NFTs ARE AWESOME!!

NFTs can solve a lot of issues.
NFTs are being used really well in games
NFTs have lots of potential for ownership items (even houses, cars etc)
NFTs sometimes have a special real world bonus feature
(music downloads, consultation time a free shirt etc)

but be careful...

NFT for ART is a gold rush right now many people are being greedy and yet stupid. So many early adopters are gonna make a bad name for the awesome thing that is NFTs and soon lots of people are gonna have reasons to be upset.

I'll explain why below...

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WHAT IS "NON-FUNGIBLE"

Basic Description: NFT is a token that represents a thing.
It basically means it's NOT fungible

What is fungible? Well currency is fungible...

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WHAT YOU SHOULD DEMAND FROM NFTs

You should demand to know what you're getting when you purchase it.

You should not buy anything that doesn't tell you want you're getting... or you're quite literally only getting a token. Are you actually getting the art? The data you are sending via a blockchain doesn't actually contain the art does it? The data you have the blockchain-keys to only has a link to the art is my guess... seems to me you don't own the art in any fashion unless they actually state that you own it.

A creator sending you a file may actually hold up for copyright law but them sending you a link but not telling you that you have the right to use it would not hold up at all.

Even if you were given a link or sent an image by law it doesn't mean you actually own any right unless the creator says you do.

COPYRIGHTS

Aka The right to make a duplication of a piece of art

• Printed or Reproduced Digitally (yes that means placing it anywhere online)

While i myself have traditionally been pretty lax on personal use of my artwork and lots of people don't seem to care I have been 13 years in photography industry and have seen a lot.

• There is a large body of law around copyrights whether you care or not they still exist
• But in practice every artist seems to have their own policies regarding how they allow or want their work to be used (when I say "use" it literally means "copy" because that's what using is.)
• "Print rights" tend to be the word people use for the physical form of copyrights.

WHAT KINDS OF RIGHTS

Let's break it down shall we... hopefully in easier to understand terms

• The right to use the art personally
  This means putting it on a post (this includes FB, Instagram, Blogs and PeakD.com) using it for a profile or cover photo, using it on an electronic display/frame.

• The right to use the art commercially
  Meaning used in connection of a commercial venture.
  There is some grey area with how direct of impact it has on making money... does a post from a business count ... well seems to be how directly it impacts their bottom line. A business simply resharing your picture on FB has rarely ever been prosocuted for commercial rights.

• The right to make money off of the art
  This one is rarely given to people but maybe it's something people are willing to consider in the world of NFTs.

• The right to alter the image
  This includes even cropping the image but what most people are concerned about isn't cropping but changing the look and feel... more drastic forms of editing.

• The right to give the rights to the image to someone else
  I suppose then you'd have to specify which rights they can transfer to another person. And if this is the case you should know if the creator is also keeping this right after it's given to you. (This is more common than you think in many paid projects. Example: Taylor Swift's paid photographer perhaps never has the right to sell to a 3rd party.)

Other things to think of?

• Does the person have right to a certain size file? I guess if they give access to a certain size file then it can be inferred if not then that 200x200 pixel thumbnail is perhaps all you have a copyright to.

WHY DO WE HAVE THESE PROBLEMS RIGHT NOW?

1. Because there are a lot of new artists trying their hand at the gold rush that don't even know much about Copyrights they're just going with the flow.
2. Because most NFT sites don't support a simple organized system for denoting rights when it applies to ART.
3. Because there are a lot of lazy and dangerous assumptions being made... meaning people say "It's just assumed that the person has the right to personally use the image"
4. And one of the biggest reasons... Because people don't care if they own anything when they bought the NFT they only cared about SPECULATION ... meaning they bought something because they thought they'd be able to sell it later for more to another person who doesn't care about actually owning any right to the art. (And presently they are often right in this assumption... until they're not)
5. Maybe some rich people are buying NFTs as a way to donate to an artist? I guess we should have one positive guess about this.
6. What would be sad is if buyers didn't even care if they had a copyright because they're so desensitized that they were gonna do whatever they wanted with someone's artwork anyway regardless of getting the NFT.

Why aren't sites helping users and artists with this info?
Perhaps because they're crypto/blockchain nerds who don't know a ton about art? Maybe they started as a place for game based tokens... that was the focus of opensea.io for a long time. And maybe there are so many cryptos already created they're worried about fixing their mistakes from the last few years. Or because they realize that most buyers are only speculating anyway and don't really care about any rights to the art.

BE CAREFUL!!

We could say don't use those sites that don't display what you're actually getting with a NFT, be careful of artists that also don't denote it. But these sites happen to have the most crypto-millionaires buying up stuff... so it's a tough spot to be in.

But there will come a reckoning and people will start having issues and people will start asking themselves: "What did I actually get when i spent .5BTC to get this NFT"

And what happens if they can't sell it for at least .5BTC will they be able to say.. "Well at least I have this art" ... Well do they? Do they actually have the art?

I HOPE PEOPLE STOP USING ETH FOR NFT
I hope NFT buyers switch to NFT platforms on blockchains with lower fees like wax or better yet HVIE(via hive-engine). There are already a couple but they don't do a good job with rights either

https://nftshowroom.com / (they don't talk about rights sadly)
https://lensy.io/ (They give a vague system of rights... better than nothing)
https://wax.atomichub.io/ (I have seen some people indicate rights so this platform seems to do a passable job)