You don't get the copyright for this artwork, you own the token, not the art it's self.
its sheer lunacy.
I don't own or plan to own any NFT stuff, I agree it seems a bit nuts.
Food for thought: what is the NFT platform that Beeple used here? The NYT article (https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/24/arts/design/christies-bee...) says his NFTs consist of "an image or video file, sometimes with a physical object attached, verified with a digital signature on a blockchain", but which blockchain, and whose conventions dictate that this specific signature on this specific blockchain is the NFT? The article says that minting an NFT "makes digital artworks unique", but how exactly does this happen - if Beeple decided he wanted to CTRL+C, CTRL+V, make another NFT, what obstacles would stand in his way? I searched around, and none of the articles I've found seem to know these answers or even acknowledge why these are important questions.
Essentially, people are gaming human psychology to trigger the desire to "own" something and creating an artificially limited supply of that something using crypto (which may as well be a cut and paste replacement for magic as far as most people are concerned).
Limited supply + desire = high prices for acquiring whatever is desired.
High prices plus near zero production cost for the "item" means lots of profit for little effort, hence all the interest in this right now.
These tokens are like burning down a forest so you can press the ashes into a cute little trophy.
Stock photos cost $5 to $100 and come with distribution rights.
Somebody paid a lot of money for bragging rights.
The difference is that this is a digital artefact rather than a physical one, not all that different than buying a conceptual artwork (eg Sol LeWitt, which might be just typed instructions on an otherwise empty page).
People assume that the NFT is the rights to the actual work. But its just a hash. So selling something as an NFT of "x" is perfectly legal.
You own the art in the same way that you "own" part of a company by holding shares in it.
There are only the faintest wisps of connection between the NFT and the art. It's like an autograph on the cover of a book, but without the book inside the cover. And it's not even that tangible, because the autograph is digital, and there are no limitations on infinitely and perfectly reproducing the book.
That's the benefit of owning shares, it doesn't mean you own part of the company in any meaningful way. The relationship is the same as owning an NFT instead of owning the art itself. Shares can be useful of themselves just as owning an NFT can come with some benefits like, say, a secret URL that only the owner can access.
When you buy art at auction, unless specified, or a print, you own the rights to all of it.
Its the same with a company, if you own all the shares, you can asset strip, pull apart, and generally do anything within the law to it.
unless explicitly specified in the contract of sale, the artist will retain the rights to the original work. Nothing in the NFT explicitly states that you own the original thing that you've generated the token for.
Imagine going to the museum and showing people this paper. “Look, I bought this piece of art!” But even though you bought it, you don’t own it, so you aren’t able to take it home or anything like that.
I know nothing about NFTs, but in the last few days I’ve seen a few people turn their Twitter accounts private where they previously posted their artworks. Supposedly to prevent sales of NFTs of their art without their approval. No idea if that’s a real issue or not. However there is another comment here saying they sold a NFT of Mona Lisa. It seems that a “piece of paper with a, possibly forged, signature” might be a better comparison.
It is. I guess like with every new crypto pyramid scheme, a bunch of fraudsters show up trying to profit from the FOMO. Have a look at https://twitter.com/simonstalenhag for some examples of what one artist is facing right now.
These people sold someone else's art, and then called him a luddite for not being ok with it.
- https://twitter.com/ricardojuchem/status/1369957369833226241
- https://twitter.com/simonstalenhag/status/136966166114619392...
- https://twitter.com/simonstalenhag/status/136968271596920832...
It is a real issue and the issue has nothing to do with NFTs. People been copying others art without their permission for as long as "art" has existed as a concept.
That is nominally dealing with physical world realities, and the complex social norms at work through networks of galleries, museums, and collectors is a big part of what drives and maintains value and there’s really no reason that the title and provenance systems that work for photographic prints can’t work for digital art in the same way. In fact it has for a couple of decades already without NFTs.
At least this is how I'm going to currently reinterpret NFTs—as digitally signed artwork/merchandise—I may see it differently tomorrow.
Much like prints, you don't own the art itself, or the rights to the image. The rarity of the print can change at any point.
Like many prints, a lot are not even from the original artist and are instead stolen and resold on any number of markets.
There's no real world value to a print, but in this case there's a significant real world environmental cost to acquiring it.
It's sheer stupidity of the masses IMHO.
Do cease and desists even apply here? For example could you tangibly ruin the market for a future NFT artist by flooding the market with their artwork before they get on it?
One can most certainly remove their artwork from museums pretty much as they please or at the very least according to terms of a loan contract. Not to mention special access and privileges loaned artwork bestows upon the owner...
But they can’t show the film in public and doing so outside of the social and institutional context where it establishes its value would be 100% verboten. There would also be strong social norms against sharing the file online or with friends. It’s false scarcity but it’s maintained by everyone involved because it’s part of the ruleset that creates a functioning economy. Anyone who exhibited a work they didn’t own or have loaned to them would be an instant pariah in the art world. All of this has worked reasonably well for years without NFTs. It wouldn’t be uncommon for Jeff Wall to mail high resolution images of his work to a magazine and even though the art director that received them could go out and print a copy that would look like one of the three legal editions, it wouldn’t allow them to participate in the work. But they would get to hang a nice photo on their wall even though they would pay the cost of all their artist and artist adjacent friends would considering them a philistine.
It’s possible that what we’re witnessing now is a true disintermediation of the institutions that make up the art world and the creation of independent pathways for meaning to be discovered and valuation to be determined. Is the art world changing or being disrupted by NFTs? Probably not really, they may be incorporated into art collecting in some limited way over time once the hype dies down.
