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For one, NFTs for the most part have a perpetual royalty built in that's paid to the creator.

Your base assumption is entirely wrong.

In most cases the creator of the NFT != the creator of the artwork.

>In most cases the creator of the NFT != the creator of the artwork.

You are describing counterfeit art and is easy to identify

That's like pointing out how many fake Gucci bags are out there and dismissing the real Gucci by saying "in most cases the creator of the Gucci bag is not Gucci."

I'm not solely describing "counterfeit" ( again, nft's are not legally protected, so counterfeit is not applicable ).

I'm also talking about hiring a low salary graphic designer to create some simple cartoon avatars and then wash trade it into popularity because of metrics on the platform.

Or just copying of-chain images to create an NFT.

Or copy an NFT and put them on another NFT market.

Or change a pixel and put it on the same NFT bazaar ( by definition of law= code, it is unique by hash)

You can't get a real Gucci bag on NFT. The comparison is false, since i can right-click save a perfect original. There is no copyright on NFT's.

Edit: valid response below and couldn't respond. But it's not correlated to the NFT itself ( not saying you are intuiting that, just mentioning)

Not to be pedantic, but, just because you can save and distribute something does not make the legal definition of copyright disappear.

Easy to identify? How do you know that the individual behind a digital signature is the individual they claim to be, unless you meet them in person and they give you some fingerprint (which happens 0% of the time)?

No need to meet them in person if they have a digital identity.

Source?

there's nothing stopping you from minting an nft for any image afaik.

But then nobody would buy that. The value doesn't come from the image, but the combination of the image and the digital signature attached.

Then why are NFT owners mad on right clickers?

Are they really? I thought that was just a joke. That's ridiculous if they're serious.

Are you sure? I think this is pure speculation on your part.

Cryptopunk NFTs are selling for millions of dollars. You're free to copy/paste the PNG and see if anyone would even buy that from you for $1.

I have just sold the PNG to myself for 100 trillion dollars.

I can see the legitimate of the image by looking the Ethereum wallet address, even if you have an image of Bored Apes Yacht Club stolen i can see the proof if yours is genuine by looking on the blockchain.

You have a tool that reverse searches every NFT exchange on the Blockchain for legitimacy? ;)

Are you serious? Artists aren’t getting paid? XCOPY a London based artist has made over $10 million on royalties from his NFT artwork. Please supply evidence to back up your bogus statements. NFT provide trust less royalties directly to the creators wallet with no middleman.

Source: https://xcopy.art/ https://superrare.com/artwork-v2/dankrupt-29757

Here’s another artist, Clon, he used to barely sell physical art at festivals, now he’s a multi million dollar art studio, because of NFT royalties. https://twitter.com/cloncast/status/1457425724860633090?s=21

Most people on Hacker news aren’t doing an ounce of research into the potential of NFTs and it’s clearly recognizable when i read all these comments. Reading a few articles by Bloomberg is not sufficient. You will all be left behind.

Let me ask you, let's say that I get one of these artists to draw up a contract and sell me one of their peices of art. Do you think it will command the same value, more value or less value than the equivalent NFT associated with it?

Becuase I take a look at this and it looks to me like all of this commercial activity has basically nothing to do with the art. I would kind of get it if you pointed to me to a guy whose selling peices of art for a few bucks, maybe $50-100 and selling a decent number of them who you know... like the art. But what market is this? These aren't art collectors who are just using the new medium is it. They're not fans of the art. They don't have thousands invested in traditional collections. They're not going to buy the same art, but off-chain. So is this really anything to do with paying artists at all? Who are these people who are suddenly rushing to pay thousands of dollars to artists?

Is this "StarryNight" who paid $2000 for this NFT excited to be supporting xcopy. Or is it the account of the venture capital fund of the same name? That's not exactly the story of giving power to creators that we were being told is it?

I think the problem here on HN is actually the opposite of what you're stating- the second you do do an ounce of research these claims start looking more and more fishy.

Are people buying art or speculative tokens? This is horse betting with extra steps. Absolutely fantastic for them that they're getting paid for their work, but considering this as sutainable or something that can be achieved by any artist outside of the NFT betting bubble is naive.

