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Cryptography experts trash NFTs on first day of RSA Conference

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Re: Cryptography experts trash NFTs on first day of RSA Conference

#71

Post by SyzygistSix »

zcw100 wrote: post #12
djoldman wrote: post #3

> Certainly it's not harmful — some people collect coins, some people collect stamps, some people collect NFTs. If they want to pay money for this, it's fine with me. Exactly. If someone makes some purposeless set of objects and others buy and sell them and money is lost and gained by informed adults in the process then.. nothing? If one thinks that NFTs are inherently a BAD THING then it may be more accurate to say…

Because NFT's have nothing to do with collecting digital trinkets and everything to do with money laundering. The only thing that is remarkable about NFT's is how absolutely brazen they're being about it. The only positive is that hopefully it will keep them from screwing around with the housing market that has real life consequences for people although now we're just throwing away electricity rather than empty house…

If wealthy people are going to use artwork to launder money, I'm happy with the original artist getting a cut. This already supposedly happens in meatspace, just with the artist making nothing after the original sale and missing out on most of the eventual value.

Re: Cryptography experts trash NFTs on first day of RSA Conference

#72

Post by toss1 »

ww520 wrote: post #44
supernova87a wrote: post #28

I don't mean to distract from the main conversation, but I want to talk about how insidiously evil it is that NFTs can be coded to send the original creator a percentage $ cut off of every subsequent transaction for all time. If that's not hard coding wealth inequality and a new class of asset owners, I don't know what is. This is disturbing, along with the whole thing itself anyway. Imagine if cryptocurrency started…

Isn't that what copyright is about?

Not quite. Copyright prevents Bob from misappropriating Alice's work. E.g., Bob purchases a painting from Alice for $100. Bob can not legally now use that painting as a source to make and resell copies.

But Bob can sell the original painting to Charlie for $200 and pocket the entire $200 from Charlie. Alice has nothing to do with that sale, and does not profit from any subsequent sale.

But if Alice sold Bob and NFT instead, when Bob sold it to Charlie, perhaps $180 of Charlie's money would go to Bob and $20 would also go to Alice.

And this would hold true for every future sale, so when Alice died and became a famous dead artist and her works sell for $200K, her estate gets $20K, etc.

To me, this is the sole redeeming value of NFTs, but only if artists can actually keep those rights and revenue streams. The usual path of such things is that middlemen insert themselves to engage in their usual rent-seeking behaviors.

Re: Cryptography experts trash NFTs on first day of RSA Conference

#73

Post by mattbeckman »

billytetrud wrote: post #45
dschnurr wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The people receiving royalties are the artists in these cases – instead of the record companies, instagrams, and etsys of the world. I fail to see how this won't be a net positive for wealth equality when we're shifting the advantage to those who have historically been taken advantage of.

There's a difference between making royalties for distribution of copies of an item and making royalties for transferring a single item from one person to another. One makes sense, the other is a weird misleading way to rent to people.

Transfers are not necessarily sales.

Transaction fees for the Topps MLB cards on WAX, for example, are only taken during the sale when the sale occurs on a secondary Atomic Asset marketplace. There are no royalties to trade or transfer between accounts.

Re: Cryptography experts trash NFTs on first day of RSA Conference

#74

Post by echelon »

berberous wrote: post #65
echelon wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The value of a Beeple NFT minted by Beeple is $0. The market just hasn't discovered that yet. An NFT has no more value than a JPG. I'll longbets anyone that says otherwise.

I would take a broader bet that is not tied to Beeple (i.e. that NFTs of significant artists will have long-term value in a similar manner as a painting).

I would take that broader bet that NFTs will have zero long-term value.

Re: Cryptography experts trash NFTs on first day of RSA Conference

#75

Post by solomonb »

chrischattin wrote: post #33
supernova87a wrote: post #28

I don't mean to distract from the main conversation, but I want to talk about how insidiously evil it is that NFTs can be coded to send the original creator a percentage $ cut off of every subsequent transaction for all time. If that's not hard coding wealth inequality and a new class of asset owners, I don't know what is. This is disturbing, along with the whole thing itself anyway. Imagine if cryptocurrency started…

Artist sells painting for $1k. Buyer then sells painting for $1M. Next buyer sells for $10M. Original artist only made $1k on a $10M painting. Shouldn't the original artist be able to participate in the upside of their creation? I'm not seeing the "evil" here. Just a way for creators to cut out the middle men. Or, just a different way of structuring a contract. There's a lot of moralistic FUD against crypto on HN rig…

In that scenario all future paintings from that artist go up in sale price and the artist profits.

