[jcelerier]

Not that I support NFTs much, but conceptually, how is that different than you buying a Marilyn Monroe from Andy Warhol and him printing the exact same Marilyn Monroe and selling it to someone else ? Hopefully in 2021 everyone would agree that the two are distinct artworks, even if the physical object is exactly the same to the human eye ; that's not what matters when buying art.

[slg]

Having ownership of the physical print is a pretty big differentiator. I guess you could have always bought that same print from someone who created it illegally rather than Warhol himself, but that is where the vague "supporting the artist" reasoning comes in to play.

Since NFTs don't provide that physical object, all that is left is the "supporting the artist" angle. If that is central to NFTs, why is the secondary market such a big aspect of the community? To extend your analogy, that would be like me buying the Warhol print for $10, turning around and selling it for $100, and claiming that $90 in my pocket is supporting Warhol.

[miracle2k]

Warhol is dead, yet people still value authorized prints much higher than fakes.

[Grustaf]

Why would "supporting the artist" be relevant at all? Apart from NFTs whose smart contract gives the minter a share of resales, I have never heard anyone say that.

And definitely not in relation to the $90 profit.

[jljljl]

The Marilyn Monroes are still limited by the number that Warhol prints, and you have ownership of the print that you bought. Maybe it’s not as valuable as it would be if there was only 1 Monroe print, but you are paying for a physical object made by Warhol.

If I understand correctly, an NFT is like if someone, not necessarily Warhol himself, sold you a note posted on a wall somewhere that said “You own Andy Warhol’s Marilyn Monroe”, without any rights to the underlying work, or any promise that another person might sell another note on another wall that says “Andy Warhol’s Marilyn Monroe”.

[rsj_hn]

Fun Fact: Rodin was one of the first sculptors to take advantage of reproduction, as he employed craftsmen in his workshop that could build you a custom thinker that was 2 inches tall for a paperweight or another full sized thinker statue for your public park. These statues had his special patina added.

When he died, Rodin destroyed the recipes for his patina but the workshop, run out of an old hotel and eventually becoming the Musee Rodin, continued to make "official" copies. Thus there are 25 full-sized thinkers but only 10 or so have the patina, the rest being made after his death.

[denton-scratch]

> special patina

Sounds like standard trade-secrets.

[Igelau]

> If I understand correctly

The funny thing about NFTs. The emperor has no clothes. Confusion is evidence of understanding -- there's that little substance. No Fscking Thing.

> a note posted on a wall somewhere that said “You own Andy Warhol’s Marilyn Monroe”

It's basically a pointer. It's not hard to scrounge the sites that track the ETH blockchain, find where a NFT changed hands, and then find the URI for the full res image that anyone can go download. All that's owned is the pointer.

[Thlom]

Does the GIF reside on the blockchain or is it hosted on whatever webserver? What if the webserver is shutdown? Now you "own" a pointer to nothing?

[user-the-name]

It is hosted on some random webserver or on IPFS. If either goes away, it's gone.

[klodolph]

Warhol mass-produced his prints using silk-screen, and verifying them as authentic is damn near impossible.

The real ones may be limited, but he made a lot of them (you can really churn out artwork with silkscreening), and it’s hard to know which ones are the real ones.

[justincormack]

They are also much cheaper than a lot of NFTs eg a late one for $18k https://www.artsy.net/artwork/andy-warhol-marilyn-announceme...

[miracle2k]

> If I understand correctly, an NFT is like if someone, not necessarily Warhol himself.

No, the point is that the NFT is from the artist themselves.

[user-the-name]

It is not. Nothing about an NFT ensures it is from the artist, and not just from someone random scammer.

[jcelerier]

I mean, yes, but if you buy a painting you have the exact same issue no ?

[user-the-name]

No?

[jcelerier]

... you think counterfeits are not a thing ? People spend inordinate amounts of time and money to ensure that the painting the buy is indeed from the painter it is said to come from

[miracle2k]

Correct. This is your job to ensure.

[user-the-name]

So why do you say that is the point?

[miracle2k]

Because that's the reason people value the NFT. The fact that someone can take a picture of the Mona Lisa and try to sell it as an NFT is not the point; people don't value that NFT, and NFTs are not designed to prevent that from happening.

It is a simple ledger entry that records the ownership of an edition released by an artist, and people choose to value it because of that.

[flarg]

Yeah, but what else can you do with digital art? Buy the PC it's sitting on and only share it via webcam of the screen?

[deepsun]

The same as with any other intellectual property (books, movies, songs): buy the legally enforceable copyright. As in "right" and "copy".

PS: I'm immensely interested in the process of creating a digital image. It's actually pretty tricky and technical, to apply all those filters in right order and with right settings. I would buy a recording of how the digital art was created.

[bart_spoon]

Except the legally enforceable copyright is just that: legally enforceable. The legal system is what creates a financial incentive to own the rights to something as opposed to just copying it in some way that might constitute IP theft.

With NFTs, there is no legal benefit to actually owning the NFT.

[zimpenfish]

Not a recording but a deconstruction of the process of creating a digital image - https://rjp.is/blogging/posts/deconstructing-an-image-2/

[yodsanklai]

I would say it's not different and it's a great analogy that shows how NFTs are ridiculous. It could be even more extreme than your example. The piece of art could be entirely reproductible by anyone and still only some versions would be considered valuable. See the $150,000 banana.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=so8sB25IL4o&t=1s

[nonameiguess]

This is exactly why very little art is valuable until the artist is dead, and even those rare artists who can sell while still alive see the value of their work skyrocket when they die. Andy Warhol definitely can't make a copy of anything you own that he created and he has verifiably been unable to since 1987.

[tauntz]

If you buy the Marilyn Monroe print then you can legally put it up on your wall at home and other people can see it.

If you buy an NFT (which is just an URL to somewhere that might have a picture today but might be a 404 tomorrow or an ipfs hash if you're lucky) then you can not (in most cases I've seen) legally put that picture that's behind the link in the NFT up on your website and show it to others. Heck, in some countries this doesn't even grant you the right to store that picture itself on your own computer.

(Most) NFT's don't give the owner of the NFT any rights for the linked art itself - you can't copy it, distribute it, present it etc. You can do all of that with the NFT but _not_ the actual art piece.

[Doxin]

Of course there's a difference between the original and a print. An NFT is not an original though. At best an NFT comes with an URL to an image you can use to make a print. But guess what? anyone can make that print.

If you buy an NFT you don't buy an original. You buy proof that you bought the original. It's like buying the receipt to the Mona Lisa. Doing so doesn't gain you anything. It doesn't even gain you the original Mona Lisa.

Unless people are ceding the point that NFTs are art in and of themselves I don't see the point. And I hardly see a receipt as a form of art.