undefined | Better HN

0 pointsgiantrobot4y ago0 comments

NFTs don't give you ownership of anything. They're simply a public record saying someone was dumb enough to trade something valuable for something worthless.

Someone posted a link yesterday to an NFT they "own". I saved it to my computer, changed the file name, and uploaded it to a server. They had and have zero agency to stop me from doing so. Their NFT "purchase" didn't transfer any copyrights to them recognized by any entity with means to enforce copyrights. I can do whatever I want with those bytes I downloaded and the owner can't do a damned thing to me.

So what "ownership" do they have? They don't control redistribution. They don't physically possess a thing. They can't assert some sort of exclusionary control over who gets to see a thing.

Some record in a slow expensive database just says a wallet to which they have the private key transferred Geoffrey dollars to another wallet for the contents pointed to by an IPFS identifier. That's one of the more complicated ways I've seen to throw money away but it's not ownership.

0 comments

2 comments · 1 top-level

doopy14y ago· 1 in thread

The ownership is of the NFT itself, not the asset that's linked to in the metadata.

I agree with some of the issues you point out, but in this case ownership is a construct built on social consensus, and these people are trying to define what "digital ownership" might mean, which you are conflating with physical ownership.

"They don't control redistribution". - They very much control it for the NFT itself.

Yes, you can right-click and save an image all you want, but that doesn't mean you own the NFT. In fact, you can right-click and save the most valuable NFT in the world, and re-mint it as an NFT... but that NFT would be worthless, because it would be missing the social consensus and provenance that gave the original NFT value.

Copyright and ownership are divorced from each other already, so this argument feels like a straw man when folks point to it as a failure of NFTs. For example, you can buy an oil painting from an artist, but that doesn't come with a copyright either. Same for almost all physical goods.

NFTs though, can have a license attached.

A lot of what you are saying is true today, but it might not be tomorrow if enough people agree otherwise. In that respect, this is very much an experiment in speculation, but all it takes is for a community of people to agree to honor the data on a particular blockchain and that can support a thriving economy like NFTs have for the last couple of years.

giantrobotOP4y ago

> "They don't control redistribution". - They very much control it for the NFT itself.

Who gives a shit? The NFT has no actual utility.

> Yes, you can right-click and save an image all you want, but that doesn't mean you own the NFT.

Again, the NFT itself has zero actual utility. The thing it points to is what people want to look at, listen to, read, or experience.

> you can buy an oil painting from an artist, but that doesn't come with a copyright either. Same for almost all physical goods.

If I have physical possession of an actual non-fungible physical good I have exclusive control over it. I can lock it away in a vault and never show it to anyone. I can hang it in my house and only let my friends see it. They can't right click on my painting and walk away with an atom-for-atom copy of it.

> In that respect, this is very much an experiment in speculation, but all it takes is for a community of people to agree to honor the data on a particular blockchain and that can support a thriving economy like NFTs have for the last couple of years.

If we only get enough people to participate in a shared delusion, these Geoffrey dollars will be worth a fortune!

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse