NFT and the Future of Digital Content
This discussion has been closed.
Daz 3D is part of 
Connect
DAZ Productions, Inc.
7533 S Center View Ct #4664
West Jordan, UT 84084
Licensing Agreement | Terms of Service | Privacy Policy | EULA
© 2024 Daz Productions Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Comments
and Daz_Jessica has confirmed that daz won't use gallery images without written permission.
To echo a previous comment: Why on God's Green Earth did you NOT WAIT until this supposed "ecologically friendly" thing Etherium is supposedly implementing was, yanno, actually implemented?
ngl, I feel like a fool for supporting you guys for the past 11 years. This is just so, so, so disappointing and I hope any PAs with good sense will start speaking up against this scam as well.
No. Actually she didn't. She said:
"Daz values copyright law and has never sold images nor plans to sell images from the gallery without the signed agreement and purchase of that asset."
DAZ does not plan to sell images. As has been confirmed, even by your own words, the NFT being sold is not the image.
I, along with many other people here, are concerned that our images will be used to sell the NFTs. Just like what is being sold now.
Just by the words that DAZ_Jessica used I have to question their value. Can someone from DAZ say, explicitedly, that DAZ will not use customer images in the process of the sale of DAZ NFTs?
I'm sorry, but this post saying someone confirmed it somewhere does nothing to make any of us feel better about our stuff not being used to sell NFT's. This needs to be posted, in blaring caps, in the terms of service.
@Daz_Jessica: I have PM'ed you the ticket numbers.
I know - I just don't get it. It's like some of the virtual sportscards - you could just save the animated gif and save yourself the $200K. I guess this is more for people that have massive FOMO or just need to be that person who owns the only copy of something.
Here is my issue and why I am so animated about this conversation.
I've spent just shy of $50k USD at DAZ, most of that being in the past five years. I'm not expecting anything for that. I'm not expecting special treatment. I'm not expecting anyone to bow down and kiss my toes. I don't even think I am on the high side of expenditure here.
I don't recoup any of that expenditure. This is a hobby. It always has been for me. I have no expectation or plan to make money from it.
In the span of four hours DAZ has turned that hobby upside down for me. All the wind has been yanked out of my sails and my desire to do anything with this stuff is in question. All because of this poorly communicated, morally questionable new endeavour.
So yes, I am quite livid at the moment. All of these evasive answers and side stepping of questions by DAZ is making me more livid. I'd just like a clear answer as to what the plan is here. Unfortunately I don't think anyone at DAZ has a clear plan.
I look at this and go, "What does this accomplish?"
I have to go through more hoops to purchase these. I can't just use my credit card or PayPal.
The usage rights are unclear.
I don't see how it will help my artwork.
I went to one of the product pages - well, I think it was a product page - and it was just full of marketing blather. I'm not exactly new to DAZ so I shouldn't be confused navigating around the site trying to find stuff to buy.
I finally found an actual product and it's an .obj file for a dress and a video for $183. Most DAZ customers can't handle a plain, unrigged .obj, let alone one that isn't fitted to the current Genesis generation, and probably don't care about a video of the artwork. The amount of work to re-fit that dress to the Gen 8 female (let alone G8M :) ), then rig it, is probably about as much effort as just making the dress from scratch. I don't see a reason to pay $183 for all the work required to use it.
I guess the idea is supposed to be DAZ gets to dip their toes into the NFT waters and help us sell our own artwork via NFT down the road while taking a small commission. DAZ isn't an artwork market, though. It's an art supply store. If I want canvases, I go to Michael's craft store. If I want to sell my paintings, I don't go to Michael's, I go to an art gallery and make arrangements there. Doing this via NFT is like going to an art gallery that makes customers pay in gold ingots. Sure, that sounds all hip and cool and makes the news, but that trend is going to last for a short time before the hipsters are tired of it, while everyone else refuses to buy because it's inconvenient.
I'm a bit of a luddite in some ways, but I'm not seeing any real benefit from this NFT program and I see a lot of downsides. I also agree that the amount of time taken to set all this silliness up probably could have been much better spent elsewhere.
Meh.
OK I really am starting to feel for the mods today. This is all stupid as hell, but we can all still buy content from this store, make art, and perhaps send a message that we're not interested in NFTs by not buying or making them. I for one do not wish DAZ to suffer and lose money off this because I really don't like the possibility of having to consider using Dusk and Dawn in the future or pay $80 for a single low-poly Unreal Marketplace figure in order to make my art if DAZ went under.
Let's give this a couple of days before pulling our art and running off to other stores for heaven's sake.
Bah, humbug.
I was just thinking, if I get an obj that is then actually mine? Could I take that and make it into a regular Daz product and sell it here? No such intention of course, just hypothetically.
They had quite some time to rethink their approach. But NFTs are a big issue. Economically, environmentally and ethically. I have little hope in DAZ changing their mind.
