NFT and art theft

[paxmao]

I'm so curious what will happen if somebody mints two identical NFT on different chains and two different poeple buy it, so they've bought the rights for, what?

You supposedly trust the author/artist that they won't reproduce their work. Don't you do the same thing in real life? It's just that in real life they're much more discouraged to make many copies.  

This has been answered: https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/111054

I have an other question:  What happens if in the far future, tangible items are sold as NFTs, but the owner decides to burn them? The market has to imply with the government's laws, 'cause I don't see the opposite happening; you can't just sell a house unofficially. Even if you do, what happens if the owner of the house loses the private key?

You do not really trust them exactly... I mean yeah they can sell you "one of a kind" thing but then create 10k more of the same thing a day later, but you are holding the "original" in that case. If it is just one thing that they minted, and then they go ahead and water it down by minting more, you are not really earning anything else here because technically the imagine is the same image but at the same time the NFT is a different one so you are not getting screwed here. Of course, it is distasteful and of course you need to have some smart people to see the difference but you still hold a rare one in that case anyway.

We had cryptokitties the same way, it was said to be rare and only a few gen 0 will be available so everyone attacked and bought for high prices years ago, now we all know how many new  stuff they keep on printing and devaluing it. So, it is not that easy for sure.

That is not really exclusive of the NFTs, although you can actually insert a contract limiting the amount of digital goods that can be inserted, so that would be advantageous for the investors. It also happens with card games such as Magic the Gathering. You have black moxes, double lands and the like selling for a fortune that only depends on the will of the Intellectual Property owner of not producing more at any time. How can you be sure that they would not eventually create, even if by mistake a card that is just too good and eats up the value of others?

[1714255337]

1714255337

[1714255337]

1714255337

[1714255337]

1714255337

[1714255337]

1714255337

[1714255337]

1714255337

[stompix]

I'm so curious what will happen if somebody mints two identical NFT on different chains and two different poeple buy it, so they've bought the rights for, what?

You supposedly trust the author/artist that they won't reproduce their work. Don't you do the same thing in real life? It's just that in real life they're much more discouraged to make many copies.  

So, NFT won't solve the problem you have right now of somebody selling his pictures on multiple image stock sites, or dealing behind your back with 100 other customers. So, what exactly do they solve? 

I have an other question:  What happens if in the far future, tangible items are sold as NFTs, but the owner decides to burn them? The market has to imply with the government's laws, 'cause I don't see the opposite happening; you can't just sell a house unofficially. Even if you do, what happens if the owner of the house loses the private key?

After scratching my head for a while I will just say that this just won't happen, if the property would be treated like tokens the ownership would still be recorded by the government as everything does now, so destroying your token won't matter unless you renounce it on an official chain and basically donate it to the state. As for the last part, that's why I've been telling people that you will not have decentralized blockchains and tokens for everything in this world and they will never replace some things, it's just impossible.

We had cryptokitties the same way, it was said to be rare and only a few gen 0 will be available so everyone attacked and bought for high prices years ago, now we all know how many new  stuff they keep on printing and devaluing it. So, it is not that easy for sure.

All those so-called NTF games where the only thing you do is breed JPGs will turn into Ponzi schemes as you breed more JPGs and those will only be valuable if somebody ads more money to the scheme.
It's one of the basic laws of the economy, imagine you produce 1000 tons of fruit instead of 100 tons if nobody wants to buy the extra 900 what will happen to the price?  Now, if the demand was 2000 tons you will make x10 the profit, but once you go over that again some of them won't sell. And since some would be desperate to recoup the money "invested" they will sell the resort to dumping, making the prices go down and collapsing the scheme.
There is only one outcome to this, and it will happen sooner or later.

[The Sceptical Chymist]

NFT technology is legitimately useless, all it does is creating a unique token on blockchain that has zero meaningful connection with the thing it's supposed to represent.

I couldn't care less about the centralized/decentralized aspect of NFTs, because I think that's a trivial matter in their case.  The most important point about NFTs is exactly what you described--they're worthless, just as all digital art will be judged to be if it can be reproduced by anyone such that the only thing distinguishing the NFT and the copy is the fact that the NFT is on a blockchain.

I also have to say, when a new concept like NFTs comes out and the entire space turns into a scammer's paradise, that's not a good sign.  Those hucksters on Youtube who are hyping these things like crazy are probably being paid to do it, because I don't see how anyone in their right mind would think there's anything worthwhile about owning some ugly pixelated mess for the long term.  The NFT market has turned into a perfect example of the greater fool theory in action, on the internet, for everyone to witness.

