[luckyandroid]

Every person I've spoken to who's told me they're interested in crypto literally only care about it to make money, and have no interest in learning how it works. They all treat every last crypto-based use as investment like stocks, and not as a normal economic choice (e.g. "I want $3000 worth of bitcoin to buy a car" is not something people are doing, instead it's all "I want $3000 worth of bitcoin because the internet told me it'll be 3 million in a year").

NFTs also annoy me because it's literally the worst part of art industry - "buying" the "rights" to a piece of art so you can turn it for more cash later on, and not as an appreciation of the work. Bored Apes might be one of the few exceptions where people are doing it for "bragging rights", which is infinitely better because you're buying it to say you own it, much closer to normal art purchases.

[captaincaveman]

Your not buying the rights, that's the most annoying thing about NFTs, that people don't get.

[Hamuko]

I thought the most annoying thing about NFTs is that you're basically buying a hyperlink to a website that you do not control.

I checked out the Doctor Who NFT thing after Team 17 was teaming up with the people behind that thing, and the domain where the NFT metadata and images are being hosted was due to expire next summer. They didn't even splurge on a five-year registration for the domain. Hopefully auto-renewals don't stop working.

[nsomaru]

I looked this up the other day and I might be wrong but it seems like in most jurisdictions even if you buy a meatspace piece of art you do not own the actual copyright on the work.

While I’m not a fan of NFTs this does somewhat weaken the proposition that any “rights” cannot be sold with NFTs because IIRC this is the status quo in meatspace art purchases too.

[fnord123]

There are no rights to Bored Ape works. They are algorithmically generated so they are public domain.

[abyrne10]

I'm not sure it's true that something being algorithmically generated means it's public domain. Plenty of assets for things like video games are procedurally generated, but that doesn't mean they're public domain by default.

[fnord123]

> Plenty of assets for things like video games are procedurally generated, but that doesn't mean they're public domain by default.

It does mean that.

[abyrne10]

Going by this definition of public domain, I don’t see how this could be the case:

> The public domain consists of all the creative work to which no exclusive intellectual property rights apply[0]

Think of it this way. Imagine I wrote some code, and when I ran it it generated a piece of art. Surely I would have IP rights over the artwork? Otherwise you could make the same argument about art made with a somehow automatic paintbrush I built.

I hope I’m not talking at cross-purposes here and using a completely different definition of “public domain” was was intended, apologies if this is the case.

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_domain

[ygjb]

I am aware of the legal discussions around the hypotheticals, but has that actually been tested in court?

Define algorithmically generated? There are certainly tools for randomizing the mix of image elements that are present in a piece of art, and combining them, but does that only apply if I used a computer to do it? What if I draw 300 reference images, photocopy them, cut them out, and sit down with a set of dice and tables, and make collages using glue?

Does the inclusion of random noise as a processing step in creating digital art count as algorithmically generated?

What if I use a custom programmed brush that simulates the randomness of physical brush bristles to simulate in a digital painting?

[jcranmer]

The US Copyright Office notes that "Similarly, the Office will not register works produced by a machine or mere mechanical process that operates randomly or automatically without any creative input or intervention from a human author.", and lists in its examples:

> A claim based on a mechanical weaving process that randomly produces irregular shapes in the fabric without any discernible pattern.

That is so specific that I have to believe there was a court case where someone attempted to claim copyright for that kind of process.

But to answer your question to define algorithmically generated, the requirement is that “whether the ‘work’ is basically one of human authorship, with the computer [or other device] merely being an assisting instrument, or whether the traditional elements of authorship in the work (literary, artistic, or musical expression or elements of selection, arrangement, etc.) were actually conceived and executed not by man but by a machine.”

(Citation to: https://www.copyright.gov/comp3/chap300/ch300-copyrightable-..., see §313.2).

[VHRanger]

What's the precedent on algorithmic art being public domain?

Is AI art (eg. VQGAN+CLIP stuff) public domain? Doesn't the seed image and text prompt constitute artistic work?

How about using photoshop smart features like autofilling?

At what point is the threshold placed?

[conjectures]

> Is AI art (eg. VQGAN+CLIP stuff) public domain?

Iirc cdpa 1988 in the UK holds it to be copyright of the authors of the program. But I'd be surprised if the law was a comfortable fit for practice 30 years on, or that it had been tested much in court.

[pessimizer]

The people who bought the pitchbook for the Dune movie that was never made should have looked it up, too.

