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You’re presuming ownership universally means copyright. It doesn’t. Ownership is as much a cultural norm as a legal one. Owning the NFT, in certain circles, all

by gfodor 5y ago

You’re presuming ownership universally means copyright. It doesn’t. Ownership is as much a cultural norm as a legal one. Owning the NFT, in certain circles, allows you to participate in an alternative cultural norm of ownership, decoupled from copyright ownership.

nefitty 5y ago
I tried to understand what you said but it ends up indecipherable like a koan. In this case, this koan confers a monetary benefit to the self-appointed Zen Masters of crypto. For only a few dollars the followers get a little sticker that says "Enlightened".
- gfodor 5y ago
  Concretely there are a variety of metaverse projects which only allow you to spawn the item if you own the (creator sanctioned) NFT.
  - zepto 5y ago
    It’s perfectly fair to say that NFTs work as an in-game currency and nothing more.
    - gfodor 5y ago
      If you presume that we will in large part be continually living in a video game of varying levels of immersion relatively soon then this becomes something fairly significant.
      - nefitty 5y ago
        Zuckerberg's moves make sense in this context. NFT's make sense in it as well. I don't feel compelled to play video games, and I don't feel interested in joining an AR metaverse. That might just be personal shortcoming clouding my expectations of Web3...
      - zepto 5y ago
        I partially agree with this. But then why all the bullshit? Why don’t people just come out and say that it’s all about in-game items for the metaverse rather than all the talk about owning media? Nothing suggests that existing NFTs will be relevant in that world even if the technology is. It’s also not obvious that a distributed ledger has an advantage over a centralized one.
        gfodor 5y ago
        I think whenever you see someone say "owning media" you should re-write it in your brain as "owning the only author-signed copy of media" - that's probably the most effective rewrite that maximizes the utility of analogy. The value of the distributed ledger is rooted in a theory: that it will be, in the long term, the most durable and agreed upon place to look to for arbitrary third parties to decide whose artist's signature is legitimate. The thing that suggests the NFTs of the world today will be relevant in that future world is pretty simple: take any piece of art where the artist involved has publicly sanctioned an NFT for it, and ask the question if the signature of that artist on that work will theoretically be something valued by society in the future. (Grounded by the well placed assumption that this is truly non-fungible - the artist can't even reneg on this, since history will record this was the original.) The number of times you can affirm this as a "yes" should increase the weight you put on the hypothesis today's NFTs will be valuable in the future. It's worth noting: these two hypotheses are decoupled. The blockchain has already been written. So even if the idea of an NFT burns out so much that future artists do not make them anymore, this doesn't necessarily mean the NFTs that exist today will not be valuable or recognized. They are in the public record, and those who control the wallets they are assigned to will always be able to prove they are the owners of them, even if the chains they are on stop adding new blocks in the future.
        zepto 5y ago
        NFTs are not signatures on works of art. The media is not signed by the NFT. A signed artwork is more valuable than an unsigned artwork. However NFTs do not create signed artworks. The artwork remains the same. The NFT is just a receipt for someone paying money to someone else, who in some cases is linked to the an artist. Is that valuable? Maybe. I concede that a bill of sale from some point along the chain of ownership of ‘the last supper’ might have value to some kind of collector. But, an NFT is not equivalent even to the bill of sale. If you have the bill of sale, you have a unique historical item, whereas the NFT is on the public blockchain where everyone can see it and copy of it, so even that doesn’t have any scarcity. Both the media and the NFT are infinitely copyable.
evan_ 5y ago
Would you like to participate in an alternative cultural norm of ownership of a bridge in Brooklyn?
- gfodor 5y ago
  Depends on the context. For example if it meant I was the only one able to spawn the bridge in Meta’s Horizon, maybe? You just don’t know what’s happening.
  - zepto 5y ago
    > You just don’t know what’s happening. You mean NFTs as an in-game currency for Facebook’s VR? Yes, that’s a reasonable account of what they are good for.
  - verdverm 5y ago
    What would stop someone from spawning a slightly modified (imperceptible to human eye) Brooklyn Bridge? The idea of artificial scarcity seems central to NFT, but it is unclear if this is really a moat or desirable. Does it really convey exclusivity over a "unique" set of bits?
    - gfodor 5y ago
      No, an NFT is not a pair but a tuple. The third part of the tuple is the third party who issued the NFT. In the case of the Brooklyn Bridge, the NFTs I expect that would confer social status in the metaverse regarding the bridge would be ones issued by the City of New York or perhaps the descendants of the original architects. This will probably actually happen in some form but it will be a while. If you’re talking about a specific work of art depicting the bridge, the only NFT of value is the one sanctioned by the original artist. That NFT is scarce. Too many people do not understand what an NFT represents and what it’s short and longer term expected conferred benefits are, and are hung up on trying to create analogies to existing forms of ownership like physical property rights or copyright.
      - 5y ago
malermeister 5y ago
The thing about cultural norms is that they're only meaningful if they're accepted by the prevailing culture. Based on this thread, I would say NFTs are not. So what exactly is the point of an "alternative form of ownership" that is only considered valid by a small subculture and not society at large? Is it really ownership in any meaningful sense?
- gfodor 5y ago
  NFTs are considered ownership in nascent online societies. There is no “at large” society. Even nation state recognized ownership in terms of copyright has its limits.
  - zepto 5y ago
    If there is no “at large society”, why don’t you live in a nicer house?
    - gfodor 5y ago
      Huh? I own my home in the eyes of most people I care about (for example, most citizens and authorities of the United States.) But even within the US there are for example socialists who reject the idea I own my home. They just don’t have the means to overturn this particular norm within the sovereignty of my country - but in some circles like that insofar as “being a homeowner” confers privileges such privileges would not exist.
      - zepto 5y ago
        Sure but that’s what people mean by ‘at large society’. The fact that there are a few socialists tho object is irrelevant.
        gfodor 5y ago
        When it comes to physical land and real estate then I agree there is a pretty natural definition of “at large” - the sovereignties the land is located within. For other things like copyright and other extra-physical forms of ownership that span society at large, there is no macro set of laws governing these things universally so context matters.