Bourgie morons with lots of money who don't understand or don't want to understand how post-scarcity works are trying to impose artifical scarcity by monetizing the experience of viewing the content. If you have the NFT, then you supposedly have the "authentic" viewing experience. It's conceptually like how many people can view a Youtube video, but only one person can hustle to the comments section and scream "First!" Only instead of being the first post, the luxury comes from having the single definitive monetized experience.
And it is braindead, pants-on-head stupid.
EDIT:
This isn't an attack on Daz themselves. I get they're a business and they want to hop on the bandwagon, and they probably have contracts with the Diigitals they can't breach. But seriously. Please stop this as soon as possible.
True, and like all of you, I also hope that this NFT experiment quietly ends as soon as possible. I'm just saying it's been four hours. People need to chill.
I´m unimpressd by all of this... but I don´t see much reason to get too worked up over it, either.
(No, the enviromental aspect isn´t cute.)
I just hope this is something I can safely keep ignoring whithout it impacting me negatively in some ´round-about way.
No, because you have the object, but not the copyright on it. That remains with the creator. What you can do is reselling it, or destroying it, or printing the NFT and nail it on the privy door.
But if I'm understanding this correctly...you're not buying artwork. You're buying a link to said artwork. That's it.
I guess the analogy would be going to the art gallery and paying in those gold bars to view the artwork. You can't bring it home, though. You can only view it at the gallery.
I would be fine with this, if we could get one simple, straight answer from DAZ. All I read is squirrely half answers that contradict each other and provide loop holes.
It's those half answers that have me so incensed because they all sound like plausible deniability lawyer speak.
I don't understand, have never understood nor do I care to understand bitcoin or anything associated, including NFTs.
I don't want, never have wanted not do I ever want bitcoin or anything associated, including NFTs.
Having said that, I'll stick to the 3D models I've always gotten here and should they be put on the back burner in favor of stupid NFTs, I'll be going elsewhere or quitting the hobby entirely. So, I'll be watching for which way the wind is blowing. DS and it's historical products or NFTs and worthless endeavors. Until then, it'll be buying as usual for me. IMVHO, this is something Daz could have and SHOULD have broken off into a separate site and business endeavor. I just don't think it's gonna fly here. Give that some thought Daz.
With all due respect, absolutely nothing, to most people, if the hard drive fails or a web site goes under or like this old 2004 Racing site I developed and owned, one of many dead sites from the server sitting unplugged in the corner. But I address why in paragraph two. The beauty of NFTs is that you get to resell them which I thought was not the case of the EULA here at DAZ. But if Michael Jackson were alive during this Covid19 era, my bet is he'd be buying that can of soup, or the fart audio clips that has a $183 top bid so far, but that's for the Master collection of 52 farts (made by him and his band of fart friends), while an individual fart caught the ear of a fart connoisseur who bought one for $91.00. It benefits the seller. In December 2016 I requested a refund from DAZ for thousands of dollars. I got that refund, and today that amount represents a mere fraction of what I have invested here and I have repurchased the majority of the original assets (often at times for a higher price). One cannot refund/return NFTs, but you can resell them. NFTS are non-refundable tokens. I can appeal a transaction that occurs on my bank car card as fraudulent or excessive overcharges or under the lemon law, but I cannot do the same for a transaction that is regrettable, such as I didn't know the soap soup was stale dated, if it occurs as a NFT transaction. NFTs are a non-fungible. You cannot send someone hald half a dollar bill. It is nonredeemable. A perceivable problem, could occur, here at DAZ when purchasing an order of x number of products, with discount based on having other items in my cart. If I return one item/product from the many transacted in the invoice, DaAZ caluculates the rfund accordingly. I am assuming one would have to buy assets one by one and exchanges/refunds would be seemingly unfathomable. On these terms I cannot fathom how DAZ could operate as a NFT, but could choose to feature an NFT based product.
