News The NFT Bay Debuts to Save You a Right-Click on Someone's Precious Digital Art

[Admin]

The NFT Bay has debuted as a repository of purportedly every NFT on the Ethereum and Solana blockchains.

The NFT Bay Debuts to Save You a Right-Click on Someone's Precious Digital Art : Read more

 

[hasten]

"Buying an NFT is like purchasing bottled water even though a fountain offers the exact same water for free."
Wow. What? Is this Toms policy? I wonder if someone should check all the images used here for publishing rights. Could be gold in them hills.

Would Toms be ok if someone reposted their site as content is generated, took credit and the advertising income? I mean its on the internet so its free to copy and monetize right? Where are the ethics and integrity of the author?

 

[bigdragon]

Here's the problem: The artwork associated with an NFT is just a file. There's nothing stopping anyone with a web browser from right-clicking on the NFT and downloading a copy of that art to their system.

It's worse than that. The NFT isn't the actual artwork file -- it's a hash and signature from a registry that assumes people trust it. Buying an NFT is like buying a star -- it's bogus, governments don't respect the sales or naming, and the certificate of purchase/naming is not enforceable. NFTs are simply a way to create artificial value, facilitate wash trading, and fake the existence of scarcity. It's a big, energy-wasting, financial game.

I'm an artist. I'm friends with many other artists. Some of us are just starting out, and others have a portfolio full of video game and tabletop work from the big industry names. I don't know a single artist who likes NFTs. Everyone I know thinks NFTs are energy-wasting schemes to rob people of their money. You want to support an artist? Then buy a commission, send a KoFi, or sub to Patreon. NFT? Nope...unless you want low-quality recolors of apes and lions -- and if that's what you want, then go search "adoptable" on an art gallery website for something much better.

A lot of artists -- especially digital artists -- are also gamers. Gamers need GPUs. Artists who work in 3D also need GPU power (out of memory errors in Blender are not fun). The crypto economy robs us of those GPUs.

As for the NFT Bay....awesome! Anything to tick-off the NFT bros!

 

[bitcoinsig]

Dear every never-coiner media website, you don't understand how proof-of-work, works.

Ethereum will spend the same amount energy mining 0 transactions or mining 1000 transactions, the miners are mining for coins, not transactions. When a miner wins the block they attach the list of transactions they know to be true, it requires no processing to do that, and they also get the block rewards and fees. Furthermore the Solana blockchain doesn't use proof-of work so there is as much power usage as probably Tom's Hardware uses to post articles they don't research properly.

Your editor should revise this article or take it down since it is factually wrong, and just pushes the authors never-coiner agenda.

 

[Endymio]

Buying an NFT is like buying a star -- it's bogus, governments don't respect the sales or naming, and the certificate of purchase/naming is not enforceable.

This post demonstrates an appalling ignorance of basic contract law. A contract to transfer ownership of a copyright between an artist and buyer -- or between one buyer and a subsequent one -- merely requires a so-called "meeting of the minds". The two parties in the transaction can use whatever means they wish to certify that such an agreement was reached, be it verbal, digital, or written on the back of a cocktail napkin. The law doesn't care. It gives no special recognition to NFTs, true, but it does not need to. The basic mechanics of contract law still applies.

The concept you probably meant to express is quite different. Blockchains are intended to provide proof of ownership independently of governmental central authority. However, without government enforcement of said ownership, that proof is essentially worthless.

A lot of artists -- especially digital artists -- are also gamers. Gamers need ... The crypto economy robs us of those GPUs.

Aha. Now we see the true motivation for your diatribe. The crypto community would argue that you are the thieves robbing them of needed GPUs. I'm not a crypto person, but they can put up a better argument for actual value provided than the gamers' "we need a faster stream of pretty pictures to entertain us".

Luckily we (at least for now) live in a free-market economy where nitwit attitudes aren't law, and anyone with the money to purchase a product, can do so, without needing to show "proper" motivation for wanting it.

 

[chemistu]

"Buying an NFT is like purchasing bottled water even though a fountain offers the exact same water for free."
Wow. What? Is this Toms policy? I wonder if someone should check all the images used here for publishing rights. Could be gold in them hills.

Would Toms be ok if someone reposted their site as content is generated, took credit and the advertising income? I mean its on the internet so its free to copy and monetize right? Where are the ethics and integrity of the author?

I'm a little hazy on NFT (well, I read and understood A Dummies Guide To Blockchain). How would an NFT stop this scenario?