by gfodor 5y ago

nefitty 5y ago

I tried to understand what you said but it ends up indecipherable like a koan. In this case, this koan confers a monetary benefit to the self-appointed Zen Masters of crypto. For only a few dollars the followers get a little sticker that says "Enlightened".

gfodor 5y ago
Concretely there are a variety of metaverse projects which only allow you to spawn the item if you own the (creator sanctioned) NFT.
- zepto 5y ago
  It’s perfectly fair to say that NFTs work as an in-game currency and nothing more.
  - gfodor 5y ago
    If you presume that we will in large part be continually living in a video game of varying levels of immersion relatively soon then this becomes something fairly significant.
    - nefitty 5y ago
      Zuckerberg's moves make sense in this context. NFT's make sense in it as well. I don't feel compelled to play video games, and I don't feel interested in joining an AR metaverse. That might just be personal shortcoming clouding my expectations of Web3...
    - zepto 5y ago
      I partially agree with this. But then why all the bullshit? Why don’t people just come out and say that it’s all about in-game items for the metaverse rather than all the talk about owning media? Nothing suggests that existing NFTs will be relevant in that world even if the technology is. It’s also not obvious that a distributed ledger has an advantage over a centralized one.
      - gfodor 5y ago
        I think whenever you see someone say "owning media" you should re-write it in your brain as "owning the only author-signed copy of media" - that's probably the most effective rewrite that maximizes the utility of analogy. The value of the distributed ledger is rooted in a theory: that it will be, in the long term, the most durable and agreed upon place to look to for arbitrary third parties to decide whose artist's signature is legitimate. The thing that suggests the NFTs of the world today will be relevant in that future world is pretty simple: take any piece of art where the artist involved has publicly sanctioned an NFT for it, and ask the question if the signature of that artist on that work will theoretically be something valued by society in the future. (Grounded by the well placed assumption that this is truly non-fungible - the artist can't even reneg on this, since history will record this was the original.) The number of times you can affirm this as a "yes" should increase the weight you put on the hypothesis today's NFTs will be valuable in the future. It's worth noting: these two hypotheses are decoupled. The blockchain has already been written. So even if the idea of an NFT burns out so much that future artists do not make them anymore, this doesn't necessarily mean the NFTs that exist today will not be valuable or recognized. They are in the public record, and those who control the wallets they are assigned to will always be able to prove they are the owners of them, even if the chains they are on stop adding new blocks in the future.
        zepto 5y ago
        NFTs are not signatures on works of art. The media is not signed by the NFT. A signed artwork is more valuable than an unsigned artwork. However NFTs do not create signed artworks. The artwork remains the same. The NFT is just a receipt for someone paying money to someone else, who in some cases is linked to the an artist. Is that valuable? Maybe. I concede that a bill of sale from some point along the chain of ownership of ‘the last supper’ might have value to some kind of collector. But, an NFT is not equivalent even to the bill of sale. If you have the bill of sale, you have a unique historical item, whereas the NFT is on the public blockchain where everyone can see it and copy of it, so even that doesn’t have any scarcity. Both the media and the NFT are infinitely copyable.

