Let's talk about NFT art

Even if you don’t follow art or tech news, you’re probably at least dimly-aware of recent high-dollar sales of “NFT art”. I’m not a big follower of cryptocurrency (I have ~200 “artbytes” the people have tipped me on reddit that I have no idea what I’m supposed to do with), but I have at least enough of a working understanding that reading about it is not an entirely alien language to me.

For those in the back, NFT is a “non-fungible token”, which is a unique, encrypted data string containing a ledger of “ownership”. This ownership can come about in many ways, whether it be bough, acquired, or “mined”. For the sake of clarity, the NFT is not the art itself, but I guess the closest parallel in the analog world would be like a certificate of provenance, detailing where the work has been, who has owned it, and all the relevant dates that it changed hands or venues.

Now, while a certificate of provenance can be copied or forged, NFTs as yet are not so simple. They are a digital file, so naturally they can be copied, but the new token is just an exact replica of the previous token, outlining who actually owns it.

This can actually be useful for copyright and provenance purposes, but currently that’s not how they’re being used. Currently, the mode seems to be closer to generating tokens to attach to specific digital works to make “special” copies and then selling those copies (a mechanism similar to limited-edition prints). In this capacity, NFTs are being used as a solution to the long-running question of how one “owns” a piece of digital artwork, or how you determine a digital “original” artwork, versus a reproduction.

Another problem that has cropped up is individuals creating tokens for digital images of analog and digital works that they do not own the rights to. As usual, the courts are not even remotely prepared to deal with the legal ramifications. For the record, I have no plans to issue NFTs for any of my works, so if you encounter any of my works with tokens, rest assured that is not of my doing.

Owning an analog artwork is comparatively easy. You go out and buy a piece of artwork off a gallery or auction wall, and take it home with you. Sometimes the artist also provides supporting documentation like certificates of authenticity or provenance, but the main thing is the work itself, rather than as a secondary consideration to the certificates.

Now, I’ll admit that its entirely possible that I’m just being needlessly cynical. That happens. In their present usage, I consider them a novelty with a limited lifespan, but the discussion is open down below so anyone who wants to argue about it is welcome to do so.