists their work is being stolen. All that can be definitively proved outside of other methods is who created the token.
  - Joeboy 5y ago
    It sounds like you're talking about cases where, as I said, there's "earlier evidence of somebody else being the creator of the work". In the absence of that, I think the token would be a decent piece of evidence in favour of the token owner.
    - meheleventyone 5y ago
      So would posting it anywhere online essentially. Twitter would work for the same usecase. Or the old sending it to yourself through the mail thing. NFTs also don’t put the image on chain usually instead just linking from the metadata so a fraudster could register a bunch of placeholder NFTs and then later put stolen art where the link points to. Hey Presto you can steal art and “prove” the actual creator is the fraud.
      - Joeboy 5y ago
        Well, posting the actual content publicly would obviously make it public, which registering a hash on the blockchain would not. "Sending it to yourself through the mail" would probably be the competition, and I would say a cryptographic hash is at least as good as a postmark, as well as cheaper. Anyway. I wasn't talking about NFTs as they exist today. I'm just saying the original concept (as I understood it) seemed basically reasonable, before everybody went insane.
        joveian 5y ago
        The useful part of what you describe is called timestamping and predated (and inspired) Bitcoin.
- acdha 5y ago
  > An NFT is decent evidence in favour of the keyholder being the creator of a work, if there's no earlier evidence of somebody else being the creator of the work. The second clause shows why the first is not true: the other evidence is what gives you the information you need. In every context where it really matters it comes down to what a court would accept and … uh … I would not want to be the one having to tell a judge that something is proof of ownership when anyone on the internet could submit the same record.
  - Joeboy 5y ago
    I can't say for sure what a judge would make of a cryptographically secure hash of a piece of content that there's no record of prior to the hash's registration on a blockchain. I think if somebody tries to claim authorship of eg. a screenplay I've written, such a hash should be pretty good evidence in my favour.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
cratermoon 5y ago
Yeah, an NFT is more like a receipt. Except when you buy one, you only get the receipt. The actual item remains "out there".
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
yellowapple 5y ago
> Thing is, NFTs don't represent ownership, absent some external legal documents which tie ownership to the NFT. NFTs are the ownership-tying documents - specifically, asserting ownership over some property, just like any other deed/title to some property (be it tangible or abstract/intellectual). NFTs, like any other sort of deed/title, require recognition, validation, and enforcement by society at large to have any real value. That is: > I can sell NFTs of bridges all day long; doesn't mean anyone is buying a bridge. I can sell deeds/titles to bridges all day long (complete with thick paper and fancy seals); doesn't mean anyone is buying a bridge.

Joeboy 5y ago

An NFT is decent evidence in favour of the keyholder being the creator of a work, if there's no earlier evidence of somebody else being the creator of the work. When people first started talking about them I thought that was the idea - a kind of people's copyright registry on the blockchain. Which seems like a fairly reasonable idea, as far as it goes. Edit: To be clear, I mean a copyright registry that is used for the sort of thing copyright registries are used for, ie. adjudicating copyright disputes. I am not saying an NFT of the Mona Lisa is good evidence you painted the Mona Lisa (unless you minted it in 1502), and I'm definitely not saying the current market in NFTs is sensible.

root_axis 5y ago
> An NFT is decent evidence in favour of you being the creator of a work, if there's no earlier evidence of somebody else being the creator of the work It's really not at all reliable. I could create an NFT for the "Joeboy" HN account right now, and ostensibly become the owner of your HN account since such an NFT does not already exist. Obviously, this makes no sense, the NFT is meaningless.
- Joeboy 5y ago
  If there was no evidence of the account existing before you registered the NFT, I think that would be a reasonably credible bit of evidence in your favour.
- capableweb 5y ago
  No, you could create an NFT that supposedly represents that but unless people buy into the idea, no is becoming the owner of anything. If instead Ycombinator would release each user as an NFT, and allow people to buy/sell then, then yes you could become the owner of an HN account via NFTs. But until then, the one who knows the password is the owner. People seems to have some sort of problem with trying to understand NFTs were all thoughts and logic go out the window as soon as NFTs are mentioned.
  - Joeboy 5y ago
    As I understood their comment, they were pointing out the absurdity of the idea you are also pointing out the absurdity of.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
meheleventyone 5y ago
It's not at all there is rampant fraud in the NFT market. So much so Deviantart made some detection software to help alert artists their work is being stolen. All that can be definitively proved outside of other methods is who created the token.
- Joeboy 5y ago
  It sounds like you're talking about cases where, as I said, there's "earlier evidence of somebody else being the creator of the work". In the absence of that, I think the token would be a decent piece of evidence in favour of the token owner.
  - meheleventyone 5y ago
    So would posting it anywhere online essentially. Twitter would work for the same usecase. Or the old sending it to yourself through the mail thing. NFTs also don’t put the image on chain usually instead just linking from the metadata so a fraudster could register a bunch of placeholder NFTs and then later put stolen art where the link points to. Hey Presto you can steal art and “prove” the actual creator is the fraud.
    - Joeboy 5y ago
      Well, posting the actual content publicly would obviously make it public, which registering a hash on the blockchain would not. "Sending it to yourself through the mail" would probably be the competition, and I would say a cryptographic hash is at least as good as a postmark, as well as cheaper. Anyway. I wasn't talking about NFTs as they exist today. I'm just saying the original concept (as I understood it) seemed basically reasonable, before everybody went insane.
      - joveian 5y ago
        The useful part of what you describe is called timestamping and predated (and inspired) Bitcoin.
acdha 5y ago
> An NFT is decent evidence in favour of the keyholder being the creator of a work, if there's no earlier evidence of somebody else being the creator of the work. The second clause shows why the first is not true: the other evidence is what gives you the information you need. In every context where it really matters it comes down to what a court would accept and … uh … I would not want to be the one having to tell a judge that something is proof of ownership when anyone on the internet could submit the same record.
- Joeboy 5y ago
  I can't say for sure what a judge would make of a cryptographically secure hash of a piece of content that there's no record of prior to the hash's registration on a blockchain. I think if somebody tries to claim authorship of eg. a screenplay I've written, such a hash should be pretty good evidence in my favour.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]

cratermoon 5y ago

Yeah, an NFT is more like a receipt. Except when you buy one, you only get the receipt. The actual item remains "out there".

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

yellowapple 5y ago

> Thing is, NFTs don't represent ownership, absent some external legal documents which tie ownership to the NFT. NFTs are the ownership-tying documents - specifically, asserting ownership over some property, just like any other deed/title to some property (be it tangible or abstract/intellectual). NFTs, like any other sort of deed/title, require recognition, validation, and enforcement by society at large to have any real value. That is: > I can sell NFTs of bridges all day long; doesn't mean anyone is buying a bridge. I can sell deeds/titles to bridges all day long (complete with thick paper and fancy seals); doesn't mean anyone is buying a bridge.