69 ms·

Woke Up to an NFT of Myself

57 points by madmax108 5y ago

labrador 5y ago
tl;dr The photographer that created the NFT owned the rights to the photo. She doesn't really have an issue with that, but as a transwoman, is self-conscious about her looks and doesn't really like the photo
- CreepGin 5y ago
  Hmm that's a little uncalled for. It's a short write up and the bulk of it was talking about her take on crypto, an intro to Ethereum, and Licensing stuff in open source and photography. Her wishing for a better photo was barely emphasized.
  - tantalor 5y ago
    > In hindsight, I should have worn something different or put on makeup or something. > lack of social awareness and missing social queues [sic] > Do I wish he would take another photograph of me? Yes. I hate that face! > I mentioned I had some trauma regarding my facial characteristics as a transgender woman. If this aspect wasn't relevant, why mention it?
    - CreepGin 5y ago
      Mentioned != Whole point of article (as is suggested by the post I was replying to)
      - ungamedplayer 5y ago
        In the post Twitter mob world, expect that context no longer matters.
  - mise_en_place 5y ago
    The article states: > Do I wish he would take another photograph of me? Yes. I hate that face! It’s particularly difficult for the author I guess, because in the NFT they don’t pass at all. I can empathize with that on some level, even if I don’t agree with the politics of this person.
iskander 5y ago
NFT collection here: https://opensea.io/collection/faces-of-open-source https://opensea.io/collection/faces-of-open-source It feels very awkward to buy these, though I'm not sure exactly why.
- bastardoperator 5y ago
  Awkward is seeing your coworkers, mentioning it to them and them not knowing it happened either.
  - RyJones 5y ago
    As an employee of the Linux Foundation - yes.
clpm4j 5y ago
From the blog post: """ I agree with Peter. I think he is well-meaning. Given the difficulties with publishing his book I can see why NFTs make sense. As an author, I can deeply emphasize with the challenges in publishing a book. Sure – it could have been better. Honestly I am just honored that somebody thinks my stupid open source work is valuable enough to put my face on an NFT. - Do I wish he would take another photograph of me? Yes. I hate that face! - Do I wish he would have reached out first? Yes. But honestly I probably would have missed the email. - Do I think Crypto is here to stay? Absolutely. There are too many hurt, and traumatized young people in the world without a viable career path otherwise. Crypto isn’t going anywhere. - Do I think Crypto is bad for the environment? Yes. """
- oneoff786 5y ago
  > Do I think Crypto is here to stay? Absolutely. There are too many hurt, and traumatized young people in the world without a viable career path otherwise. That’s a hot take.
  - iskander 5y ago
    That's a common view on Crypto Twitter, lots of celebration of essentially socially stunted behavior by people with limited avenues for progression in the non-crypto world. Some of them end up building very valuable (at least momentarily) crypto assets and making orders of magnitude more money than they could have otherwise.
vanusa 5y ago
Legal or not, it's still skivvy.
dxbydt 5y ago
kind of icky, this weird intersection of tech with art space. otoh i know a bunch of oss devs who could use the dough. can't we find a better way to pay them than plaster their face all over web3. guess not.
abetusk 5y ago
TLDR; The author (Kris Nova) found that a photographer who owned the copyright on a picture taken of her was put up for an NFT. In other words, the photographer, who owned the copyright on a picture of the author (Kris Nova), minted an NFT on opensea.io. It sounds like Kris Nova was a bit shocked but ultimately, tentatively, supportive. For people who maintain cryptocurrencies can only be used for crime, I would offer this quote from the post: """ I used bitcoin to pay for my HRT as a transgender woman when I first started transitioning in 2013. There was a bitcoin kiosk in Denver and that was the only way I was able to purchase estradiol on the underground pharmaceutical market. """
- oneoff786 5y ago
  While I don’t disagree with the ethics of selling such things, selling underground pharmaceuticals is almost certainly an example of a crime.
  - mise_en_place 5y ago
    Isn’t it more of a grey area? They’re unscheduled. Which is why you can get something like Etizolam on the grey market. Or ivermectin
- conradludgate 5y ago
  Well, technically that is currently a crime. Those underground pharmaceuticals are illegal drugs. I agree that they shouldn't be illegal, but it currently is, so the statement is not disproven by this quote
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
Barrin92 5y ago
Would be very interested to see how something like this plays out here in Germany because we have what's called a right to your own image, meaning that taking and in particular selling a photograph of you requires your consent. Profiting of someone else's likeness without their explicit agreement can get you into trouble very quickly. Now with an NFT you're not technically selling a picture and I'm still not entirely sure why someone buying an NFT of an open source picture makes any sense at all but it is kind of inherent to what's being sold, because I don't think anyone would pay the same for some random bits of information.
- fleddr 5y ago
  Clearly, consent was given to take the photo. As for using the photo it may require a model release statement, depending on what that usage is.
- stefan_ 5y ago
  That wouldn't apply here because this was a professional photoshoot and the photographer obtained a release from everyone pictured. I guess the lesson here is to restrict the use to the project that it's being done for and otherwise reserve all rights.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- throw_m239339 5y ago
  > Now with an NFT you're not technically selling a picture and I'm still not entirely sure why someone buying an NFT of an open source picture makes any sense at all but it is kind of inherent to what's being sold, because I don't think anyone would pay the same for some random bits of information. It makes sense as some people right now are willing to pay for it, thinking they will eventually make a profit with that sort of "investment". It could go both ways. Those selling NFT might be successful at creating a sense of value (through big influencers, marketing...) or eventually fail only time will tell. Remember ICO? Which one wasn't a scam again? NFT itself is an "art performance", since it make us question the notion of "value". What is value? Why this or that item, physical or digital is valuable? Resources are certainly finite as well as knowledgeable and skilled people, but value is often completely disconnected from any fundamentals in crypto. It's crazy though how most western government are completely hands off when it comes to crypto regulation. Especially in Europe. In USA you see the SEC cracking down on a few crypto scams and suing ICO issuers.