Mark my words, it'll last a year and then interest will die off instantly.  Just like ICOs and just like DeFi.

[BlackHatCoiner]

You do not really trust them exactly... I mean yeah they can sell you "one of a kind" thing but then create 10k more of the same thing a day later, but you are holding the "original" in that case.

If they sell it in x chains, they can sell the original x times. What you describe is what they're capable of doing in one chain.

So, NFT won't solve the problem you have right now of somebody selling his pictures on multiple image stock sites, or dealing behind your back with 100 other customers. So, what exactly do they solve?

From a googling:

NFTs are helping artists solve a vital problem: who owns digital artwork?
Digital art can be easily and endlessly duplicated, but non-fungible tokens allow buyers to confirm ownership

So yeah, we probably just found a flaw in their vision.

All those so-called NTF games where the only thing you do is breed JPGs will turn into Ponzi schemes

It doesn't look like a ponzi scheme to me, but rather a greater fool example, as said by the Pharmacist. There are no profits guaranteed from previous “investors”.

[cheezcarls]

Today I found an interesting post on /r/Cryptocurrency about an artist who had to shut down his online gallery, because people keep stealing his works and turning them into NFTs - here's the original post.

NFT technology is legitimately useless, all it does is creating a unique token on blockchain that has zero meaningful connection with the thing it's supposed to represent. When you NFT is an url that points to a centralized site, it's really no different than buying a star or moon land from some scam company.

The artist said that NFT hosting sites refused to cooperate and remove the stolen art, but even if they were doing their job, it would still mean that the whole system is centralized and pointless. Deluded NFT fans like to say that NFT gives people the ability to "truly" own something, but in reality NFT owners own absolutely nothing and are at mercy of NFT hosting sites.

NFTs were said to help support the artists, but here we see how they did the opposite and forced an artist to close their gallery and reducing their chances of selling their art or getting commissions. The artists who are profiting from NFTs the most are the big names like Grimes who are already rich.

Honestly I didn’t like the comments of others like “NFTs need to stop” or “NFTs are a bunch load of crap” despite that we all have our own opinions regarding this incident. However in NFTs, I am not a fan when it comes to just simply arts. Either I would collect NFTs that are collectibles with issue numbers, play to earn NFTs, virtual land ownership, etc.

I think for the arts side, even if they put a little watermark claiming that it’s theirs, it’s not enough. Just my opinion.

[kaya11]

What's the point of having an NFT art when it is available for other to steal.it, download and make a copy of it. I thought it was to protect the artist from others to steal their work. How come the people who should be be trusted are the people doing the wrong here. There should be laws to protect them from company's who take advantage and at least give them the freedom to choose of what to do with their work.

[Pahom]

The thing is that it is not very easy to sell your arts, so I wonder how those people managed to sell stealing art-works. Actually, there must be an interesting story behind this NFT, a famous author etc, so I don't really think that people who steal these pictures, earn anything.
I don't see any value in NFTs as art, but I do believe that they will be widely used in the future as proof of entitlement.

[BlackHatCoiner]

What's the point of having an NFT art when it is available for other to steal.it, download and make a copy of it.

It's because you have the rights to that piece of art, not only the piece of art itself. No one can prove they own it in the same chain unless the one who truly owns it.

I thought it was to protect the artist from others to steal their work.

Nope. Their point of existence is to reveal who owns (the rights of) the artwork. If the artists start selling their work on marketplaces, they're forced to reveal the jpg.

[hatshepsut93]

I also have to say, when a new concept like NFTs comes out and the entire space turns into a scammer's paradise, that's not a good sign.

When a technology is used for nothing more than investment scams, it just means that the technology itself is useless. Crypto in general is scammers paradise, because it can be hard to trace, it's impossible to fully regulate or stop. The only thing that can be done is governments telling exchanges to delist shitcoins and tokens, basically regulating them like the stock market, though scammers will just keep using various smart contract blockchains to sell their tokens.

It all won't stop with NFT, in a year or two there will be a new hyped trend with tokens/blockchain/smart contracts, and a lot of people will lose their money in the end.

[magneto]

Today I found an interesting post on /r/Cryptocurrency about an artist who had to shut down his online gallery, because people keep stealing his works and turning them into NFTs - here's the original post.