Your last sentence reads like FOMO. Not sure if it's intended, but it seems that you are making an argument for NFTs as a tool for speculation.

How many artists mint an NFT and don't even make back the minting fee because their art doesn't sell?

For me, as a creative, its the first and easiest way I have ever published my work.

Then you weren't looking anywhere.

Feel free to list some examples.

DeviantArt and BandCamp aren't good enough? They don't have literally millions of eyeballs?

how much are artists being paid on deviantart?

Can you just publish your work on Instagram or similar site? I don't think publishing has been a problem since a long time. People are publishing their own books.

>Can you just publish your work on Instagram or similar site

I don't see how you can make money that way.

>People are publishing their own books.

Now this, on the other hand, has a clear solution. You can simply put your epub on Amazon for $10 or so. There's no equivalent that I know of for art. For whatever reason, people are more willing to buy digital text than digital images.

Just because patron exists doesn't mean alternative revenue streams are useless

Right but where's the "creativity" of the solution that NFTs supposedly bring? Or is it just the same as Patreon (no creativity or uniqueness at all) but just more complex and potential downsides?

I mean for one, a patreon staff member who doesnt like you for some reason cant just ban your nft account. That seems like a pretty good starting point.

Can't OpenSea just ban people and artwork all the same?

you can deploy your own contracts, no-one can stop you.

Right in the same way you can just give cash to someone, no one can stop you.

It will still be on the chain though.

resale and the secondary sale cut (that goes to the artist) is fundamentally different than patreon. Not to mention the take rate can be arbitrarily low

Wait but it’s about supporting the original artist, no?

no not entirely. Even patreon gives benefits in exchange for payment. It's just very different benefits.

are you really engaging in good faith?

NFTs are selling a much more personal connection with the artist. Buying merchandise or subscribing to patreon is much more impersonal. There is also a sense that you own something. You can show people your NFTs.

Masterworks is centralized. You rely on Masterworks for everything, whereas you can buy NFTs from a number of competing sources.

> NFTs are selling a much more personal connection with the artist. Buying merchandise or subscribing to patreon is much more impersonal.

In what way? A ton of artists I know on Patreon are polling their contributors to get feedback, releasing early content to them, and releasing exclusive behind-the-scenes info or life updates.

What about an NFT provides more personal connection than ongoing support and communication with the artist?

----

And if Patreon isn't enough of a connection to your favorite artists, you can always directly commission them, which will give you a genuinely unique piece of artwork instead of just a serial number, designed in direct cooperation with the artist, that no one else owns, and that is uniquely tied to you in a fundamental way that can't be faked.

What about an NFT provides more personal connection than having direct creative input and a personal hand in the creation of a piece of artwork?

What are you talking about NFTs are more personal? You can literally commission most artists to make you a personal peice. Most Patreons including regular Q&As, opportunities to make suggestions and all sorts of stuff. What exactly is the personal connection that comes from an NFT?

> Masterworks is centralized. You rely on Masterworks for everything, whereas you can buy NFTs from a number of competing sources.

Just because there are multiple NFT companies doesn't mean they are decentralized. Can I buy an NFT on one platform, then sell it on another?

YES!! NFTs are just a smart contract standard.

Look at OpenSea. It's the google/ebay of NFTs on Ethereum.

They are all interchangeable.

Good to hear!

Digging a little more, it seems like the answer is sometimes yes. In this thread NBA Topshot is excluded: https://old.reddit.com/r/ethereum/comments/m1mb0s/can_someon...

Is that thread correct? Is the general theme that corporate NFTs don't truly decentralize, but small players and committed crypto people put their NFTs on Ethereum so they can be moved around?

Correct, some "corporate NFTs" are run on their own chains, etc. This is why most of the price action is on Ethereum.

Assuming you are somewhat technical, you can read about the actual smart contract standard, it's called erc721.

So they're all centralised on Ethereum, right?

they are all decentralized on ethereum :)

Though there are some projects that are working on bringing cross-chain portability to NFTs. I don't know how those work though.