thesausageking 5y ago
"A portion of sales will be donated to open source projects, collectives, and foundations featured in this project." What portion? 90%? 1%? Do they also get a cut of the commission of future sales the NFT takes? To me, it makes a big difference if the funds are primarily going towards open source projects Vs into the photographer's pocket.
- iskander 5y ago
  I bought one under the assumption that it's only going to the photographer -- these kinds of NFTs seem like a good way to pay digital artists without forcing to do commissions. If any portion goes to OSS that's even better!
  - Nalta 5y ago
    in reality, more often than you'd like, the proceeds of these projects go straight to scammers who don't actually have the rights to the source itself.
    - iskander 5y ago
      That seems irrelevant in this case, where the NFT project is clearly by the photographer who owns the rights to the photos.
kyruzic 5y ago
The language people use around nfts is a big scam. Its not an NFT of this person, its not even an NFT of the picture. Its an NFT that points to an image. Hackernews loves to hate on crypto, if there is any part that should be hated on its nfts. Because they're a giant worthless scam.
- smabie 5y ago
  I mean they have value: otherwise you wouldn't be able to sell them? You can call them a scam but they're clearly not worthless. Flipping NFTs can be incredibly profitable.
  - JoshuaDavid 5y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulip_mania https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulip_mania Just because there are currently people willing to pay a lot of money for something, and there are currently people making money flipping that thing, doesn't mean that thing will be valuable in the future.
    - zokier 5y ago
      Just because something will not be valuable in the future doesn't mean its not valuable right now. Valuations change all the time.
      - JoshuaDavid 5y ago
        Agreed. For example, tulips were extremely valuable in the Dutch Republic in 1636.
    - causality0 5y ago
      Sure, but many things don't retain value. Your thousand dollar smartphone will be worthless in ten years. Your car will probably be worthless in twenty. People make the mistake of treating them like cryptocurrency which they aren't, but just because they're stupid and will be worthless doesn't make them worthless now.
kordlessagain 5y ago
In other news, NFTs are still stupid.
- dang 5y ago
  Please don't post unsubstantive comments.
  - kordlessagain 5y ago
    I do believe a popular story here of late mentioned Feynman would say things were stupid, especially if it were obvious. I like that approach and embrace it! For those who fail to see stupidity when manifest, my earlier stupid comment may be substantiated by these new stupid comments: 1. NFTs aren’t decentralized because the thing being tokenized doesn’t actually live on the chain. I do wonder if this could even work given how slow chains can get. 2. NFTs don’t assign copyright, or for that matter, offer any native protection to the materials mentioned in the NFT. 3. On the contrary, NFTs are being used to remove information from the Internet which has been in the public domain. Further, as this article indicates, any material can have an NFT assigned, regardless of actual ownership of the thing being tokenized. This also indicated the “selling of the thing” is the use case, which is highly irrational. 4. Lastly, anything that is proposed to monetize “all the things” is just as stupid as saying all things may be improved by software. If all things may be improved by software, we’re all in trouble and don’t even know it.
    - dang 5y ago
      That Feynman would sometimes say things were stupid does not make the GP a substantive comment. You could hardly post a more unsubstantive one. That's not what we want here, for the obvious reason that they make internet threads even more stupid (I'll use the s-word too) than they already are, especially on hot/sensational/burnt-out topics. Your follow-up here is of course much more substantive and would have been fine to post in the first place.
  - throwaway69123 5y ago
    This could be the funniest thing I’ve read all month
tantalor 5y ago
Grammar nitpick: the abuse of the word "myself" in this article is distracting. > an NFT of myself -> an NFT of me > on brand for myself -> on brand for me > photographs of myself -> photographs of me > Myself, and my photograph -> Me, and my photograph > open source engineers like myself -> open source engineers like me > He could have done a better job at reaching out to myself -> ... reaching out to me Author actually uses correct grammar sometimes, > I have invested literally millions of dollars into myself > there is another one of his photographs of me
- garmaine 5y ago
  Grammar is/ought to be descriptive, not prescriptive. This is how people use the word 'myself' and has been for years. Ergo it is correct.
steelframe 5y ago
And with this one desperate and futile attempt to extract meaningful revenue, this photographer has all but guaranteed that all future photographers who approach people in the OSS community are going to get the terms and conditions scrutinized before the subjects agree to relinquishing studio-quality shots of themselves again. I'd be downright embarrassed to have my public image be hawked as an NFT, and I'd be worried about other people assuming I actually endorsed it.
NelsonMinar 5y ago
It's all just scams, frauds, pump-n-dumps, and outright thefts. I really wish our industry and community would stand up and put a spotlight of shame on this kind of activity.
swalls 5y ago
This article got me thinking: what would an anti-NFT but still open source license look like? Is that even possible to do?
- TYPE_FASTER 5y ago
  The Creative Commons licenses offer both commercial and non-commercial options: https://creativecommons.org/about/cclicenses/ https://creativecommons.org/about/cclicenses/ The FoOS project suggests one of the CC licenses: https://www.facesofopensource.com/licensing/ https://www.facesofopensource.com/licensing/