 

[Endymio]

I'm a little hazy on NFT (well, I read and understood A Dummies Guide To Blockchain). How would an NFT stop this scenario?

Site B steals Site A's content and republishes it. Site A takes B to court. B argues that, in actually, it first created all that content and A is the actual infringer. Site A then uses blockchain verification to refute this claim.

 

[OriginFree]

Site B steals Site A's content and republishes it. Site A takes B to court. B argues that, in actually, it first created all that content and A is the actual infringer. Site A then uses blockchain verification to refute this claim.

So just like now with ISP logs, server logs, author's working files, etc., but with extra steps.

 

[Endymio]

So just like now with ISP logs, server logs, author's working files, etc., but with extra steps.

Yes, with one large difference. You can alter your own server logs and working files; you cannot alter committed entries to a blockchain.

 

[Exploding PSU]

As someone watching the cryptocurrency world from the sidelines, NFT is one of those tech that I still couldn't wrap my head around , I don't know maybe I'm too old-timey to understand it properly. But from my limited understanding (and correct me if I'm wrong, in the end I'm still trying to learn about it too), the bottled water analogy is a bit... off.
I think a more proper example would be imagine a bottled water company that marks their bottles with serial number #0000-#9999. Each of those bottled water is pretty much the same thing, just this uninspiring plastic with water in it, and there's nothing stopping you to go ahead and drink straight from the fountain the company is using as the source for their water. But, if a well-known public figure drank from bottle #0072, that particular one might have some value in the collector's market, even though it's the exact same bottle as the other ones (bar the serial number).

 

[bitcoinsig]

As someone watching the cryptocurrency world from the sidelines, NFT is one of those tech that I still couldn't wrap my head around , I don't know maybe I'm too old-timey to understand it properly. But from my limited understanding (and correct me if I'm wrong, in the end I'm still trying to learn about it too), the bottled water analogy is a bit... off.
I think a more proper example would be imagine a bottled water company that marks their bottles with serial number #0000-#9999. Each of those bottled water is pretty much the same thing, just this uninspiring plastic with water in it, and there's nothing stopping you to go ahead and drink straight from the fountain the company is using as the source for their water. But, if a well-known public figure drank from bottle #0072, that particular one might have some value in the collector's market, even though it's the exact same bottle as the other ones (bar the serial number).

NFT is a non fungible token, at the very basic level, a token that is unlike any other. Picture a dollar with a banksy drawn onto it. It is no longer the same as your average dollar. However whilst the comparisons to artwork are popular, in reality the data attached to that 'dollar' can be anything. A token with data that corresponds to a housing deed can be an NFT. A token with unique digital properties, such as a crafted item in a game can be an NFT. Artwork was just one use case.

The token could be a unique right to a copyright, for instance a musician creates a song and assigns the copyrights to a token, that token can then be put up for sale so independent intellectual property dealers can bid and monetize it. They can have a catalog of intellectual property, similar to music conglomerates, and get paid for the rights to use their copyrights, collecting royalty money for the artists and automatically depositing the royalties. This can be done without large labels and music conglomerates, but through peer to peer systems and through bidding. Currently a musician would not have access to multiple companies valuing their work, nor a company or individual being able to access a catalog of potentially valuable copyrights. A musician could potentially go from creating a song to selling that song to the highest bidder and negotiating royalties in a few hours after creation.

There are so many markets that are untapped or use cases that haven't even been thought of yet. One thing is for certain, the idea of the NFT, that being a tradeable unit of data, isn't going to go away.

 

[Deleted member 14196]

“fountain offers the exact same water for free.”

Where do I start to combat the errors here?. Do you know how many Toxins are in your water fountain offers the exact same water for free.from your faucets?

Obviously the person that wrote this doesn’t know anything about wastewater treatment plants and how unsafe most peoples drinking water is these days

 

[-Fran-]

NFTs are as sketchy/legit as a regular "certificate of authenticity" or an SSL certificate issuer.

All the trust is placed on whomever is issuing them to keep a record of what belongs to whom and when it was purchased. The contents being reproducible or easy to copy are of no concern of the NFT concept.

If you claim to have a certificate of authenticity of something, everyone can choose to dismiss it as valid evidence, much like you can just choose to not trust an NFT. With "digital goods" it's a bit trickier to say you have full confidence on originals as the concept of "carbon copy" does fit perfectly and reproducing exact copies is almost trivial.