[mattdesl]

Similarly: purchasing a signed art print will not give you any rights to the intellectual property of the artwork.

With that said, there are some NFTs that do attempt to tie property/copyright to the token ownership.

[conjectures]

Fairly clearly what you 'get' is dependent on the surrounding system. It's one for a legal-crypto startup but you can imagine selling some NFT being linked to a contract for transfer of copyright. Maybe nobody is doing this, idk, but they could. It's also irrelevant for some applications of NFTs, so it would be a design error to expect every NFT system to enforce copyright transfers.

[captaincaveman]

I agree in principle I think you could (I'm not a lawyer). However, you run into the starting problem of needing a trusted authority to verify a rights holder is in fact the rights holder. Also if the right is exclusive, how is that managed, i.e. prevent them issuing the same rights to many people. All answers thus far seem to point back to a central authority, and then what's the point of it being on blockchain.

[conjectures]

> However, you run into the starting problem of needing a trusted authority to verify a rights holder is in fact the rights holder.

Again, this is a different problem. One can imagine a service with a seignorage fee to verify such things when an NFT is minted after which that particular question is settled. The point of it being on a blockchain would then be subsequent ease of sale, transfer etc.

[captaincaveman]

That's a gross simplification I think.

By service, I think you mean company, now I have to trust said company, also I need to check NFT is minted by company I trust, and that I trust the identifier of said company on the NFT. Now if it turns out the company wasn't doing a good job, what happens then, do the NFT's get revoked, by whom, what are the remedies and the compensation process?

All this gets bumped off chain fairly quickly with a hand wave whenever discussed, which quickly puts the block chain solution into question. If the NFT only works when minted and managed by trusted party, then is what we really need is data interoperability rather than blockchain. And even there, NFT's don't actually contain any on-chain or off-chain data expressing what the semantics of the NFT is.

[lawtalkinghuman]

> It's one for a legal-crypto startup but you can imagine selling some NFT being linked to a contract for transfer of copyright. Maybe nobody is doing this, idk, but they could.

What's to stop the buyer unbundling the property which is worth something (the copyright) from the pointless NFT?

[gitfan86]

That has changed recently, people in these communities believe that NFTs are only valid if verified by opensea. So you are now buying ownership as opensea is beginning the enforcement of copyright.

They are pulling a bait and switch.

[captaincaveman]

Opensea might be verifying the rights owner has attached their image to an NFT, but that still doesn't mean they have transferred any rights to the holder of the token. Correct me if I'm wrong I've not looked up Opensea's T&C's (have several other's).

Also whenever people talk about ownership in regards to copyright, it's a flag that they probably don't know what they are talking about.

[gitfan86]

For most of these people the NFT is the valuable part. If Twitter verifies your opensea nft and let's you put it on your Twitter profile that is the value.

[Hamuko]

Wouldn't displaying an NFT where you do not own the underlying image technically be copyright violation?

[gitfan86]

Technically violations are determined by a court. If no one has accused you of a violation and no court has found you in violation then you are not in violation.

A separate question is would the copyright holder win a lawsuit or DMCA takedown request? I don't know

[Lev1a]

Ah yes, relying on a single entity for authentication of the purchases in the market.

How very decentralized /s

[naasking]

> Your not buying the rights, that's the most annoying thing about NFTs, that people don't get.

You are buying the rights, but they're rights that exist in a pseudo-legal system that has no enforcement and isn't recognized by any existing legal authority. Some kind of enforcement could exist one day though.

For instance, it's possible that your house in a "metaverse" might only display art for the NFTs that it verifies you own.

[knorker]

You are both right.

Buying an NFT is buying the right to the NFT. It's not buying the right to the art.

Even if NFTs were backed by law, so that if I use your private key to transfer the NFT to me you would be able to use the law to come after me for theft, what I stole from you wasn't the rights to the art.

What the grandparent post was complaining about was that it's not even the rights to the art.

If you buy the rights to the ape, then you can sell copies.

I suppose the holder of an NFT can sell a "copy NFT". Maybe that's the next thing. Selling an NFT of an NFT of an NFT of a Beatles song. With a holder chain making sure that whoever minted the NFT-of-NFT at the time did hold the parent NFT.

That last paragraph is of course exactly the kind of nonsense that is at the core of NFT, so you should expect these derivative NFTs to start becoming a product soon. If you can sell NFTs-of-art, why not NFTs-of-NFTs?

