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If you have to have some odd local definition of ownership you’ve already lost and know it! Compare it to physical art. If you buy physical art you take contro

If you have to have some odd local definition of ownership you’ve already lost and know it! Compare it to physical art. If you buy physical art you take control of the object and can do what you like with it including keeping it locked up in a customs warehouse. If you buy a token you own the token not anything it points to. You can do what you like with the token but not what it points to. You own a link.

mrtksn 5y ago
The stuff you describe about physical art is only valid within a jurisdiction that has legislated ownership of physical items. You can very well take control of an object without owning it and lock it up in a custom warehouse. You can be custodian of it if the legal framework allows for that, it still can be yours of someone takes ot from you physically. Depending on the jurisdiction, it is possible that despite you paid to own the physical art piece, you are still not allowed to take photos of it in purpose to reproduce the images of it. You may own it but maybe you can't break it down or take it away from its place. These are all constructs that societies had it differently and it's all matter of legal and political processes. There's no inartistic ownership, it is a social construct that happens within a community. The blockchain doesn't operate within the traditional legislations, ownership within a blockchain means people who use it accept the record as true. If it says that you own it, you own it(within the community of people who use blockchain).
- meheleventyone 5y ago
  Things being a social construct doesn’t mean their definitions lack solidity. Particularly when defended by force through mutually agreed frameworks like governments and legal systems with their own mutual agreements inter-jurisdiction. All you do when you use a local definition is note that you’re going against the established definition by society, enjoy none of the protections and muddy the waters for people who don’t know you have a peculiar definition. This happens a lot in blockchain communities where ownership, trust, decentralisation and other terms end up being a lot more local in definition because the whole house of cards gets exposed if you actually look at things more neutrally. It’s a bit cult like in that respect and interestingly a lot of cults have odd ideas about ownership as well.
  - mrtksn 5y ago
    Yes, blockchain stuff don’t abide within the established definitions in the society. In fact, that’s the main value proposition of it. You own certain amount of coins or NFT not because the legal framework allows it but because the software that interprets the blockchain says so. it’s distributed nature makes it a societal construct within the society that uses that software. To own anything in the blockchain in the traditional sense, there needs to be a legislation for it and I’m not aware of any. The point is though, it doesn’t matter.
    - meheleventyone 5y ago
      Actually the ownership of the coins and tokens does fit into established definitions. Hence why it slides into legal frameworks quite nicely and we see taxation, prosecutions and so on based on that ownership. It’s just the ownership of what the NFT points to doesn’t.
      - mrtksn 5y ago
        No it doesn’t but it seems like will eventually, that’s why it’s a debated topic the last few years and varies from locality to locality. Legislators may eventually legislate the NFT too.
        meheleventyone 5y ago
        Pull the other one! You can literally see legislation that impact NFTs going into US law this week and confiscations of crypto-currency from criminal cases as well. The crypto crowd doesn’t like it but it’s not because the understanding of ownership of the coins and tokens is different. The art a token points to on the other hand. Put it this way I absolutely think people that own an NFT own the token and owned the currency used to pay for it. I don’t in anyway think they own the art it’s supposed to represent.
        mrtksn 5y ago
        Just as Afghanistan recently outlawed foreing currency use and that's Afghans' problem, this is also something US citizens should deal with. Spoiler alert: Most people in the world are not US citizens and don't live in the US. The ownership of the underlying asset depends on what you understand by ownership.
- newswasboring 5y ago
  > You can very well take control of an object without owning it and lock it up in a custom warehouse NFTs seem to be the opposite of this. Just "ownership" but no control. How do people not see a problem with this.
- gerikson 5y ago
  > The stuff you describe about physical art is only valid within a jurisdiction that has legislated ownership of physical items. I am not a lawyer, but I'm pretty sure jurisdictions that don't have that legislation are vanishingly rare. Maybe North Korea? NFTs piggy-back off the legislation of developed countries. All of those defend ownership of physical goods.
  - mrtksn 5y ago
    The point is that ownership is a made up concept, albeit a popular one. Also, it’s very complex and definitely not a clear cut. For example, you can’t simply process the plastic disk you bought, called Music CD, and share the output with everyone, you can get into real trouble. You can buy a plane ticket but whether you can give it back varies and you can almost never sell it, despite owning it. You can own one aspect of something and not the other, for example you can own the right to make toys from a character but not the rights to make a movie. You can own a Databese in Europe but can’t own it in US. You can own software patents in US but not on the Europe. You can buy a very old house in central London but you can’t demolish it just like that and build something else. In some places men can own women, in other places white colored people used to own dark colored people. In some places you are allowed to rent your body for certain purposes or inject whatever you want to yourself, in other places you can’t do a lot of thing to yourself. Also, the way you acquire your possessions is not a clear cut. Purchase is a common one but you can get things by participating or organizing mass murder, a common practice known as “war”. You can also acquire things through inheritance, a popular option but not a clear cut too because the inheritance rules can change depending on your gender, age, race, nationality and the jurisdiction. You can own a Gmail or HN account that you never bought and can be taken away at any time. As you can see, ownership is a complicated concept. You can’t really pin down a property of ownership and say this is the test to determine if you own it or not. NFT is just another complication but this time enabled through international computer networks(traditional communities would create registers and institutions to deal with ownership management).