57 points by madmax108 5y ago

tl;dr The photographer that created the NFT owned the rights to the photo. She doesn't really have an issue with that, but as a transwoman, is self-conscious about her looks and doesn't really like the photo

CreepGin 5y ago
Hmm that's a little uncalled for. It's a short write up and the bulk of it was talking about her take on crypto, an intro to Ethereum, and Licensing stuff in open source and photography. Her wishing for a better photo was barely emphasized.
- tantalor 5y ago
  > In hindsight, I should have worn something different or put on makeup or something. > lack of social awareness and missing social queues [sic] > Do I wish he would take another photograph of me? Yes. I hate that face! > I mentioned I had some trauma regarding my facial characteristics as a transgender woman. If this aspect wasn't relevant, why mention it?
  - CreepGin 5y ago
    Mentioned != Whole point of article (as is suggested by the post I was replying to)
    - ungamedplayer 5y ago
      In the post Twitter mob world, expect that context no longer matters.
- mise_en_place 5y ago
  The article states: > Do I wish he would take another photograph of me? Yes. I hate that face! It’s particularly difficult for the author I guess, because in the NFT they don’t pass at all. I can empathize with that on some level, even if I don’t agree with the politics of this person.

iskander 5y ago

NFT collection here: https://opensea.io/collection/faces-of-open-source https://opensea.io/collection/faces-of-open-source It feels very awkward to buy these, though I'm not sure exactly why.

bastardoperator 5y ago
Awkward is seeing your coworkers, mentioning it to them and them not knowing it happened either.
- RyJones 5y ago
  As an employee of the Linux Foundation - yes.

