So what happens if someone just copies the JPG and puts on their web host? Isn't that essentially what OpenSea is...a hosted service for the JPG.
So while it's true that OS hosts the JPEG of your NFT, for example (it actually caches it), the point is about proving ownership of a specific token identifier, not just a pretty picture.
How do I prove that I own the JPG?
Legitimacy is basically a coordination game, where you get the best payoff by making the same choice as everyone else. To really dig into this, read this piece by Vitalik:
This is exactly the crux. How do I prove who is the original creator? Vitalik's concept of legitimacy is based on EVERYONE participating. Which is simply not the case right now. To use his example:
> Elon selling Elon's tweet is the real thing, and Jeff doing the same is not. Once again, millions of dollars of value are being controlled and allocated, not by individuals or cryptographic keys, but by social conceptions of legitimacy.
> But they could also be a missed opportunity: there is little social value in helping Elon Musk earn yet another $1 million by selling his tweet when, as far as we can tell, the money is just going to himself (and, to his credit, he eventually decided not to sell). If NFTs simply become a casino that largely benefits already-wealthy celebrities, that would be a far less interesting outcome.
Of course. But what if all of the edgelords that love Elon (and happen to also have much of the control of share of wallets for ETH) decide he should make the $1M? Vitalik's view would be "well that's what the public decided". However it assumes that EVERYONE is an active participant with full knowledge of the situation.
And finally he admits himself:
> There are definitely more ideas, but this is an area that certainly deserves more active coordination and thought.
> But this goes far beyond just Ethereum itself. NFTs are one example of a large pool of capital that depends on concepts of legitimacy. The NFT industry could be a significant boon to artists, charities and other public goods providers far beyond our own virtual corner of the world, but this outcome is not predetermined; it depends on active coordination and support.
He's actually just regurgitating the ideas of a direct democracy vs a representative democracy. If the public is not fully engaged and fully informed, then this whole theory essentially breaks down.
Consensus. We all agree that 0x123457890 is the "Bored Ape" contract, so everything spawned from it is a "real" Bored Ape. It's kind of how we all agree who the real "Picasso" is. This isn't really controversial or hard to grasp, and imo Vitalik's article just muddies the waters.
It is. Who precisely is "We"? I personally never said 0x123457890 was the OG Bored Ape. What if I band together millions of people and determine that 99x12345678 which I own is actually the OG Bored Ape. How can you stop me? Isn't that what OpenSea is effectively doing...providing a centralized trust system to say "well of course everyone knows OpenSea is the source of truth because everyone knows it and the consensus is on the blockchain"
I mean, that's exactly how decentralization works. I can't stop you by design. Simply put (and for better or worse), it's tyranny of the masses. If you can do that (get everyone to treat another contract as the real Bored Ape contract), then you've effectively "forked" -- this has happened a couple of times in BTC and ETH.
That's the entire point of a blockchain. It's valuable because other people agree that it is. Of course, the actual JPEG can be copied, but that doesn't mean your blockchain ownership of it does. You are kind of shouting dibs, but the difference is that a lot of people care. And as long as someone cares enough to pay you money for your dibs, then it has value.
The question then is whose problem is that?
“What happens” to who?
There are about 6 or 7 distinct parties in the NFT market, so which person are you thinking about? Who would care and why? What does the rehoster get out of it?
That’s a good start
Now let's say instead of Reddit he posted it on OpenSea. The person that owns it OpenSea then lists the image on Redbubble for financial gain. Who then owns it? Clearly the person who owns it on OpenSea? How do we know the person that posted it on Redbubble isn't the true owner and bblaineC isn't the scammer?
The NFT version of this scenario simply makes prior possession, price history of the prior possession, and royalties to the NFT creator, apparent and makes all of that persevere even after the unauthorized listing on the next site is "taken down" or removes it from their GUI due to reports (there is a scenario where the NFT is the plagiarized one, or a second NFT is created that is the plagiarized one. as opposed to just a raster image uploaded onto a pay-for-photos website). The NFT (both the first and second NFT) would still be tradable as there is no way to actually remove it (some implementations can modify the image shown by the NFT, the NFT itself will still exist because the NFT is just a wrapper, more akin to a picture frame). People like that. In the art world, prior possession required lawyers and courts to only partially ascertain and recreate consensus on, price history was also impossible to get with a whole crop of appraisers and insurers involved to recreate consensus on guesswork, and royalties are practically nonexistent except to the most luckiest and privileged content creators who still have to hope they don't need to bring a legal team to ensure payment. NFT's automate all of those things, and that's a massive tweak to a large market that I can see has been a very misunderstand large market. NFT's won't solve a copyright and license dispute.