Are NFTs bad, evil or a scam? Not necessarily. As I said before, they're as useful as a Certificate of Authenticity can be to you.

Regards.

 

[bigdragon]

This post demonstrates an appalling ignorance of basic contract law. [. . .] The law doesn't care. It gives no special recognition to NFTs, true, but it does not need to.

Lol. Your NFT is meaningless without recognition that it is a legitimate mechanism to convey ownership. Artists have been using written contracts forever. Hasbro doesn't need an NFT to purchase artwork for their latest card deck just as I don't need an NFT to identify the commissioner for a fantasy illustration.

The NFT crowd is inserting themselves between artists and clients like some sort of slimy car dealer middleman profiteering off the client and manufacturer whenever they can. NFT has no authority in art transactions unless given it by the people creating content. You assume trust where many artists only see energy waste, added costs, and rampant art theft.

Aha. Now we see the true motivation for your diatribe. The crypto community would argue that you are the thieves robbing them of needed GPUs. I'm not a crypto person, but they can put up a better argument for actual value provided than the gamers' "we need a faster stream of pretty pictures to entertain us".

Luckily we (at least for now) live in a free-market economy where nitwit attitudes aren't law, and anyone with the money to purchase a product, can do so, without needing to show "proper" motivation for wanting it.

You're so eager to attack me and rant about gamers that you missed the fact that games rely upon artists. We're the ones creating the concept art, models, textures, animations, and other contents that populate today's entertainment.

Gaming is art. Many artists are gamers. Gaming hardware is equally useful for gaming as it is for creating. Maybe you enjoy looking at hashes and signatures and ledgers and charts. I'd rather look at a wildly detailed, animated, AI-driven monster. More GPU power doesn't just make those monsters look more amazing -- it also lets us sculpt more details into them and put more of them on the screen simultaneously. I'm absolutely going to argue that improving our window into fictional environments is a more proper use of a GPU that is not part of a mining-specific product line.

 

[ajpaolello]

Aha. Now we see the true motivation for your diatribe. The crypto community would argue that you are the thieves robbing them of needed GPUs. I'm not a crypto person, but they can put up a better argument for actual value provided than the gamers' "we need a faster stream of pretty pictures to entertain us".

Luckily we (at least for now) live in a free-market economy where nitwit attitudes aren't law, and anyone with the money to purchase a product, can do so, without needing to show "proper" motivation for wanting it.

And all the sudden I don't feel the need to listen to you anymore

 

[bitcoinsig]

NFTs are as sketchy/legit as a regular "certificate of authenticity" or an SSL certificate issuer.

All the trust is placed on whomever is issuing them to keep a record of what belongs to whom and when it was purchased. The contents being reproducible or easy to copy are of no concern of the NFT concept.

If you claim to have a certificate of authenticity of something, everyone can choose to dismiss it as valid evidence, much like you can just choose to not trust an NFT. With "digital goods" it's a bit trickier to say you have full confidence on originals as the concept of "carbon copy" does fit perfectly and reproducing exact copies is almost trivial.

Are NFTs bad, evil or a scam? Not necessarily. As I said before, they're as useful as a Certificate of Authenticity can be to you.

Regards.

Actually reproducing exact copies are not possible, because of how a hash works. An artist takes the original file and creates a sha-hash fingerprint, this is unique to the file. Now I could change one pixel of that artwork and hash it, and the hash would be different, then list that. However, if faced with two competing artworks one could easily determine the forged work because of the hash and the timestamp on the blockchain. I could easily say look, my art hashes to the first known version published to the blockchain, therefore any other copies may share the visual elements but are not the original.

This is no different to real artwork. There are many paintings of the Mona Lisa that look visually similar, but there is only one actual copy that holds value. Could a seller convince a buyer on a forgery, yes, but the blockchain actually makes this harder because of the immutable timestamps. I can know the original is the original because the original copies hash will always point to the first known appearance, and will have been signed by the artist directly. As long as the artist makes his signature well known, it is trivial to know which tokens are authentically signed.

 

[Endymio]

Lol. Your NFT is meaningless without recognition that it is a legitimate mechanism to convey ownership.

Lol yourself -- It already has that legal recognition. What did you not understand?

Artists have been using written contracts forever. Hasbro doesn't need an NFT to purchase artwork for their latest card deck

Do they need an NFT to demonstrate ownership? No, of course not. No one "needed" email to replace snail mail either, now did they? Email was simply a much faster alternative. NFTs are far faster to execute and transfer than a written contract -- and they are far more secure as well.