NFT technology is legitimately useless, all it does is creating a unique token on blockchain that has zero meaningful connection with the thing it's supposed to represent. When you NFT is an url that points to a centralized site, it's really no different than buying a star or moon land from some scam company.

The artist said that NFT hosting sites refused to cooperate and remove the stolen art, but even if they were doing their job, it would still mean that the whole system is centralized and pointless. Deluded NFT fans like to say that NFT gives people the ability to "truly" own something, but in reality NFT owners own absolutely nothing and are at mercy of NFT hosting sites.

NFTs were said to help support the artists, but here we see how they did the opposite and forced an artist to close their gallery and reducing their chances of selling their art or getting commissions. The artists who are profiting from NFTs the most are the big names like Grimes who are already rich.

100% agreed.

I wouldn't call NFTs useless, although I do think that in its current form, it is no better than a speculative token.

I think that people hype the term up too much as well. The technology honestly isn't even that groundbreaking - everyone knows that having your own token on ETH was always possible, it's just that now there is an image attached to it.

[pinggoki]

~

Personally, till date, I'm not convinced about the ides if digital, I may lack the total knowledge but I feel NFTs is not necessary elemental in this space to grow.

That's on you but I think that if NFT people found another utility besides the community, I think that we would probably see something bigger plus the advent of virtual space for profit is starting to get more traction as time goes by and I am pretty sure that we are going to see more of them hoping to be the next big thing.

[adzino]

Today I found an interesting post on /r/Cryptocurrency about an artist who had to shut down his online gallery, because people keep stealing his works and turning them into NFTs - here's the original post.

NFT technology is legitimately useless, all it does is creating a unique token on blockchain that has zero meaningful connection with the thing it's supposed to represent. When you NFT is an url that points to a centralized site, it's really no different than buying a star or moon land from some scam company.

The artist said that NFT hosting sites refused to cooperate and remove the stolen art, but even if they were doing their job, it would still mean that the whole system is centralized and pointless. Deluded NFT fans like to say that NFT gives people the ability to "truly" own something, but in reality NFT owners own absolutely nothing and are at mercy of NFT hosting sites.

NFTs were said to help support the artists, but here we see how they did the opposite and forced an artist to close their gallery and reducing their chances of selling their art or getting commissions. The artists who are profiting from NFTs the most are the big names like Grimes who are already rich.

I always knew something like this would happen and there is right now no way to stop people from stealing from others and making it into an NFT and claim it as their own. This is sad. But I am sure eventually there will be some sort of validation check that will somehow be able to able to find out if the NFT has been made by the original owner or not.
At least deviant art is warning their users if people are stealing their artwork and selling it as their own. I wonder how many stolen NFTs are out there in the market.

[geegaw]

The thing is that it is not very easy to sell your arts, so I wonder how those people managed to sell stealing art-works. Actually, there must be an interesting story behind this NFT, a famous author etc, so I don't really think that people who steal these pictures, earn anything.
I don't see any value in NFTs as art, but I do believe that they will be widely used in the future as proof of entitlement.

The theft is also just a copy and for true collectors, a copy will have absolutely no artistic or collectible value and collectors would certainly prefer to relate more to the original version, a work that comes from the author's own hands, not the hands of a thief, I don't understand why there are artists who are not confident in the original version and worry that what they create will be copied on the NFT space. NFT is just a name created to enhance value and make money, compare to actual art paintings, it's two false stories, buyers on NFT are just investors while buyers on art value are collectors, need to distinguish

[Cling18]

It's definitely unfair for the owner of the art because to be honest, creating different arts for isn't that easy. I guess it would be better if NFT developers would buy it straight to the owner to make things fair. The art might only be a small part of the whole NFT but it's a big deal for the artists because they worked hard for it. I hope people who steal artworks would get punished.

[Obito]

if specifically talking about NFT which is art as a collection I might agree with this. but actually NFT much bigger than that and not just art, like metaverse . game finance and play2earn games . I prefer NFT like this . which is really useful. I'm also quite surprised that there are NFT art that sells for very high prices only for collectibles.

Why be surprised, cryptocurrencies existed and we don't have any qualms with it. I think that as long as one has money and someone can convince enough people that this digital piece could be worth as much as their asking price then probably someone out there's definitely going to pay for it. NFT is just Fine Arts in Digital form.