evan_ 5y ago

Would you like to participate in an alternative cultural norm of ownership of a bridge in Brooklyn?

gfodor 5y ago
Depends on the context. For example if it meant I was the only one able to spawn the bridge in Meta’s Horizon, maybe? You just don’t know what’s happening.
- zepto 5y ago
  > You just don’t know what’s happening. You mean NFTs as an in-game currency for Facebook’s VR? Yes, that’s a reasonable account of what they are good for.
- verdverm 5y ago
  What would stop someone from spawning a slightly modified (imperceptible to human eye) Brooklyn Bridge? The idea of artificial scarcity seems central to NFT, but it is unclear if this is really a moat or desirable. Does it really convey exclusivity over a "unique" set of bits?
  - gfodor 5y ago
    No, an NFT is not a pair but a tuple. The third part of the tuple is the third party who issued the NFT. In the case of the Brooklyn Bridge, the NFTs I expect that would confer social status in the metaverse regarding the bridge would be ones issued by the City of New York or perhaps the descendants of the original architects. This will probably actually happen in some form but it will be a while. If you’re talking about a specific work of art depicting the bridge, the only NFT of value is the one sanctioned by the original artist. That NFT is scarce. Too many people do not understand what an NFT represents and what it’s short and longer term expected conferred benefits are, and are hung up on trying to create analogies to existing forms of ownership like physical property rights or copyright.
    - 5y ago

malermeister 5y ago

The thing about cultural norms is that they're only meaningful if they're accepted by the prevailing culture. Based on this thread, I would say NFTs are not. So what exactly is the point of an "alternative form of ownership" that is only considered valid by a small subculture and not society at large? Is it really ownership in any meaningful sense?

gfodor 5y ago
NFTs are considered ownership in nascent online societies. There is no “at large” society. Even nation state recognized ownership in terms of copyright has its limits.
- zepto 5y ago
  If there is no “at large society”, why don’t you live in a nicer house?
  - gfodor 5y ago
    Huh? I own my home in the eyes of most people I care about (for example, most citizens and authorities of the United States.) But even within the US there are for example socialists who reject the idea I own my home. They just don’t have the means to overturn this particular norm within the sovereignty of my country - but in some circles like that insofar as “being a homeowner” confers privileges such privileges would not exist.
    - zepto 5y ago
      Sure but that’s what people mean by ‘at large society’. The fact that there are a few socialists tho object is irrelevant.
      - gfodor 5y ago
        When it comes to physical land and real estate then I agree there is a pretty natural definition of “at large” - the sovereignties the land is located within. For other things like copyright and other extra-physical forms of ownership that span society at large, there is no macro set of laws governing these things universally so context matters.