The NFT crowd is inserting themselves between artists and clients like some sort of slimy car dealer middleman profiteering off the client and manufacturer whenever they can.

It seems you understand this topic even less than I first thought. If you're an artist, you can create an NFT at zero cost. You can also transfer that NFT to someone else for zero cost -- except for the minimal overhead taken by the blockchain itself, which has nothing whatsoever to do with some vague, spooky "NFT crowd".

NFT has no authority in art transactions unless given it by the people creating content.

ROFL, of course not. And no one is claiming otherwise. This is getting into tinfoil-hat territory now.

 

[cryoburner]

Actually reproducing exact copies are not possible, because of how a hash works. An artist takes the original file and creates a sha-hash fingerprint, this is unique to the file. Now I could change one pixel of that artwork and hash it, and the hash would be different, then list that. However, if faced with two competing artworks one could easily determine the forged work because of the hash and the timestamp on the blockchain. I could easily say look, my art hashes to the first known version published to the blockchain, therefore any other copies may share the visual elements but are not the original.

This is no different to real artwork. There are many paintings of the Mona Lisa that look visually similar, but there is only one actual copy that holds value. Could a seller convince a buyer on a forgery, yes, but the blockchain actually makes this harder because of the immutable timestamps. I can know the original is the original because the original copies hash will always point to the first known appearance, and will have been signed by the artist directly. As long as the artist makes his signature well known, it is trivial to know which tokens are authentically signed.

Except the "original" NFT is not actually the original work. A photo of the Mona Lisa is not the Mona Lisa. It's just yet another copy, that can have some arbitrary value placed on it. It might be provable that you paid something for that particular copy, but that doesn't make that copy the original, and at least for most NFTs, doesn't give you any rights over the original or its redistribution.

And it should be quite easy for someone who actually owns or produced an original artwork to prove ownership without the need for an NFT. For physical artwork, there's obviously the physical version existing somewhere. And even for digital artwork, the version released online should similarly have original source files that are in the artist's possession. Those are usually of higher quality or contain hidden parts that someone falsely claiming to be the artist would not reasonably be able to emulate.

And there's nothing really preventing someone who doesn't own the rights to a work producing an NFT of it. Ultimately, it would come down entirely to evidence of who owns the source material in such cases, so the NFT itself doesn't really do much, outside of giving gullible buyers the false impression of ownership over a digital copy of something that is ultimately no better than the millions of other digital copies in existence. While there may be legitimate uses of NFTs, they don't really do anything that can't be accomplished easily through other means, and most NFT transactions amount to little more that a scam against buyers who are not actually aware of the worth (or lack thereof) of what they are actually buying.

 

[Endymio]

Except the "original" NFT is not actually the original work.

Lol, it's not intended to be. It's simply meant to demonstrate ownership. Your statement is like pointing out that the title to your new vehicle is not the new vehicle itself. Great insight there.

An NFT..,doesn't give you any rights over the original or its redistribution.

If the NFT is intended to transfer such rights, then yes it does. If it doesn't, then it doesn't. The NFT is simply demonstrating ownership of some particular right .... what that right actually is varies.

And it should be quite easy for someone who actually owns or produced an original artwork to prove ownership without the need for an NFT. [Even] for digital artwork, the version released online should similarly have original source files that are in the artist's possession. Those are usually of higher quality or contain hidden parts that someone falsely claiming to be the artist would not reasonably be able to emulate.

And when the artist sells the digital art to person A, then A sells to B, and B to C, and C to D ... and a dispute arises between those particular parties over who actually owns what? The artist isn't going to be able to help in that dispute, now are they? What if the dispute is decades later, after the artist has already died?

I could raise a hundred other valid objections, but its clear you have a basic misunderstanding over what the role of an NFT actually is in such transactions. Are some shady operators using the hype of NFTs to engage in scams? Sure. There were plenty of scam operators in the 1849 gold rush also. That didn't make gold itself a scam.

 

[-Fran-]

Actually reproducing exact copies are not possible, because of how a hash works. An artist takes the original file and creates a sha-hash fingerprint, this is unique to the file. Now I could change one pixel of that artwork and hash it, and the hash would be different, then list that. However, if faced with two competing artworks one could easily determine the forged work because of the hash and the timestamp on the blockchain. I could easily say look, my art hashes to the first known version published to the blockchain, therefore any other copies may share the visual elements but are not the original.