mrtksn 5y ago

The stuff you describe about physical art is only valid within a jurisdiction that has legislated ownership of physical items. You can very well take control of an object without owning it and lock it up in a custom warehouse. You can be custodian of it if the legal framework allows for that, it still can be yours of someone takes ot from you physically. Depending on the jurisdiction, it is possible that despite you paid to own the physical art piece, you are still not allowed to take photos of it in purpose to reproduce the images of it. You may own it but maybe you can't break it down or take it away from its place. These are all constructs that societies had it differently and it's all matter of legal and political processes. There's no inartistic ownership, it is a social construct that happens within a community. The blockchain doesn't operate within the traditional legislations, ownership within a blockchain means people who use it accept the record as true. If it says that you own it, you own it(within the community of people who use blockchain).

meheleventyone 5y ago
Things being a social construct doesn’t mean their definitions lack solidity. Particularly when defended by force through mutually agreed frameworks like governments and legal systems with their own mutual agreements inter-jurisdiction. All you do when you use a local definition is note that you’re going against the established definition by society, enjoy none of the protections and muddy the waters for people who don’t know you have a peculiar definition. This happens a lot in blockchain communities where ownership, trust, decentralisation and other terms end up being a lot more local in definition because the whole house of cards gets exposed if you actually look at things more neutrally. It’s a bit cult like in that respect and interestingly a lot of cults have odd ideas about ownership as well.
- mrtksn 5y ago
  Yes, blockchain stuff don’t abide within the established definitions in the society. In fact, that’s the main value proposition of it. You own certain amount of coins or NFT not because the legal framework allows it but because the software that interprets the blockchain says so. it’s distributed nature makes it a societal construct within the society that uses that software. To own anything in the blockchain in the traditional sense, there needs to be a legislation for it and I’m not aware of any. The point is though, it doesn’t matter.
  - meheleventyone 5y ago
    Actually the ownership of the coins and tokens does fit into established definitions. Hence why it slides into legal frameworks quite nicely and we see taxation, prosecutions and so on based on that ownership. It’s just the ownership of what the NFT points to doesn’t.
    - mrtksn 5y ago
      No it doesn’t but it seems like will eventually, that’s why it’s a debated topic the last few years and varies from locality to locality. Legislators may eventually legislate the NFT too.
      - meheleventyone 5y ago
        Pull the other one! You can literally see legislation that impact NFTs going into US law this week and confiscations of crypto-currency from criminal cases as well. The crypto crowd doesn’t like it but it’s not because the understanding of ownership of the coins and tokens is different. The art a token points to on the other hand. Put it this way I absolutely think people that own an NFT own the token and owned the currency used to pay for it. I don’t in anyway think they own the art it’s supposed to represent.
        mrtksn 5y ago
        Just as Afghanistan recently outlawed foreing currency use and that's Afghans' problem, this is also something US citizens should deal with. Spoiler alert: Most people in the world are not US citizens and don't live in the US. The ownership of the underlying asset depends on what you understand by ownership.
newswasboring 5y ago
> You can very well take control of an object without owning it and lock it up in a custom warehouse NFTs seem to be the opposite of this. Just "ownership" but no control. How do people not see a problem with this.
gerikson 5y ago
> The stuff you describe about physical art is only valid within a jurisdiction that has legislated ownership of physical items. I am not a lawyer, but I'm pretty sure jurisdictions that don't have that legislation are vanishingly rare. Maybe North Korea? NFTs piggy-back off the legislation of developed countries. All of those defend ownership of physical goods.
- mrtksn 5y ago
  The point is that ownership is a made up concept, albeit a popular one. Also, it’s very complex and definitely not a clear cut. For example, you can’t simply process the plastic disk you bought, called Music CD, and share the output with everyone, you can get into real trouble. You can buy a plane ticket but whether you can give it back varies and you can almost never sell it, despite owning it. You can own one aspect of something and not the other, for example you can own the right to make toys from a character but not the rights to make a movie. You can own a Databese in Europe but can’t own it in US. You can own software patents in US but not on the Europe. You can buy a very old house in central London but you can’t demolish it just like that and build something else. In some places men can own women, in other places white colored people used to own dark colored people. In some places you are allowed to rent your body for certain purposes or inject whatever you want to yourself, in other places you can’t do a lot of thing to yourself. Also, the way you acquire your possessions is not a clear cut. Purchase is a common one but you can get things by participating or organizing mass murder, a common practice known as “war”. You can also acquire things through inheritance, a popular option but not a clear cut too because the inheritance rules can change depending on your gender, age, race, nationality and the jurisdiction. You can own a Gmail or HN account that you never bought and can be taken away at any time. As you can see, ownership is a complicated concept. You can’t really pin down a property of ownership and say this is the test to determine if you own it or not. NFT is just another complication but this time enabled through international computer networks(traditional communities would create registers and institutions to deal with ownership management).