Anyone can sell copies of the Mona Lisa (because expired copyright). Anyone can make NFTs of it, too. Why would NFTs minted by the Louvre be more real?

To me, NFT is performance art. It makes you think about intangible ownership. But outside of being performance art it's worthless.

[captaincaveman]

How are you going to get a picture of the Mona Lisa? Take a photo? Your not allowed. The people who own the Mona Lisa, prevent people from taking photos of. They instead they take a photo of it themselves, which is a new creative work and has copyrights. Now they have controlled the market on photos of the Mona Lisa and you need to license photos of it from them.

That's what I heard once anyhow.

[knorker]

Here you go: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Mona_Lisa,_by_Leonardo_da...

Resolution 7,479 × 11,146, or 83 megapixels.

From that page:

The official position taken by the Wikimedia Foundation is that "faithful reproductions of two-dimensional public domain works of art are public domain". This photographic reproduction is therefore also considered to be in the public domain in the United States. In other jurisdictions, re-use of this content may be restricted; see Reuse of PD-Art photographs for details.

[FireBeyond]

To be pedantic, though. Just because the WMF (through its counsel, presumably) "takes a position", doesn't infer that "therefore" this piece is public domain.

It may well be, but unless the WMF created the piece, it has no standing to declare this. I may well be reading too much into things, but I know also that the WMF has taken "interesting" legal positions on art (a famous recent photo set up by a wildlife photographer where a curious primate, IIRC, wandered up to the camera and depressed the shutter).

[captaincaveman]

It's certainly a complex mess :)

[bloak]

What I've heard is that photography of a painting is considered to be a form of reproduction and not the creation of a new work. It might be different if you were to photograph the painting from a funny angle with a shadow falling across it in an artistic way but that's not what we're talking about in the case of a typical Mona Lisa image, like the one the Wikipedia page uses.

[captaincaveman]

here you go https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_panorama

[gota]

I truly hope we do not let technology be used to create this kind of artificial scarcity

If anything, metaverse should allow you to see all works of art as if they were the real thing, all the time, for "free"*

* assuming the efforts of building and maintaining the infrastructure are properly compensated

[dmix]

> I truly hope we do not let technology be used to create this kind of artificial scarcity

Aren't virtual economies old news by now? Plenty of games and game networks have accomplished this with virtual goods.

The 'metaverse' stuff doesn't scare me personally (where this concept could become widespread). I don't buy for a second that it's going to be a big deal where it will be anything more than a niche glorified game lobby.

[captaincaveman]

No, you are not granted copyrights on the image attached to the NFT in all cases I've looked at, spoken to the people behind them and they also agreed.

Doesn't mean this can't be done, but in each case I've looked at, granting of rights (and which specific rights do we even mean?) is not happening.

Further more there is no obligation for anyone to do anything with the image linked to the NFT your the holder of.

[naasking]

Copyright is a right defined in existing legal systems. I said the NFT defines a new type of right in a new pseudo-legal system.

[FireBeyond]

And if I infringe upon these new rights, do I get pseudo-sued in this pseudo-legal system?

[6510]

mind blown! We could have as many opt-in legal systems as we want! Like a ball to go with the chain.

[spywaregorilla]

A right isn't a legal system

[captaincaveman]

yeaah I don't think that's a thing.

[_fat_santa]

I heard it varies. Bored Apes for example give you the rights to the underlying photograph, I think that's why you see them pop up in ad campaigns now and again.

[rglullis]

If everyone you've spoken to is only interested in the money, maybe you should speak with different people?

Or if this is just hyperbole, perhaps accept that Sturgeon's Law is valid even for human behavior in relation to finance and economics?

People were making unbelievably stupid decisions and came up with the most ridiculous rationalizations for "investing" in the dot-com bubble. Same thing with real estate a decade later. It is not just because a market is overheated that we should dismiss the industry entirely.

(I am not saying that those with better judgement should just go and exploit the irrationality of the masses. What I am saying is that there is no way to argue anyone into making rational decisions.)

[Salgat]

NFT's greatest value is how much more trivial they've made money laundering through art.

[verdverm]

I wonder if the VCs have fallen prey to the siren's song or if they have joined the choir?

I have a hard time believing they don't ask the questions that get to the heart of the long term viability of the projects they invest in. Yet as a tech creator, I don't see much use for the game theoretic additions for the extra complexity and waste from adding blockchain.