This is no different to real artwork. There are many paintings of the Mona Lisa that look visually similar, but there is only one actual copy that holds value. Could a seller convince a buyer on a forgery, yes, but the blockchain actually makes this harder because of the immutable timestamps. I can know the original is the original because the original copies hash will always point to the first known appearance, and will have been signed by the artist directly. As long as the artist makes his signature well known, it is trivial to know which tokens are authentically signed.

If you want to be pedantic about it, you totally can. We just don't have the technology, or don't know if it exists. The things in real life you can completely mimic/copy/duplicate, in theory, are atom placement over an area or volume. If you can achieve that, then there's pretty much no way to determine what is an "original" anymore; Star Trek makes a fine argument with the "replicators" as a possible technology. As for the digital stuff, the equivalent to the atoms is the binary stream that composes what you call the "original" and that can be copied no problem. As someone else said before, it then comes down to track down how you can assert how the original was created and the sources for it still exist and can still create a perfect copy from scratch using said originals "ingredients". How can you be so sure the NFT of one particular binary stream is the real original over another NFT of the same exact binary stream made at another time?

Also, funny you mention the Mona Lisa as I went to see the painting at the Louvre. What you see is not the painting directly, but a reflected copy of the original, so you have zero way to say it is authentic other than trusting the word of the museum and all the showbiz around it. I'm not even trying to be a tinfoil hat person, but it goes to show you what you want to call "original" may not exist after it gets popularized and it's a mere copy as you have no way of actually verifying it is as you're told.

I can also give the example for the Ford "Cobras". The replicas are "authentic replicas" and fetch a really insane price as is, where the authentic, well, you have to trust whomever keeps track of them they are indeed originals and fetch in even more insane price at auctions. There's like 5 in the world or something? I can't remember.

Regards.

 

[cryoburner]

Lol, it's not intended to be. It's simply meant to demonstrate ownership. Your statement is like pointing out that the title to your new vehicle is not the new vehicle itself. Great insight there.

Terrible analogy. A title to a vehicle shows ownership of an actual, physical vehicle. Not ownership of a photo of the vehicle, of which countless other people have identical copies that are no better or worse, aside from the slip of paper telling one person that their copy is "special".

If the NFT is intended to transfer such rights, then yes it does. If it doesn't, then it doesn't. The NFT is simply demonstrating ownership of some particular right .... what that right actually is varies.

Great work editing my quote to cut out the part where I said that applies to "most" NFTs, which usually tend to be little more than a way to apply arbitrary value to something that is essentially worthless. And NFTs are completely unnecessary for licensing the rights to works, as there are already numerous other ways to accomplish that.

And when the artist sells the digital art to person A, then A sells to B, and B to C, and C to D ... and a dispute arises between those particular parties over who actually owns what? The artist isn't going to be able to help in that dispute, now are they? What if the dispute is decades later, after the artist has already died?

And that's all kind of nonsensical. Ultimately, if they are trading something that is pixel-perfect to something available to everyone else for free, then they are not trading the work itself, so much as a ticket telling them they are special for spending money on essentially nothing. The artist might as well have signed their name on a napkin, and let them trade that. Typically, works of art that eventually fetch large sums of money never actually made the artist themselves all that much money anyway.

Cryptocurrency fanatics have a tendency of attacking anyone suggesting that crypto and related techologies are not the greatest thing ever, while ignoring that they don't actually do all that much that isn't already handled better by other systems, since they know the value of their investment is dependent more on public perception than on actual usefulness.

 

[TerryLaze]

This post demonstrates an appalling ignorance of basic contract law. A contract to transfer ownership of a copyright between an artist and buyer -- or between one buyer and a subsequent one -- merely requires a so-called "meeting of the minds". The two parties in the transaction can use whatever means they wish to certify that such an agreement was reached, be it verbal, digital, or written on the back of a cocktail napkin. The law doesn't care. It gives no special recognition to NFTs, true, but it does not need to. The basic mechanics of contract law still applies.

But buying something with an NFT does not transfer the copyright for it to you.
You just buy a picture, or any other piece of digital art, with an invisible stamp on it saying 'this sucker payed for this'

It's like if a bottled water would go for a few cents but then they make one with an invisible stamp that you need a special way to even see and charge you thousands for it even though it doesn't look any different and doesn't do anything different.
You are only paying for the invisible stamp that says that you are a sucker for paying for it.