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> An NFT is just a record on a blockchain saying that [wallet address] is the current owner of [URL]. It has absolutely nothing to do with ownership. That’s li

by herval 5y ago

> An NFT is just a record on a blockchain saying that [wallet address] is the current owner of [URL]. It has absolutely nothing to do with ownership. That’s literally a _record of ownership_. > You can sell an NFT of the Mona Lisa. I can also sell it. That means there are two NFT ownership records for Mona Lisa. You don’t seem to grasp the concept of digital content. The Mona Lisa you sell as part of contract A is not the same you sell as part of contract B. Even if you’re selling two exactly identical jpegs, they’re different _digital objects_. Very simple example: there’s many clones of the Bored Apes across many blockchains, including Ethereum itself. Only ONE of these contracts grants you access to their bar in Miami. That person is also the only one who can sell their Bored Ape for hundreds of thousands of dollars - nobody will pay that for the copies in other contracts, because _they’re not the original_. How is that not a proof of ownership?

acjohnson55 5y ago
Ownership of an NFT is, in general,, ownership of the token, no more, no less. The creator of the artwork could legally assign rights to the tokenholder. But that would be a special case, and that is extra. Anyone is free to give privileges to tokenholders of specific contract that they recognize as authentic, but that is not the same as ownership of the artwork.
- herval 5y ago
  Correct. Ownership is an ambiguous concept, when you “own” something, it comes with terms of what that “ownership” entails. An NFT is an entry in a ledger that says who owns that entry - it’s a _proof of ownership_, not _ownership itself_. Whether that includes copyright ownership of the artwork, right to modify or distribute, etc, it’s all contractual aspects that are external to the ledger/entry. Smart Contract maximalists may argue it should all be code - and maybe we’ll see more and more becoming code, including TOS, DRM, etc. Maybe one day there’ll be a way to fully model and enforce ownership of a digital object, but I’m not holding my breath for that.
soco 5y ago
How do you decide which of the many proofs of ownership are The Proof Of Ownership? By asking the Bored Apes bar folks? How do you know if they're the right owners? What if I open a Bored Apes bar in Tampa and let people in only based on another copy?
- herval 5y ago
  The same way you verify if a deed is authentic: asking an appointed “Oracle”. In this case, sites like OpenSea act as verifiers. Who tells you the Louis Vuitton bag you’re buying is authentic? Do you ask the shopkeeper? How do you know they’re not selling you a copy? If you opened a bar in Tampa and called it the same as someone else named theirs, and stole their branding, you’d be exposed to the same copyright laws one would in Florida, with or without NFTs involved. That’s a completely orthogonal issue, NFTs aren’t a mechanism for copyright enforcement, they’re just a ledger that’s easier to verify because it’s public and distributed.
  - soco 5y ago
    I don't think OpenSea can vouch anything for things outside their ledger, and even in there they can only check the timestamps, which cannot tell anything about proof of real-life ownership (where those copyright laws work). So the ledger can vouch for my timestamp in this ledger as long everybody trusts only this ledger and not this other ledger. So while I agree NFTs are not meant to enforce copyright, I think also they don't go much in the direction of proving it either as long you still need some real-world oracle like the artist themselves or such. You can just check the artist website at this point, it can be more trustworthy than a timestamp in a ledger and just as open.
    - herval 5y ago
      OpenSea verifies ownership off-chain, they "verify" projects, prevent fake Bored Apes from proliferating, etc. Same sort of "proof" you'd expect on any digital property, from Twitter's identity verification to Spotify's. You're overcycling on something about "timestamps in a ledger" that's not really relevant to what we're talking here. > You can just check the artist website at this point, it can be more trustworthy than a timestamp in a ledger and just as open. How do you know the artist's website you're visiting is the actual artist? How do you decide which of the many sites is The Real One? By asking the artist? How do you know if they're the right owners? What if I open a site and claim I'm the artist, and sell a copy of their content?

by herval 5y ago

acjohnson55 5y ago

Ownership of an NFT is, in general,, ownership of the token, no more, no less. The creator of the artwork could legally assign rights to the tokenholder. But that would be a special case, and that is extra. Anyone is free to give privileges to tokenholders of specific contract that they recognize as authentic, but that is not the same as ownership of the artwork.

herval 5y ago
Correct. Ownership is an ambiguous concept, when you “own” something, it comes with terms of what that “ownership” entails. An NFT is an entry in a ledger that says who owns that entry - it’s a _proof of ownership_, not _ownership itself_. Whether that includes copyright ownership of the artwork, right to modify or distribute, etc, it’s all contractual aspects that are external to the ledger/entry. Smart Contract maximalists may argue it should all be code - and maybe we’ll see more and more becoming code, including TOS, DRM, etc. Maybe one day there’ll be a way to fully model and enforce ownership of a digital object, but I’m not holding my breath for that.

soco 5y ago

How do you decide which of the many proofs of ownership are The Proof Of Ownership? By asking the Bored Apes bar folks? How do you know if they're the right owners? What if I open a Bored Apes bar in Tampa and let people in only based on another copy?

herval 5y ago
The same way you verify if a deed is authentic: asking an appointed “Oracle”. In this case, sites like OpenSea act as verifiers. Who tells you the Louis Vuitton bag you’re buying is authentic? Do you ask the shopkeeper? How do you know they’re not selling you a copy? If you opened a bar in Tampa and called it the same as someone else named theirs, and stole their branding, you’d be exposed to the same copyright laws one would in Florida, with or without NFTs involved. That’s a completely orthogonal issue, NFTs aren’t a mechanism for copyright enforcement, they’re just a ledger that’s easier to verify because it’s public and distributed.
- soco 5y ago
  I don't think OpenSea can vouch anything for things outside their ledger, and even in there they can only check the timestamps, which cannot tell anything about proof of real-life ownership (where those copyright laws work). So the ledger can vouch for my timestamp in this ledger as long everybody trusts only this ledger and not this other ledger. So while I agree NFTs are not meant to enforce copyright, I think also they don't go much in the direction of proving it either as long you still need some real-world oracle like the artist themselves or such. You can just check the artist website at this point, it can be more trustworthy than a timestamp in a ledger and just as open.
  - herval 5y ago
    OpenSea verifies ownership off-chain, they "verify" projects, prevent fake Bored Apes from proliferating, etc. Same sort of "proof" you'd expect on any digital property, from Twitter's identity verification to Spotify's. You're overcycling on something about "timestamps in a ledger" that's not really relevant to what we're talking here. > You can just check the artist website at this point, it can be more trustworthy than a timestamp in a ledger and just as open. How do you know the artist's website you're visiting is the actual artist? How do you decide which of the many sites is The Real One? By asking the artist? How do you know if they're the right owners? What if I open a site and claim I'm the artist, and sell a copy of their content?