Re: Cryptography experts trash NFTs on first day of RSA Conference

#76

Post by mattdesl »

billytetrud wrote: post #45
dschnurr wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The people receiving royalties are the artists in these cases – instead of the record companies, instagrams, and etsys of the world. I fail to see how this won't be a net positive for wealth equality when we're shifting the advantage to those who have historically been taken advantage of.

There's a difference between making royalties for distribution of copies of an item and making royalties for transferring a single item from one person to another. One makes sense, the other is a weird misleading way to rent to people.

Royalties apply on re-sale, not every transfer. Royalties on sales going back to the original creator is pretty normal practice in the arts and creative industries (music, writing, art, photography).

The good thing, compared to traditional markets, is that this is something that can be (loosely) enforced with smart contracts, the % rate is flexible, and the current NFT royalties are typically far better for the artists (eg: 10% NFT platform fee instead of 50% gallery fee).

Re: Cryptography experts trash NFTs on first day of RSA Conference

#77

Post by jjulius »

dschnurr wrote: post #66
AlexandrB wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not a property of NFTs, but rather of new, unproven technologies. If NFTs "make it big", there will be plenty of middlemen that spring up to "help" artists sell NFTs while owning the IP rights and collecting royalties.

Sure there will be middlemen trying to profit due to asymmetry of information / technical knowledge. But as technology marches along the barriers to entry of launching new things trends to zero. Smart creators are increasingly harnessing new technologies to cut out existing middlemen. Podcasts are a great example of this, anyone with a microphone can start an entertainment business now and collect money from direct r…

>Podcasts are a great example of this...

And yet plenty of middlemen exist for podcasts, too - Earwolf, Stitcher, yadda yadda. Sure, barriers to entry trend toward zero, but that doesn't mean everyone's going to see what you're selling. Many people will need to partner with someone who can help get their shit in front of people who want it, and those partners are going to want a cut.

Record labels, Instagrams and Etsys will show up to the NFT party in spades.

Re: Cryptography experts trash NFTs on first day of RSA Conference

#78

Post by pmulard »

AlexandrB wrote: post #57
dschnurr wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The creator is almost always the artist. Provenance is what gives NFTs their value. The value of a Beeple NFT minted by a random user is $0.

What stops a record company from including a clause assigning any NFTs (and/or the revenue therefrom) created by the artist during the contract term to them?

Nothing. Just like nothing stopped Taylor Swift from rerecording her entire library to license her music herself. If artists sign their NFT rights away, that's on them.

Re: Cryptography experts trash NFTs on first day of RSA Conference

#79

Post by AlexandrB »

dschnurr wrote: post #66
AlexandrB wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not a property of NFTs, but rather of new, unproven technologies. If NFTs "make it big", there will be plenty of middlemen that spring up to "help" artists sell NFTs while owning the IP rights and collecting royalties.

Sure there will be middlemen trying to profit due to asymmetry of information / technical knowledge. But as technology marches along the barriers to entry of launching new things trends to zero. Smart creators are increasingly harnessing new technologies to cut out existing middlemen. Podcasts are a great example of this, anyone with a microphone can start an entertainment business now and collect money from direct r…

I think the big news in Podcasts is centralization. Many new podcasts get their money either from "networks" or by being part of one of the podcast walled gardens (e.g. Spotify). I suspect traditional podcasts will go the way of blogs soon and be largely superseded by several competing commercial platforms (think Medium). See, for example, the moves by Apple to turn their Podcasts app into a subscription platform: https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2021/04/apple-leads-the-next-...

Re: Cryptography experts trash NFTs on first day of RSA Conference

#80

Post by jjulius »

AlexandrB wrote: post #57
dschnurr wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The creator is almost always the artist. Provenance is what gives NFTs their value. The value of a Beeple NFT minted by a random user is $0.

What stops a record company from including a clause assigning any NFTs (and/or the revenue therefrom) created by the artist during the contract term to them?

Absolutely nothing.
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