[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

[user-the-name]

Yes, for very expensive paintings, and it takes incredible amounts of effort do it.

You and I, however, will never encounter any of this. It is the most niche of niche issues.

[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.

[jljljl]

The problem is that anyone can mint an NFT. Verifying that an NFT is actually minted by the artist would likely require some sort of external certification that you can trust. This is done for paintings and other collectibles as well.

What I don’t understand is: Once you have an external certifying authority, why have blockchain based NFTs at all? Couldn’t you save a lot of energy and complexity by tracking purchases in a database?

[user-the-name]

It is none of those things. It does not record ownership, there is no guarantee it is released by an artist... And people do not really value them either, other than people speculating or scamming.

[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/