clpm4j 5y ago

From the blog post: """ I agree with Peter. I think he is well-meaning. Given the difficulties with publishing his book I can see why NFTs make sense. As an author, I can deeply emphasize with the challenges in publishing a book. Sure – it could have been better. Honestly I am just honored that somebody thinks my stupid open source work is valuable enough to put my face on an NFT. - Do I wish he would take another photograph of me? Yes. I hate that face! - Do I wish he would have reached out first? Yes. But honestly I probably would have missed the email. - Do I think Crypto is here to stay? Absolutely. There are too many hurt, and traumatized young people in the world without a viable career path otherwise. Crypto isn’t going anywhere. - Do I think Crypto is bad for the environment? Yes. """

oneoff786 5y ago
> Do I think Crypto is here to stay? Absolutely. There are too many hurt, and traumatized young people in the world without a viable career path otherwise. That’s a hot take.
- iskander 5y ago
  That's a common view on Crypto Twitter, lots of celebration of essentially socially stunted behavior by people with limited avenues for progression in the non-crypto world. Some of them end up building very valuable (at least momentarily) crypto assets and making orders of magnitude more money than they could have otherwise.

vanusa 5y ago

Legal or not, it's still skivvy.

dxbydt 5y ago

kind of icky, this weird intersection of tech with art space. otoh i know a bunch of oss devs who could use the dough. can't we find a better way to pay them than plaster their face all over web3. guess not.

abetusk 5y ago

TLDR; The author (Kris Nova) found that a photographer who owned the copyright on a picture taken of her was put up for an NFT. In other words, the photographer, who owned the copyright on a picture of the author (Kris Nova), minted an NFT on opensea.io. It sounds like Kris Nova was a bit shocked but ultimately, tentatively, supportive. For people who maintain cryptocurrencies can only be used for crime, I would offer this quote from the post: """ I used bitcoin to pay for my HRT as a transgender woman when I first started transitioning in 2013. There was a bitcoin kiosk in Denver and that was the only way I was able to purchase estradiol on the underground pharmaceutical market. """

oneoff786 5y ago
While I don’t disagree with the ethics of selling such things, selling underground pharmaceuticals is almost certainly an example of a crime.
- mise_en_place 5y ago
  Isn’t it more of a grey area? They’re unscheduled. Which is why you can get something like Etizolam on the grey market. Or ivermectin
conradludgate 5y ago
Well, technically that is currently a crime. Those underground pharmaceuticals are illegal drugs. I agree that they shouldn't be illegal, but it currently is, so the statement is not disproven by this quote
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

Barrin92 5y ago

Would be very interested to see how something like this plays out here in Germany because we have what's called a right to your own image, meaning that taking and in particular selling a photograph of you requires your consent. Profiting of someone else's likeness without their explicit agreement can get you into trouble very quickly. Now with an NFT you're not technically selling a picture and I'm still not entirely sure why someone buying an NFT of an open source picture makes any sense at all but it is kind of inherent to what's being sold, because I don't think anyone would pay the same for some random bits of information.

fleddr 5y ago
Clearly, consent was given to take the photo. As for using the photo it may require a model release statement, depending on what that usage is.
stefan_ 5y ago
That wouldn't apply here because this was a professional photoshoot and the photographer obtained a release from everyone pictured. I guess the lesson here is to restrict the use to the project that it's being done for and otherwise reserve all rights.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
throw_m239339 5y ago
> Now with an NFT you're not technically selling a picture and I'm still not entirely sure why someone buying an NFT of an open source picture makes any sense at all but it is kind of inherent to what's being sold, because I don't think anyone would pay the same for some random bits of information. It makes sense as some people right now are willing to pay for it, thinking they will eventually make a profit with that sort of "investment". It could go both ways. Those selling NFT might be successful at creating a sense of value (through big influencers, marketing...) or eventually fail only time will tell. Remember ICO? Which one wasn't a scam again? NFT itself is an "art performance", since it make us question the notion of "value". What is value? Why this or that item, physical or digital is valuable? Resources are certainly finite as well as knowledgeable and skilled people, but value is often completely disconnected from any fundamentals in crypto. It's crazy though how most western government are completely hands off when it comes to crypto regulation. Especially in Europe. In USA you see the SEC cracking down on a few crypto scams and suing ICO issuers.

thesausageking 5y ago

"A portion of sales will be donated to open source projects, collectives, and foundations featured in this project." What portion? 90%? 1%? Do they also get a cut of the commission of future sales the NFT takes? To me, it makes a big difference if the funds are primarily going towards open source projects Vs into the photographer's pocket.

iskander 5y ago
I bought one under the assumption that it's only going to the photographer -- these kinds of NFTs seem like a good way to pay digital artists without forcing to do commissions. If any portion goes to OSS that's even better!
- Nalta 5y ago
  in reality, more often than you'd like, the proceeds of these projects go straight to scammers who don't actually have the rights to the source itself.
  - iskander 5y ago
    That seems irrelevant in this case, where the NFT project is clearly by the photographer who owns the rights to the photos.

