Right Click & Save - Are NFTs Still Valuable?
People have been asking me two questions about NFTs recently:
1) "If you can right click to save an NFT, what's the point of creating it in the first place?"
2) "Why are some NFTs are so expensive? I don't understand why the gorilla/monkey images are selling for so much money."
Apparently, it's not good to be a "Right Click Save As-er". That's an insult in the crypto/NFT world. The term doesn't necessarily imply that you're committing the act of infringing on someone's NFT intellectual property, it means that you don't know the difference between an NFT and an image saved on your personal computer. You are an uneducated NFT novice. Don't feel bad, I only learned this recently myself, and I'm here to help. The other day Twitter made headlines launching a new feature allowing users to upload an NFT as their profile image. Some users have figured out how to scam the new NFT profile image feature by copying an image, then minting their own NFT of the same image. I actually tested out the right click and save function when I made my first NFT on OpenSea, and I was pissed off that you could actually do that.
Here's the thing: When you add a non-fungible token to a piece of content, artwork, song, whatever it may be, you're adding the most secure form of authentication technology available today. When a computer forensics team is investigating a crime and they take a computer into evidence, they add what's called a "hash" to the hard drive. It's a unique, one-of-a-kind digital signature. If anything is changed on the computer, the hash is broken, and investigators know that the computer has been compromised and that evidence is inadmissible. Crypto currencies and NFTs are built on the same technology, a collection of unique "hashes" comprise a block on the block chain. It's the best technology we have for securing authentication.
The date of minting, and other metadata, is stored on the blockchain. This makes provenance much easier to establish. Provenance is an important word to learn in NFTs.
Definition of provenance
1: ORIGIN, SOURCE
2: the history of ownership of a valued object or work of art or literature
领英推荐
Secondly, Technology is going to change and evolve to make it harder to do this. Just as new file types, like PDFs, were created specifically for the internet, or HTML5 was developed for mobile, we'll have new file types and platform technology specifically for Web3 DApps. I have a friend who approached me about a new type of file permissioning system that addresses the right click problem. Maybe something will come of that. I've also connected with @ZachCohen the CEO of Filebase, an innovative Web3 file storage system that allows you to store files on the blockchain. Decentralized applications (DApps) are going to allow people to interact with each other in new ways and change the way business is done on the internet. Especially where big tech firms have abused our personal information, allowed AI to unduly influence public opinion, exasperated and polarized political discussions (looking at you Facebook) we're going to evolve away from those centralized entities with better and more decentralized technology.
If you have 1 million people, or even 100 million people copying your NFT, that's great for you. You have a record of your work being the original NFT, if not the original artwork. Copyright and trademark laws are still applicable to content on the blockchain. I'm not an IP lawyer, or any other type of lawyer for that matter, but my understanding is that trademark infringement is punishable by up to $10K per incident, so if one person copies your art, and it is viewed on a website in 100 different locations, that's not $10K times 1, that's a maximum fine of $10K * 100 = $1,000,000. By the way, when you save an image on your computer, you can go into the metadata and add a copywrite symbol ? for extra protection. If you're worried about someone stealing your digital art, that link is a good recourse. Again, I'm not a lawyer, so DYOR.
Why are some NFTs so expensive?
With any form of artwork beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and that's true with NFTs too, but that's not what you should be focused on in terms of why NFTs are so pivotal to the evolution of internet technology. You may look at the Cryptopunks NFT collection and think, they don't look very advanced, they're pixilated, maybe they're just not what you'd expect from an innovative art collection where pieces sell in the millions... You can read the backstory here, but basically it was the first big collection of avatar NFTs. In the true culture of decentralization, they were given out to the public for free. You just had to own an Etherium compatible wallet. Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) was another very early NFT collection. The idea may have come from the term "Aping", buying into something without really knowing what you're doing, more NFT slang here. Each Ape has qualities with varying degrees of rarity, like type of fur, or jewelry, accessories, etc... but purchasing a BAYC NFT comes with a membership to the club which has meetup events. If you have $200K+ to spend, you can potentially hang out with Eminem or Steph Curry.
I'm not going to comment on what I think those NFTs should be priced, again beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but what you should understand about NFTs is that they will change the way content creators interact with their audiences. I like to think of NFTs as an IOT smart lock that you would put on the door of your house/condo for your AirBnb, like August Lock or Nest Locks. If someone rents your place for 24 hours, you give them access for 24 hours. If you want to give your mom indefinite access in case she has to stop by, you can do that. With an NFT you can theoretically control licensing and distribution in any way you can creatively think to drawing up a contract. The NFT platforms will become much much easier to control how you deploy the lock and key licensing and use of your NFTs.
In today's world of social media, content creators blast out content with regularity to a wide audience. Yes, they can block users, but for the most part, it's an uncontrolled fire hydrant of constantly streaming content, and once the image, video, song, dance, etc. is out there, it's generally considered on the internet forever. It's 2 dimensional. We still have a legal system to address infringement, but NFTs take us so much farther in the effort to protect content and establish provenance. What's equally important is that we have the smart lock access control technology to change the way content is distributed. In other words, we're building infrastructure to collect content revenue streams in more mature ways. Creators won't have to be subservient to advertising revenue models dictated by centralized social media platforms. That difference will change society.
#crypto #nft