The social context is still missing in the idea of pure NFT collecting and is missing engaging with or recreating a culture of art appreciation and patronage. Beeple aside, 99% of the NFT stuff out there is much more of a mix of speculation, consumption, and more appropriate for collectibles than art. A lot of the content is basic meme stuff, and memes derive their value from ubiquity, and democratization. The ethos of Reddit where people won’t even repost stuff that has a small watermark on it is more appropriate for this sort of consumable than anything you’d apply the word art to.
But I could be totally wrong, I definitely never anticipated what is happening now back in 2013 when bitcoin folks were going on about “coloured coins”.
Being the owner, you can take your painting or NFT home by not giving permission for any exhibitions.
"Please note that you may elect to make payment of the purchase price for this lot in the cryptocurrency Ether. Payment in Ether must be made via a digital wallet transfer of Ether to Christie’s. The digital wallet must be maintained with Coinbase Custody Trust; Coinbase, Inc.; Fidelity Digital Assets Services, LLC; Gemini Trust Company, LLC; or Paxos Trust Company, LLC. Only Ether payments sent from digital wallets maintained at these platforms will be credited towards this lot purchase, and we will not recognize payments from digital wallets hosted at other exchanges or self-hosted wallets. The digital wallet must be registered to you, or, if you registered a bid as a company, then in the name of the company. You agree, upon our request, to provide documentation confirming that the Ether payment was made from a digital wallet registered in your name and maintained at one of the platforms listed above. Partial payments of a lot from multiple digital wallets will not be allowed."
It should be noted that all of these exchanges are US-based and comply with all know your customer and anti-money laundering laws, rules, and programs.
Doesn't mean that money laundering is impossible (US-based banks do it everyday) but it's interesting that they will take Ether but only from an extremely narrow list of whitelisted source Ether addresses.
Also makes you wonder what happens if you (somehow) send $70,000,000 to Christie's Ether wallet from a non-approved address. Presumably they wouldn't touch it and transfer it back but I suppose you never know...
Probably no different from sending an unagreed wire to their bank account? They'll just refund, maybe subtracting $50 for "processing" or whatever.
(Just to be clear, I don’t disagree with you)
Also, am I the only one that feels this is a new level of bonkers?
Then again, who would have thought we would get diapers and dog food delivered to our home the same day we order it?
Or that mini-flying machines would bring me a Big Mac?
The future is a very weird place, but the winners will be the ones who embrace the crazy.
Jason Calicanis has a good story about when he met the founder of Robinhood (The trading app). The idea sounded so nuts that it was worth a bet.
They look crazy because they are, some people got too wealthy and completely lost touch with reality/real world issues. I doubt flying big macs and overpriced virtual art will do much for our future if you take into account things like climate change, there are so many things we could work on instead of these new shiny gadgets...
NFTs have…???
My advanced crystal ball predicts NFT scammers are going to ruin the craze and cause everyone to panic.
On the topic, can anyone explain how the 'official' Beeple entry is identified on the blockchain? As opposed to any other address that claims to be the "Official Beeple '5000 days' NFT ownership token". My understanding of this is sketchy at best.
https://onlineonly.christies.com/s/first-open-beeple/beeple-...
wallet address: 0xc6b0562605D35eE710138402B878ffe6F2E23807 smart contract address: 0x2a46f2ffd99e19a89476e2f62270e0a35bbf0756
While the concept sounds very interesting, the reporting leaves much to be desired!
It doesn't come with art, rights to publish, rights to copy, etc. It's just an etherium coin the original artist minted that no one else can copy, that they named after some work of art and sold.
NFTs don't make any sense without associated rights or goods they would represent, and even then they do the same thing as contracts without any legal enforce ability - you'd need a contract to enforce any rights sold with an NFT. The NFT would just act as a 'proof' token.
I don't get it. Where's the value?
I think this is the information you are looking for? It's somewhat hidden at the top under the hashes
"That is, until about four months ago. That's when Mike found out about a new kind of blockchain technology that has been rippling through the digital economy: NFTs, or non-fungible tokens. NFTs are like certificates of ownership — unique barcodes that can't be duplicated — that can be attached to all sorts of digital files and make them into exchangeable assets. Mike's story offers a window into how NFTs are on track to dramatically reshape the art market."
(https://www.npr.org/2021/03/10/975782582/market-power-to-the...)
So NFTs are the new DRM?
NFTs are in a weird state right now because they generally don’t give the holder any real rights or abilities. It’s basically proof that you for and control a cryptographically signed link to something else.
Like buying a link to a digital artwork, which is often available for free anyway.
Presumably the buyer gets a higher resolution copy that isn’t available elsewhere, but that doesn’t have anything to do with the NFT.
The NFT is just proof of a transaction taking place. It doesn’t actually transfer anything other than the token, though. The actual legalities are still handled through real-world contracts.
I wouldn’t be surprised if there was some sort of clause in the sales contracts that render the NFT null and void for the purposes of the contract if it’s stolen or lost or something. The NFT is basically along for the ride.
I suppose there’s lots of art just sitting in storage because it’s an investment medium, and this isn’t different?
So we must conclude that what's actually happened is they have $69MM in gains, and they're a known entity, and they'd like to offset that with $69MM in loss somehow and transfer the gain to an unknown or untraceable entity. Or whatever the more accurate version of that basic dynamic is.
Am I wrong?
https://onlineonly.christies.com/s/beeple-first-5000-days/be...