[rwmj]

Can't speak about VCs, but for celebrities and promoters there seem to be questionable cross-promotions: https://maxread.substack.com/p/mapping-the-celebrity-nft-com...

[gitfan86]

VCs need to stay connected and they need access to a continuous stream of new young entrepreneurs.

They are looking for the kids that think they can takedown PayPal and visa. Give them 500k each and hope one figures it out.

[thinkingemote]

Web3 as well is just about buying and selling.

There is no soul.

I've only seen one example of nfts having some kind of soul and that to do with ensuring collaborators on musical projects get a kind of transparent split of the proceeds. where the token is the music. Make a remix, then it also tracks what part of which source you used etc. Open royalties when the tracks are sold.

[NoboruWataya]

It's the purest manifestation of the greater fool theory.

[winternett]

The 80's stock market was a pimer for this kind of culture. The era of excess led people to normalize bad behavior, enthusiastic marketing of assets, and a culture of greed at any cost. Within markets where products are essential, it creates chaos, and to the lay person, it creates a false impression that success is tangible, and that because it's backed by celebrities and corporations that it is all credible.

We're hurling towards an era of false economy, the results are likely to be harsh if we allow it to continue without being reigned in. The celebrities that back scams, as well as corps need to be held accountable because the main problem that it's growing in popularity is all of the glossy polish on the lies of phony payouts.

[bigodbiel]

What I find even more frustrating is that even your average retail broker is more knowledgeable, relatively speaking, than their crypto counterpart (not that crypto’s inherent dark forest helps).

[ourlordcaffeine]

The reason NFTs annoy me is because the majority of them seem to be stolen work, yet the people who buy them seem to believe that they now have rights to the work.

See the case of https://www.wired.co.uk/article/nft-fraud-qinni-art.

And now I see comments in this thread hoping that tech companies enforce NFTs. No thank you

[cuteboy19]

This is largely because there is almost nothing you can do with crypto apart from speculate and gamble. The more I learn about stuff like defi the more I understand just how fractally useless crypto is.

[curtisblaine]

You can bypass the de facto ban that VISA and Mastercard put on the existence of some websites, for example Gab or the other similar one which now I can't remember. If I recall correctly, you can currently donate money to those sites only using cryptocurrency. This is kinda important, in my opinion, because "only offensive speech is free speech" (this doesn't mean I like those sites, but I don't want the credit card companies to decide what can exist on the Internet)

[Rarebox]

You can buy drugs and other illegal things off the internet (tor), that's very useful for some people. Basically crypto allows for transactions that could otherwise be blocked or easily tracked by central parties (1). It can also be used to bypass gambling laws.

For legal purchases and activities crypto is useless, regular money is much more practical.

[1] depending on which crypto and how it's used tracking is possible, so care is required (especially) when converting dollars to crypto.

[pessimizer]

> You can buy drugs and other illegal things off the internet (tor)

Can you? After that huge bust a few years back, I figured that particular usage was marginal at this point. Seems like the only use for crypto is ransomware, dodging taxes or smuggling embezzled money out of your country.

[Matticus_Rex]

Yeah, there are still plenty of drugs on the darkweb. Busting a few dealers doesn't eliminate demand, and in-person dealers don't have a "reviews" page for their products and behavior.

[Clepsydra]

IPTV. It's the only reason i own bitcoins. :)

[danlugo92]

You find a great employee, he's in Venezuela, how do you pay them?

They have no access to Swift.

Western Union (didn't exist until a few years back) has like 20% fees.

Paypal effective total fees 20% as well.

Bitcoin? $0.30 to pay him/her, 0.30 to get the btc to his/her exchange and then cash out.

[ninkendo]

You can use it to pay off the ransomware criminals who pwned your computer I guess...

[frockington1]

The idea is it's not beholden to a government (though still somewhat centralized somewhere). Crypto is helping people in Turkey store value. With current inflation and economic conditions in the US and Europe more may need it in the near future.

[yostrovs]

How can crypto be a store of value when the market price fluctuates so wildly? Bitcoin, etc fell much more in one day recently than the Turkish lira fell over many months. And one is supposedly using Bitcoin to avoid inflation in the lira?

[danlugo92]

You can save in USDT for what it's worth.

[rglullis]

s/USDT/DAI, please. Or sUSD from Synthetix, or EURS if you want to hold euros. Or GBPP if you want to hold GBP.

Anything but USDT. USDT is poison.

[danlugo92]

Yeah I was just using it as an example.