[eva_cananim]

I am not any kind of lawyer, including not being an intellectual property lawyer.

In my view, ignoring all the froth due to fools thinking NFTs are a get-rich-quick scheme that might actually work, it is all governed by the usual copyright, trademark and contract laws and what matters is what a court is likely to decide when someone sues.

Suppose a case goes to court to decide who own the copyright on an MS-paint badly drawn cat. Party A says they bought it from scam-see dotcom and they have an emailed receipt and payment record. Party A says they never sold it. They can subpoena records from scam-see

Party B says that they bought the NFT from a Russian hacker on IRC, they have a secret magic number that they could use to add an entry to blockchain. Party B says that means they own the copyright.

The judge is going to ask Party B if they have a signed contract.

The judge is going to ask Party B if they can point to the section in copyright law that says knowing a magic number means you own the copyright of an image.

In my view, the judge will rule that party A owns the copyright.

At that point all the blockchain bullshit falls apart.

If someone wants to sell the copyright on a badly drawn picture of a cat outside of a 'crypto market' then they can write a contract on a piece of paper and have both party's sign it, perhaps getting a notary to stamp it and getting someone to witness the signing.

In my opinion, that is likely to be more expedient then hoping you can convince a judge that whoever has the newest secret magic number owns the copyright.

[mpeg]

I think that's one view, but I personally own some NFT pieces that I bought directly from the artist – for me this is no different than buying a real painting, and the value IMHO is that I have clear cryptographical proof that my piece came from the artist (whose public key is known)

I don't care that much about the copyright (although this depends on the license the artist gives the piece), but I do care about provenance, and for me NFTs give me clear proof of it.

Outside of the get rich quick schemes, there are plenty of legitimate artists selling their stuff at reasonable prices.

[akerl_]

The main difference between buying an NFT of a painting and buying a real painting is that in the latter case, you possess a painting, and in the former case, you don't.

[mpeg]

The way I look at it is that I can buy a print of a van Gogh for $10 but the real painting costs millions. The key difference there is that the real painting is real and the art house will some sort of provenance record that lists all previous owners all the way to the artist.

In the same way, when you buy an NFT you're buying the provenance without buying the actual art. The art is understood to be easy to reproduce, you can download it and print it yourself if you want to hang it up on a wall.

[akerl_]

When you buy an actual piece of art, the provenance is useful because it lets you know the art you have is the real thing.

What does provenance even matter if you don’t actually own the art? If you want to support the artist and you don’t want / can’t afford the actual piece, just donate to them and you’d have the same effect.

[miracle2k]

> When you buy an actual piece of art, the provenance is useful because it lets you know the art you have is the real thing.

When you buy art as an NFT, you do own an actual piece of art. Unless you think a non-physical art like say The Clock inherently cannot be sold outside of a copyright transfer, and that has been untrue long before NFTs.

[mpeg]

In the case of an NFT, I can prove that I own it, and I can prove the provenance of it all in one go.

Sure, the artist could do something dishonest like sell the same piece twice, but I'm assuming good faith from the artist, or at least from the ones I buy from.

[joshxyz]

more like: oon paintings other people cant easily have replicas. on nfts, its just one click away.