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artist prints are routinely forged and resold. this is such a problem in high end artists work like Hirst that they must find complex ways to certify and authen

by web4 4y ago

artist prints are routinely forged and resold. this is such a problem in high end artists work like Hirst that they must find complex ways to certify and authenticate their signed prints. sometimes this is with holographic stickers, or separate certificates of authenticity, or even non NFT blockchain certification. most signed prints are not bought because of what the content is, but because of the signature. you can buy unsigned prints of many notable artists work for 20 bucks while the same signed version sells at sothebys for thousands. users should not expect NFT to have any more or less resale value than a signed print. but because there is currently a market for it, it is easier to sell a token than a print. in future this may change if tokens are as commonly distributed and purchased as prints are.

dmitriid 4y ago
> artist prints are routinely forged and resold. this is such a problem in high end artists work like Hirst that they must find complex ways to certify and authenticate their signed prints. NFTs make this problem worse. E.g. OpenSea is awash with stolen art and removed the ability to contest the problem several months ago.
- web4 4y ago
  the blockchain allows anybody to publish nfts that point to any media, so naturally there is a lot of spam and copy-minting. anybody can publish to OpenSea a Picasso NFT but this does not mean it will be valued by the market as a Picasso. the same is true of an impersonator trying to mint a new Pak or Beeple or whoever you think is a popular nft artist. almost all of these "thefts" come in the form of social engineering and impersonation rather than forging the token itself. and if you look at the data, 99% of these copy-mints are not actually selling and are not making any impact in the market. a copy-mint of crypto punks is trivially easy to discern as a fake because its contract hash will be uniquely different than the crypto punks contract, which has a long and clear historical trail associated with it on chain. if a copyminter starts to post new work that resembles a popular artist like Beeple, it will be under a new public key hash or address, and also easy to discern. compare this crypto art copy-minting to paintings like Salvator Mundi which countless experts have been investigating for years and still are not able to discern the authenticity of the painting despite its $450 million price tag.
  - dmitriid 4y ago
    > does not mean it will be valued by the market as a Picasso There are innumerable examples of digital art being sold on OpenSea without any knowledge of the original authors, but presented as if it was from the original authors. > almost all of these "thefts" come in the form of social engineering and impersonation rather than forging the token itself. It literally doesn't matter if the token is forged. The theft is there, and NFTs (and blockchains in general) have literally no mechanism to prevent it. > a copy-mint of crypto punks is trivially easy to discern as a fake because its contract hash You keep pretending that stealing art is the same as stealing/forging the token that points something > compare this crypto art copy-minting to paintings like Salvator Mundi which countless experts have been investigating Who. Cares. There's an irrefutable fact: NFTs provide literally zero protections against art theft. It's gotten so bad that sites like DeviantArt now have automated tools to find stolen art on sites like OpenSea and report it to original artists. - NFT art sales are booming. Just without some artists' permission: https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/security/nft-art-sales-are-booming-just-artists-permission-rcna10798 https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/security/nft-art-sales-are-boom... - Site Sells Famous Songs as NFTs Without Permission https://www.vice.com/en/article/pkpqyy/site-sells-famous-songs-as-nfts-without-permission-sparks-global-outrage https://www.vice.com/en/article/pkpqyy/site-sells-famous-son... - An artist died. Then thieves made NFTs of her work https://www.wired.co.uk/article/nft-fraud-qinni-art https://www.wired.co.uk/article/nft-fraud-qinni-art But sure. Keep trying to derail the discussion with Salvator Mundi
    - web4 4y ago
      you are right: it is trivially easy to publish any media file and assign an NFT to it and then list it for sale, and there is a lot of copyright infringement as a result. all of these articles claim widespread theft and stolen work, but a surprising lack of data on how much of that is actually sold considering all of those payments should be publicly traceable on the blockchain. imagine putting a Damien Hirst image on OpenSea only for nobody to purchase it. is this a complex form of art forgery and art theft? in some cases this process is automated by bot-scripts scraping DeviantArt, and the end result is like spam mail. maybe there is a buyer naive enough to purchase your Hirst image thinking it is authentically from the artist, and in that case I sympathize just as I do when an unsuspecting user falls for an email scam. it is also trivially easy to look at these scam tokens and realize they are not from the authentic collection they claim to be, or that the minter does not match the artist's public address, or that the artist is not even claiming to make nfts and therefore a nft of their work is unlikely to be authentic. if you look at art forgery in traditional media, not only is it rampant but it actually accounts for millions of dollars per year, and many high value paintings do not have a clear provenance and authenticity as this information is easily lost and altered over the course of history. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/article/fake-art-france-culture-spd https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/article/fake-art-...

