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Comment by hresvelgr | Hacker News Reader

I think NFTs are fine. If you don't like the culture, don't buy in. My gripe is that the majority being sold are tasteless. I don't think NFTs have a bad name because of what they are, they have a bad name because they perfectly encapsulate our materialistic culture and have the corresponding societal malaise that comes with it. So if you want to cast a stone, I would look inward first, because we all play a part in how our culture mutates.

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They're "fine" to the extent that the vacuum is fine - they are complete non-entities with zero worth beyond what grifters and idiots attribute to them.

I will cast a hail of stones on the concept of copyright gone (even more) batshit insane with absolutely no hesitation.

> I will cast a hail of stones on the concept of copyright gone (even more) batshit insane with absolutely no hesitation.

I dislike DRM as much as the next guy, but DRM had pirates, and NFTs have right-clickers. The problem with DRM, particularly on games, is that it restricted access. Most NFTs are still just images and basic media and don't have any impediments to distribution. I think someone getting sued because they used someone's NFT as a twitter DP will probably happen. What comes of that will be interesting to say the least.

edit: oxymoron correction

Do most NFTs even actually claim to represent a legally actionable copyright transfer or license, or is that all implied? I was under the impression that it was the latter.

My impression is that it's just provable ownership. Although they could probably encode copyright semantics, I suspect it's largely all implied.

The right-clickers aren't thinking ahead, or alternatively, NFT backers are thinking too far ahead. The endgame is, inside a metaverse you don't get to view the media you haven't bought a license to - Fortnite is a unique world in that they can license IP from Marvel, Star Wars, DC. The shinyness of the Ready Player One universe owes itself to that mixture of nostalgia of all different properties. I don't know that an open-source / pirate-friendly platform will be allowed to exist.

The NFT backers are placing their bets that intellectual property will be more rigidly enforced in the future. Basically conferring "First-sale Doctrine" to digital assets. The right-clickers think nothing will change and that platforms without "Right click -> Save As" will fail to catch on.

Maybe NFTs have a future, but as Richard says in Silicon Valley S03E09, "being too early is the same as being wrong"

Do any NFTs right now give you ownership over the pic or what have you? I haven’t seen any that have. I also haven’t looked too deeply.

That's exactly why I'm throwing the stones. Most corporations are still merely observing NFT's from a distance but if it gets any traction and more companies start embracing it, the next step will be to legislate this fantasy into legal reality.

It's everything wrong with late stage capitalism consolidated into one and we all know that the people with power will salivate at the prospect of more money for less tangible value.

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