[grumbel]

A signed PDF can be copied, but an NFT can not. That's what makes them useful. They allow you to sell digital things with the same freedom, securities and limitations you would get with physical items (i.e. First-sale doctrine). The NFT represents a digitized form of "ownership".

Where things get a bit complicated is that the NFT just grants you ownership of the NFT itself and nothing else. The interpretation of what the NFT represents happens completely outside of the system.

The NFT is thus not a replacement for a contract, but a way to move that contract into a digital marketplace.

For a practical example, take the difference between DVDs and buying a streaming movie on Amazon. If Amazon would sell digital movies in the form of NFTs, people could buy them. If they want to watch the movie, they show Amazon that they have ownership of the NFT and Amazon lets them stream it. When they are bored with it, they can sell the NFT to somebody else and then the new owner can show that NFT to Amazon to proof ownership and watch a stream of it.

Now in reality, this isn't how NFTs are used (yet?). The way NFTs are used right now is really more like trading-cards. Little novelty things that people might see value in, pay for to support the creator or just do money laundering with or whatever. Most NFTs do not give you access to anything, as whatever they are associated with is already in the public anyway.

The NFT does not represent copyright or ownership of the item it points to, but it has the technical capabilities to do so when the right legal paper work is attached to the NFT.

[phainopepla]

Why would Amazon (or any producer/distributor of digital content) want to facilitate second-hand sales of a product they otherwise control the sale and distribution of? How does this benefit Amazon more than controlling access to the content?

[grumbel]

First Sale doctrine or similar laws exist in many countries, so they are required to allow used sales (e.g. https://www.hallgrimgames.com/blog/2019/9/22/eu-steam-resale). NFTs provide a means to make that practical beyond the boundaries of a single store front. So far these laws have never been enforced in the digital world however, partly because it has never been practical.

Another reason would be that game developers and movie studies start to sell media on their own. So the store would just be a service to download your games from, not the only source of your games. If all the stores stop carrying the media and the studio went out of business, archive.org or similar could take over, as the NFT proofs ownership and you don't have to wait 90 years until copyright expires. Right now we have the situation that some games are already impossible to get legally, as no store caries them and used sales of digital goods are impossible.

Finally, it wouldn't be Amazon starting this, they already have their market dominance and no need to improve the service, it would be the newly arriving competition that would start doing this. Amazon would then have to follow suit to not fall behind. Somebody like Epic might be big enough to get this going and they don't seem to be fundamentally opposed to NFTs.

This is of course all just wishful thinking, but we really need a better way deal with copyright in the digital world. Having media just get lost for 90 years due to there being no way to buy used really isn't acceptable.

[woofcat]

I'm guessing the logic would be that the Movie Producer would sell the NFT's that you could "redeem/use" at specific cloud vendors and the vendor charges the studio for bandwidth etc.

I still don't really understand the logic of all of that, but I understand how it on paper would work. It'd kinda be like when you get a coupon for a free object from the store. Store fulfills the order and sends cost up to manufacture.