[jrrsparkles]

Just a blind market where we are buying something that we don't know who is actual creator of the art, on most cases the seller could be the owner but owning an NFT doesn't mean we own the art as well so its just a market here for now reason and hyped by some people with random arts and spend millions on it just to boom it in the beginning nkw everyone says buy an NFT then you eill become rich.

[timerland]

Today I found an interesting post on /r/Cryptocurrency about an artist who had to shut down his online gallery, because people keep stealing his works and turning them into NFTs - here's the original post.

NFT technology is legitimately useless, all it does is creating a unique token on blockchain that has zero meaningful connection with the thing it's supposed to represent. When you NFT is an url that points to a centralized site, it's really no different than buying a star or moon land from some scam company.

The artist said that NFT hosting sites refused to cooperate and remove the stolen art, but even if they were doing their job, it would still mean that the whole system is centralized and pointless. Deluded NFT fans like to say that NFT gives people the ability to "truly" own something, but in reality NFT owners own absolutely nothing and are at mercy of NFT hosting sites.

NFTs were said to help support the artists, but here we see how they did the opposite and forced an artist to close their gallery and reducing their chances of selling their art or getting commissions. The artists who are profiting from NFTs the most are the big names like Grimes who are already rich.

NFT technology has been so overhyped over recent months, but I think that people are starting to realize that.

It is nothing but a gimmick that is designed to enrich the founders of each project.

They claim that it represents ownership of assets, which is true, but what good is that when the asset itself can be infinitely created out of thin air?

[Farma]

Well, this is a pretty sad fact. We think that NFT can help the artists out there, but irresponsible people sometimes take advantage of this flaw to their advantage. however, this is a fairly serious problem in the art world. although we may think that the world of NFT is wide, but this cannot be underestimated. well, maybe it's still in development stage, so I hope that this has a solution soon.
I know that currently NFT has many benefits, but we know that NFT is also included in the art world. if this is the case, it is possible that in the future, quite a number of people will take other people's art and claim it as their own. just imagining this is pretty sad. well, but I hope, the solution of this can also be solved, even though it's actually difficult in the art world. if it's the NFT that has the functionality, it looks like it's still fine at the moment.

[RealMalatesta]

NFTs were said to help support the artists, but here we see how they did the opposite and forced an artist to close their gallery and reducing their chances of selling their art or getting commissions. The artists who are profiting from NFTs the most are the big names like Grimes who are already rich.

This has been a type of situation where people keep talking about for a while now. I am not saying that it is not happening, but when there are so many wrong things going on with the crypto NFT world, this could be the least of the worries. Let's be honest, if an NFT doesn't have a purpose, it is usually manipulated and as long as that stands true, we are going to have useless NFT's going for insane amount of money.

Even artists are on it right now, whales find artists who are not know too much but have good work, pay them a fee, then artist creates NFT out of his art, then whale buys a few for millions of dollars, artist give it back, then suddenly artist is one that sold his stuff for millions of dollars. All those people stuff are very wrong and fake, people should not invest accordingly. I get the Axie stuff because you use it, but others are just useless. So, stolen or not, they are all worthless unless I can use it somewhere.

[teosanru]

Today I found an interesting post on /r/Cryptocurrency about an artist who had to shut down his online gallery, because people keep stealing his works and turning them into NFTs - here's the original post.

NFT technology is legitimately useless, all it does is creating a unique token on blockchain that has zero meaningful connection with the thing it's supposed to represent. When you NFT is an url that points to a centralized site, it's really no different than buying a star or moon land from some scam company.

The artist said that NFT hosting sites refused to cooperate and remove the stolen art, but even if they were doing their job, it would still mean that the whole system is centralized and pointless. Deluded NFT fans like to say that NFT gives people the ability to "truly" own something, but in reality NFT owners own absolutely nothing and are at mercy of NFT hosting sites.

NFTs were said to help support the artists, but here we see how they did the opposite and forced an artist to close their gallery and reducing their chances of selling their art or getting commissions. The artists who are profiting from NFTs the most are the big names like Grimes who are already rich.

Obviously NFT technology is very very useful, it basically is the first use case of blockchain which has spread so widely into the real world economics and almost every one thinks it's very useful. Not only in terms of metaverse, in general also NFTs are going to be too popular due to their quality of storing digital art in a very secured form. Gaming, music, video industries are going to run on NFT only in the future.