People Don't Understand NFTs(robert-chung.medium.com) |
People Don't Understand NFTs(robert-chung.medium.com) |
As soon as 1 person issues a replacement NFT due to theft or something the entire idea comes crashing down bc now the "real copy" is actually "owned" by some thief and a new "real copy" is being created. From what I read a while back you kind of just have to trust that ppl won't sell the same "real copy" over and over again. This works fine in the real world of tangible goods but when people can be anonymous it's just begging for abuse.
You don't own the artwork, you own an URL pointing to the artwork which can change or stop working at any moment and likely isn't maintained by you.
Why not?
This seems to be a popular sticking point in the NFT crowd, but it's never really been made clear to me. There seem to be oodles of duplicate NFTs out there (much less ones based on stolen art), so why can't I just make another?
But this still isn't satisfying: anybody can put another transaction on that same blockchain (or a different one) with another proof of ownership. So which one is the real one?
Note: The Calvin peeing image is derivative and was never drawn by him. The artist might have a defense of fair use but it is not clear in precedent.
Sure, you can NFT the mona lisa. It's only viable if you NFT cross sign every postcard, puzzle, tee shirt ...
It makes less sense than that to me though. Isn't an NFT just, within a specific blockchain, claiming to 'own' or control a bit of datastream? Like a photo, or video, or object model. Except this isn't even insanity normally practiced like copyright or patents; you don't get any of those artificial 'land grab' rights. Just your name attached to the thing within that blockchain?
Just like how we trust certain government records to be accurate & representative of ownership, each chain, if secure, can achieve the same functionality in a more open and decentralized way (also its inherently global, which can have huge implications wrt globalization)
NFTs are built on a preexisting global programmable database, but are specifically a use of that database to create digital baseball cards.
Where to even begin with this idea? First of all, many local governments in the U.S. already have public databases of who owns what land. This is a problem that can be solved with a SQLite database, it doesn't need a blockchain.
Second, controlling access to individual pieces of land through ownership is a fundamental function of capitalist states. It's even more important than coining money. Why would a government delegate that to the UN? What would the benefit be? If a state can't effectively control access to land, that's an existential threat and not something the UN's "brand" can solve for you. The potential downsides are huge for everyone involved - sorting out disputed ownership or inheritance now requires a call to Brussels or Luxembourg?
If this is supposed to be a reason why NFTs are useful rather than stupid, I still feel like I'm not getting it. That isn't to say there couldn't be valuable use cases out there.
Except here it sounds like just being able to be part of groups.
I suppose some minority may buy them just for bragging rights, a la "I am Rich" or that wutang album.
Of course it won’t prove whether or not you do own the real or virtual object, but that’s a tired old argument by people who don’t “get” the technological advancement.
I believe you're missing the opportunity that exists for automation. That database is heavily guarded by layers of human administration. I can't sell you my land without involving a bunch of humans who interpret contracts and push buttons. In a world where land ownership were recognized by tokens on a distributed ledger, buying and selling land no longer requires the overhead of all that administration.
Those layers of human administration are called a "state". Without that, the concept of property is pretty much meaningless to begin with. I can claim to own any piece of land I want. The state pays people to show up with weapons if I'm using land that they've decided "belongs" to somebody else. It gets to set the terms of land ownership and to insert itself into every transaction because of the ability to use force, not because it has the most efficient record-keeping system.
What that means is that the fundamental premise of blockchain technology, that there's no need for an external authority, is completely at odds with the reality of how property works. If there's a smart contract that says I own parcel X, but the people with guns say I don't own it, who wins that argument? That means the state needs a way to insert itself into and modify the blockchain, but that kind of obviates the whole point of the blockchain. If the state can't alter it, it's not a meaningful source of truth.
That of course leaves the benefit of automation. But all of that automation could be done with a SQL database and a PHP web app. The reasons it isn't done that way are policy ones, not technical ones.
Blockchain in general doesn't really work well when it has to interact with the physical world.
What about kidnaping? If someone kidnaps me and use a wrench to send my property, can it be returned?
Sure, some people may fall for fakes and buy an NFT from a duplicate smart-contract, but this only happens due to the current lack of infrastructure in the ecosystem.
I'm sorry, but isn't this exactly the problem you pointed out with luxury goods in your own article? It's all about authenticity and provenance ("the real one"); you've just offloaded the proof from physical quality (which I or anybody else who's sufficiently informed can assess) to a proof of work or some other scheme without solving the actual problem (the bootstrapping of trust).
But you can’t—that’s why the fake industry is a multi-trillion dollar industry and why StockX, a 4 billion dollar company, still end up selling fakes to consumers
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Work_of_Art_in_the_Age_of_...
Two things:
First, let's say I bite the bullet and accept the claim that a human with sufficient information is no better at verifying the authenticity of an item than an NFT would be. Where does that leave me? Now my Burberry jacket and my monkey JPEG are fakes. How has the state of affairs improved for me?
Second: I think the way you're approaching this belies a misapprehension of the counterfeit market. Duplicitous counterfeiting (where the seller deceives an unwitting buyer) is just a fraction of that "multi-trillion dollar industry" -- a very large chunk of it is made of the fake Scott toilet paper and fake Duracell batteries that people knowingly buy at their local dollar store, to say nothing of fake luxuries. There are more harmful examples (adulterated honey and olive oil), but the underlying point is the same: NFTs either (1) don't solve the problem (I eagerly await cryptographic proof that my olive oil is authentic), or (2) are irrelevant because people don't want the problem solved ("I know damn well that my batteries are fake, and I don't care").
With digital goods, it is solved. If you have a brand (like cryptopunks or say, the US gov) and you produce some NFT—people can see and verify that the NFT is produced from those parties.
Again, I’m reiterating the same points in the article— it’s the same idea with open-sourced software. You can fork some code and “attempt to sell it” but you won’t go far because it lacks branding and trust.
Half the battle is branding.
Hope that clears it up