An NFT is simply akin to having a digital piece of paper (sans literal contract) saying you own something that is tucked away in a box in someone elses PC. To semi-work, the urls have to be non-traditional, namely IPFS. For example Grimes used a set of traditional urls, the auctioneers: Nifty Gateway (see attached screenshot) and a web host know as Cloudinary. If one of these entities ends up on archive.org the NFT is non-existent and the Wayback Machine is living proof of millions of pieces 'if digital art' we can't see, simply broken links and dead sites. IPFS is a better alternative because IPFS means it can be hosted anywhere, but it only works as long as tthe equipment stays operational. But there have been recent, known issues, with ISPF files missing, as well. The buyer is responsible to ensure the file stays hosted, and not all IPFS are always up and running. IPFS rely on a hard drive not failing. Grimes backed up her NFT on the ISPF as well. There is no literal contract with true NFTs. I have lost tons of original art from failed hard drives and I suspect I am not alone. But what saves me is I can back up the art on any amount of hard drives I want but I cannot backup a true NFT. Also we shouldn't forget Ethereum's Ether currency is often used for art NFTs, not Bitcoin, and although Bitcoin is located deep in a underground nuclear shelter digital vault in Switzerland, it has been compromised more than once. At one point when two dishonest police officers confiscated Bitcoin, believing nobody would notice, they put them back on the market, and obviously got caught. The only thing that is guaranteed from an NFT is that it cannot be changed but it does not keep a new forgery from being added. When I bought my Yorkies I got a AKC Papers. Registering them (I didn't bother) and microchip them (I did) does not mean they will never be stolen, but luckily hackers cannot steal my dogs. But if anyone finds my dogs loose, and they bring them to the shelter near their home, not mine, and I don't successfully hunt them down in X days, the shelter can legally resell them to a new owner, which like stolen NFTs and cryptocurrency, leaves typically little to no recourse. I am not for or against NTFs. But it takes cryptocurrency to make transactions happen, and I have always been a big believer in high risk high return, low risk low return. I have thrived on being a high risk individual. I consider NFTs a high risk venture as there are no real guarantees. If the real bank burns down I have limited recourse up to $250,000, if my house burns down I have insurance for over half a million, if digital IPFS fail there is no insurance against that loss. The IPFS is/was the insurance.
Screenshot from this link at theverge.com
I agree, I'd rather not see Daz go under, but I'd like them to take their fingers out of their ears and actually listen to artists for a change. The vast majority of ones I follow are firmly against NFTs for many reasons (most listed upthread) and are not inclined to support companies and/or sites that do push the concept. Myself being one of them. Unfortunately, sometimes the best way to get a company's attention is withholding sales from them.
The sad thing is that, while ArtStation did renege on their decision due to the massive social media backlash, their "apology" was "We're not sorry we did something that is bad for artists and the environment, we're sorry we got caught" and are more than likely waiting for the fire to die down before they try it again. I suspect if Daz reverses course, it'll be some hamfisted, half-hearted nonpology along those lines.
OK, so I set up an account there, to check out the "rates" you know fine print stuff to list. While you can create iit freely, put it in a collection, you need to "pay" approx $150 in "gas" fees to sell your image. Did a quick 350x350 render. Popped it up, then they wanted the initiallization fees. Seriously. this is really starting to smell like a crusty pair of rendered week straight worn underwear.
Exactly, I'm feeling super sorry for them as well. I've looked at other places to buy stuff when I was in dire need of something that Daz didn't have, and other than Kitbash 3D, I don't care for stuff on the other sites whether it be quality or prices, and I'd hate to see PA's take a huge hit to their livelihood in the long run because of some boycott nonsense due to this and we end up losing the wonderful thing that we have going on here. Do I like the NFT crazy? Absolutely not, but I looked into it a couple of weeks ago when I found about it and I don't blame Daz at all for thinking that we'd be interested in it either as I see a lot of stuff on here in the galleries and the two FB groups I'm in that are leaps and bounds better than what I've seen being sold on some of these sites as NFTs. Maybe Daz ultimately decided to get their toes wet to see if there was a way for them to bring more artists into the NFT world, who knows. Obviously that's not what people want and that's okay, people have voiced their opinion on the problems with NFTs and the points are 100% warranted. But it's ridiculous to think Daz is going to take our gallery images and sell them as an NFT without our consent and because of this unwarranted speculation we need to pull everything of ours off the site, delete all our forum posts, and question whether we can support the company or not for this. It's an unnecessary knee-jerk reaction that's causing blood pressures to rise on both sides and I think everyone needs to calm down and breathe for a second.
I've become very disappointed reading the two threads on this, why there's two I don't know. I'm going to skip the forums for the rest of today and just go back to animating a short film I started this weekend because ultimately that's why we're all here on Daz, the love of creating and sharing art, something that in theory brings us all joy.
Some nice swampland in Florida is a more valuable purchace and investment than bitcoin or NFT.
Thanks Bennie, well said. I have to finish my most complicated picture today too, shouldn't be wasting time in here or worrying about this either. :)
Considering NFTs I can only go full (Roger) Murtaugh: I'm too old for this ...
Mods are fine. This is the most civilized unrest imaginable.
My opinion may be unpopular here, but I don't want to shy away from expressing it over possible backlash, or we end up with groupthink. I hate mining as much as the next person and detest the use of graphics cards to do it, but I think that crypto and blockchain is interesting. As with any other new technology, it always starts out in a rough state, but will be streamlined as issues like environmental impact are taken into consideration. We've already seen positive movement in that direction with Ethereum, but I don't resent the technology. We never know what industries could open up as people explore and build on the idea. It may come to nothing, but it may also change the world as we have seen so often when people start getting excited about a new idea.
I also think that NFT's sound interesting, and seem like a fun avenue to explore. Yeah, you can just copy an image, but, as with bitcoin, something is only worth whatever people are willing to pay, and if people value the idea of a digital asset that can be traced back to the original creator, then who am I to say that they shouldn't buy it.
I think that this is a fun idea that the good folk at Daz are running with.