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Comment by evanphamilton | Hacker News Reader

Am I correct that unlike owning a physical piece of artwork, "owning" the registration of a work on the blockchain only proves that no one else "owns" said work -- I suppose what makes this a trade-able financial asset -- but nothing is stopping someone else from seeing the work?

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Do you also get the copyrights for the work? Could you in theory send DMCA takedowns to anybody showing the work without your permission?

From what I gather, unless specified, you don't.

Trust networks or tools used to keep track of it all are only as effective based on the integrity of the physical accountability and security systems of a nation; if the people in power that you need to care to enforce/protect ownership, then however it's kept track of doesn't matter.

Yeah, I've seen them sold before in "lootboxes" where you can see the artwork that you are gambling to get. The cryptographic proof of ownership is all your paying for.

> "owning" the registration of a work on the blockchain only proves that no one else "owns" said work

It doesn't prove that. It proves no one else owns that particular copy of the work. The author or anyone else can create another NFT in a different collectible contract from another copy of the same work.

Think of it as the certificate you get when someone sells you a star.

It could be possible to host it in some way to require proof of ownership as access credentials?

Yes, that would be possible. Authenticate users based on them signing messages with their keys, and you can safely see if they are the owner of a NFT or not.

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