In the scenario where both uploads are NFTs, you could check with the artist. Again because its up to the consumer or collector to figure out if the thing they want to buy/consume is authentic and NFT's aren't there to solve that.
NFT's help after consensus on provenance has been reached once. It helps that consensus persevere. Something the art world has lacked for several millennium.
You just stumbled on the problem. NFTs are inherently confusing.
> you could check with the artist.
Ugh. How do I check with the artist when I don't know who the artist is?! That was precisely my point...in that reddit scenario I can only build consensus about ownership if I have ALL OF THE FACTS. But I don't.
> FT's automate all of those things, and that's a massive tweak to a large market that I can see has been a very misunderstand large market. NFT's won't solve a copyright and license dispute.
> NFT's help after consensus on provenance has been reached once. It helps that consensus persevere. Something the art world has lacked for several millennium.
Ok, so NFTs help with lineage and ownership of value but does nothing to determine who actually originated the art? In other words, NFTs don't care about origination, as long as there is a traceable consensus of monetary value and ownership, regardless of whether that ownership was derived unintentionally.
> Something the art world has lacked for several millennium.
So you solve one half of the equation (lineage and transfer of ownership) but not the other (origination ownership)? Why on earth would an artist want to pursue that model if both aren't true?
If you have interacted in the NFT space, you'll see that consensus on who the artist is forms from the community. Many projects are posted in areas with the artist information there. These are GUI additions that the marketplaces and websites post. Linked Twitter accounts you name it. The NFT itself can also have metadata about the artist, and the image itself can also have metadata or EXIF data about the artist. The address on the blockchain which created the NFT code can also be linked to a particular person by that own person's admission at some point in the past or simultaneously. So all is possible, a centralized component, or a decentralized component but none of the semantics matter: it is possible to determine, unless it isn't, and if it isn't, maybe don't trade that piece of work? Really fascinating to me that this obligation has been shoved onto the technology instead of personal responsibility, I'm more so curious where other people talk about NFTs this way because I don't know where the confusion is coming from.
> So you solve one half of the equation (lineage and transfer of ownership) but not the other (origination ownership)?
The NFT standard does not prescribe these things, but for you it is possible to get these things, or to just simply ignore the ones that don't give you the assurances you hope for. It's a consumer issue, you have the choice of buying things that fit your criteria. Not an artist issue, not an NFT concept issue.
> Why on earth would an artist want to pursue that model if both aren't true?
Because the first half of the equation is light years ahead of the alternative already. The most attractive thing to artists is the royalties concept. This is also attractive to the communities of art purchasers, who want to support living artists but found it extremely hard to determine value and community beforehand or in the other art markets. Outside of NFTs, artists have to be celebrities or have hundreds of years of provenance to have a collective conscious on their value. It is extremely limiting and hard to maintain. Now it is very easy, so overnight things have changed.
It is useful to know that the ratified NFT standards do not have a way to send royalties after a trade, and the marketplaces themselves do that on the NFT's behalf (ie. when an NFT is traded within a marketplace, royalty information is read from the NFT metadata and funds are sent to the original creator. when an NFT is traded outside of a marketplace no royalties are sent. Some people are working on that.)
Also its quite simple: many artists are broke and have no other marketable skills. many other artists have developed other marketable skills but would rather be doing art, if they could exchange time for food and shelter doing it. NFTs are an opportunity for them so they'll take what it provides and let consumers inherit what it provides, and not waiting around for another millennium for origination of ownership to be solved with telepathy (but its also very easy to include who should be the creator of the art depicted and the NFT issued, so I really wonder about what you are experiencing to better understand why you think this is an issue with the NFT space or the NFT concept). Both parties need to be sure they are understanding what they are trading and what they aren't.