kyruzic 5y ago

The language people use around nfts is a big scam. Its not an NFT of this person, its not even an NFT of the picture. Its an NFT that points to an image. Hackernews loves to hate on crypto, if there is any part that should be hated on its nfts. Because they're a giant worthless scam.

smabie 5y ago
I mean they have value: otherwise you wouldn't be able to sell them? You can call them a scam but they're clearly not worthless. Flipping NFTs can be incredibly profitable.
- JoshuaDavid 5y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulip_mania https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulip_mania Just because there are currently people willing to pay a lot of money for something, and there are currently people making money flipping that thing, doesn't mean that thing will be valuable in the future.
  - zokier 5y ago
    Just because something will not be valuable in the future doesn't mean its not valuable right now. Valuations change all the time.
    - JoshuaDavid 5y ago
      Agreed. For example, tulips were extremely valuable in the Dutch Republic in 1636.
  - causality0 5y ago
    Sure, but many things don't retain value. Your thousand dollar smartphone will be worthless in ten years. Your car will probably be worthless in twenty. People make the mistake of treating them like cryptocurrency which they aren't, but just because they're stupid and will be worthless doesn't make them worthless now.

kordlessagain 5y ago

In other news, NFTs are still stupid.

dang 5y ago
Please don't post unsubstantive comments.
- kordlessagain 5y ago
  I do believe a popular story here of late mentioned Feynman would say things were stupid, especially if it were obvious. I like that approach and embrace it! For those who fail to see stupidity when manifest, my earlier stupid comment may be substantiated by these new stupid comments: 1. NFTs aren’t decentralized because the thing being tokenized doesn’t actually live on the chain. I do wonder if this could even work given how slow chains can get. 2. NFTs don’t assign copyright, or for that matter, offer any native protection to the materials mentioned in the NFT. 3. On the contrary, NFTs are being used to remove information from the Internet which has been in the public domain. Further, as this article indicates, any material can have an NFT assigned, regardless of actual ownership of the thing being tokenized. This also indicated the “selling of the thing” is the use case, which is highly irrational. 4. Lastly, anything that is proposed to monetize “all the things” is just as stupid as saying all things may be improved by software. If all things may be improved by software, we’re all in trouble and don’t even know it.
  - dang 5y ago
    That Feynman would sometimes say things were stupid does not make the GP a substantive comment. You could hardly post a more unsubstantive one. That's not what we want here, for the obvious reason that they make internet threads even more stupid (I'll use the s-word too) than they already are, especially on hot/sensational/burnt-out topics. Your follow-up here is of course much more substantive and would have been fine to post in the first place.
- throwaway69123 5y ago
  This could be the funniest thing I’ve read all month

tantalor 5y ago

Grammar nitpick: the abuse of the word "myself" in this article is distracting. > an NFT of myself -> an NFT of me > on brand for myself -> on brand for me > photographs of myself -> photographs of me > Myself, and my photograph -> Me, and my photograph > open source engineers like myself -> open source engineers like me > He could have done a better job at reaching out to myself -> ... reaching out to me Author actually uses correct grammar sometimes, > I have invested literally millions of dollars into myself > there is another one of his photographs of me

garmaine 5y ago
Grammar is/ought to be descriptive, not prescriptive. This is how people use the word 'myself' and has been for years. Ergo it is correct.

steelframe 5y ago

And with this one desperate and futile attempt to extract meaningful revenue, this photographer has all but guaranteed that all future photographers who approach people in the OSS community are going to get the terms and conditions scrutinized before the subjects agree to relinquishing studio-quality shots of themselves again. I'd be downright embarrassed to have my public image be hawked as an NFT, and I'd be worried about other people assuming I actually endorsed it.

NelsonMinar 5y ago

It's all just scams, frauds, pump-n-dumps, and outright thefts. I really wish our industry and community would stand up and put a spotlight of shame on this kind of activity.

swalls 5y ago

This article got me thinking: what would an anti-NFT but still open source license look like? Is that even possible to do?

TYPE_FASTER 5y ago
The Creative Commons licenses offer both commercial and non-commercial options: https://creativecommons.org/about/cclicenses/ https://creativecommons.org/about/cclicenses/ The FoOS project suggests one of the CC licenses: https://www.facesofopensource.com/licensing/ https://www.facesofopensource.com/licensing/