by web4 4y ago

dmitriid 4y ago

> artist prints are routinely forged and resold. this is such a problem in high end artists work like Hirst that they must find complex ways to certify and authenticate their signed prints. NFTs make this problem worse. E.g. OpenSea is awash with stolen art and removed the ability to contest the problem several months ago.

web4 4y ago
the blockchain allows anybody to publish nfts that point to any media, so naturally there is a lot of spam and copy-minting. anybody can publish to OpenSea a Picasso NFT but this does not mean it will be valued by the market as a Picasso. the same is true of an impersonator trying to mint a new Pak or Beeple or whoever you think is a popular nft artist. almost all of these "thefts" come in the form of social engineering and impersonation rather than forging the token itself. and if you look at the data, 99% of these copy-mints are not actually selling and are not making any impact in the market. a copy-mint of crypto punks is trivially easy to discern as a fake because its contract hash will be uniquely different than the crypto punks contract, which has a long and clear historical trail associated with it on chain. if a copyminter starts to post new work that resembles a popular artist like Beeple, it will be under a new public key hash or address, and also easy to discern. compare this crypto art copy-minting to paintings like Salvator Mundi which countless experts have been investigating for years and still are not able to discern the authenticity of the painting despite its $450 million price tag.
- dmitriid 4y ago
  > does not mean it will be valued by the market as a Picasso There are innumerable examples of digital art being sold on OpenSea without any knowledge of the original authors, but presented as if it was from the original authors. > almost all of these "thefts" come in the form of social engineering and impersonation rather than forging the token itself. It literally doesn't matter if the token is forged. The theft is there, and NFTs (and blockchains in general) have literally no mechanism to prevent it. > a copy-mint of crypto punks is trivially easy to discern as a fake because its contract hash You keep pretending that stealing art is the same as stealing/forging the token that points something > compare this crypto art copy-minting to paintings like Salvator Mundi which countless experts have been investigating Who. Cares. There's an irrefutable fact: NFTs provide literally zero protections against art theft. It's gotten so bad that sites like DeviantArt now have automated tools to find stolen art on sites like OpenSea and report it to original artists. - NFT art sales are booming. Just without some artists' permission: https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/security/nft-art-sales-are-booming-just-artists-permission-rcna10798 https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/security/nft-art-sales-are-boom... - Site Sells Famous Songs as NFTs Without Permission https://www.vice.com/en/article/pkpqyy/site-sells-famous-songs-as-nfts-without-permission-sparks-global-outrage https://www.vice.com/en/article/pkpqyy/site-sells-famous-son... - An artist died. Then thieves made NFTs of her work https://www.wired.co.uk/article/nft-fraud-qinni-art https://www.wired.co.uk/article/nft-fraud-qinni-art But sure. Keep trying to derail the discussion with Salvator Mundi
  - web4 4y ago
    you are right: it is trivially easy to publish any media file and assign an NFT to it and then list it for sale, and there is a lot of copyright infringement as a result. all of these articles claim widespread theft and stolen work, but a surprising lack of data on how much of that is actually sold considering all of those payments should be publicly traceable on the blockchain. imagine putting a Damien Hirst image on OpenSea only for nobody to purchase it. is this a complex form of art forgery and art theft? in some cases this process is automated by bot-scripts scraping DeviantArt, and the end result is like spam mail. maybe there is a buyer naive enough to purchase your Hirst image thinking it is authentically from the artist, and in that case I sympathize just as I do when an unsuspecting user falls for an email scam. it is also trivially easy to look at these scam tokens and realize they are not from the authentic collection they claim to be, or that the minter does not match the artist's public address, or that the artist is not even claiming to make nfts and therefore a nft of their work is unlikely to be authentic. if you look at art forgery in traditional media, not only is it rampant but it actually accounts for millions of dollars per year, and many high value paintings do not have a clear provenance and authenticity as this information is easily lost and altered over the course of history. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/article/fake-art-france-culture-spd https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/article/fake-art-...