NFT and the Future of Digital Content

droidy001

kyoto kid said:

Robinson said:

kyoto kid said:

...so if I have it straight, they destroyed an original piece of artwork to (hopefully) make the digital NFT of it increase in value.

Anyone read Douglas Adams?

“Thank you. Since we decided a few weeks ago to adopt the leaf as legal tender, we have, of course, all become immensely rich.”

“So in order to obviate this problem,” he continued, “and effectively revalue the leaf, we are about to embark on a massive defoliation campaign, and. . .er, burn down all the forests. I think you'll all agree that's a sensible move under the circumstances."

Blockchain (bitcoin etc.) is just one more example of mankind's unbelievable stupidity.

 

...yeah I remember that.

Kind of makes the all the details surrounding acquisition of the machine that goes *Ping!* sound totally reasonable and on the level.. 

Love Douglas Adams, he was such a visionary. Such a shame we lost him so young. I would love to know what his take on today's Internet would have been.

BlueFingers

Kaleb242 said:

j cade said:

AbyssalEros said:

JStryder said:

This article on VICE (https://www.vice.com/en/article/pkdj79/peoples-expensive-nfts-keep-vanishing-this-is-why?) asserts that the digital assets themselves are not stored on the Ethereum blockchain. Whether this is true some of the time or all of the time is not clear. An NFT would be less valuable in my mind if the underlying IP asset itself is not on-chain and encrypted by a key held by the owner, and/or in possession by the buyer (e.g., downloaded) after the NFT is purchased.

I am an IP lawyer licensed in California. I have also written a book (Blockchain Faith, available everywhere) about using immutable public ledgers for decentralized governance, so I am pretty familiar with uses of blockchain technology and their intersection with law. What I dislike most about the new platforms for NFTs is the lack of clarity about what IP rights, if any, are associated with ownership of the NFT. The platforms (including Opensea) have not done anything to standardize, certify, or secure rights. Their business model is directed at generating traffic and users. This is not the highest or best use of NFTs in my opinion. That said, NFTs have tremendous potential to empower artists and improve their quality of life, that is just beginning to be realized.

As a user of assets sold on the DAZ store who is uninterested in speculative trading, NFTs don't offer me any benefit. I would rather continue to purchase a non-exclusive right to use the assets commercially under Daz's EULA, for now. At least I know what I am buying.

It would be cool to buy an NFT token that would allow me to transfer my rights under the EULA to whoever holds the token, so long as I register the transfer with DAZ. That way I could resell assets when I am done using them. I would probably use the funds to purchase more new stuff from the DAZ store! But DAZ will probably not be brave enough to go there. Also, an NFT is nice (because of the immutable record) but not necessary to enable transfer of rights under a EULA. Nonetheless, NFT trading platforms may at some future time facilitate EULA trading certificates, and the 3D model platforms that offer this as an option may gain an advantage in the marketplace.

Thank you very much. Your insightful post clarified a lot and might, in my opinion, reveal the possible intentions of Tafi/DAZ with NFT.
Still, — I might be too old to see any good in it — I wish there were laws against cryptocurrencies and everything connected with it.

Idk why everyone is acting like it's "young people" driving any of this. Cryptocurrency is largely driven by 50 year old libertarians or generally people with large amounts of money to invest which is, you know, not a demographic that skews young

How is it not being driven by young people?

Ethereum, the cryptocurrency being used to pay for NFTs, was created by Vitalik Buterin is 27 — born in 1994... not exactly old.

And the recent NFT craze was sparked by two men in their 30's...

Vignesh Sundaresan "Metakovan" and Anand Venkateswaran) generated their wealth in the cryptocurrency space in Singapore through the crypto fund Metapurse, and made headlines for NFTs by purchasing the NFT for Beeple's Everydays: The First 5,000 Days (2021) for a whopping $69.3 million (with fees) or around 42,329.45 Ether at Christie's auction... making Beeple's work the third most valuable art ever auctioned by a living artist, after David Hockney and Jeff Koons.

Now, all these misguided people are being driven into this NFT craze, and it's more than a little terrifying to me... I guess I'm too old for all this too — none of it makes any sense... especially for Tafi, an avatar company, to be minting NFTs... and dragging DAZ into it by proxy.

The younger generations have the least capital to drive this, this is primarily driven by folks who are looking for more options to increase their yields as NTFs have more options for the derivatives than bitcoin. This is not a generational thing, but more a result of limitless money printing for years now and the people who got a surplus capital because of this looking for better yields than bonds. I am just wondering what will happen when the circulation of money increases after covid, inflation kicks in and interest increases. Not looking forward to it.

kyoto kid

Mystiarra said:

have people forgotten the junk bonds and savings and loan scandals already?

people worked all their lives, then lost their retirement savings. had to go back to work.  disappearing pensions.

...one here who hasn't and is "concerned" about what the next such scam will be.

FirstBastion said:

" Those that fail to learn from history are destined to repeat it."

 

 ...yep.

kyoto kid

markgoode77 said:

DAZ_Rawb said:

Here I am again, posting I believe for the fifth time about the exact same thing, because Daz employees have been posting in this thread but people are not reading the other posts.

 

Daz will not create NFT's of your gallery images without you performing a number of actions to say you want NFT's created of them. Currently we are not accepting requests to make NFT tokens for any gallery images but if that changes and we have a way for you to request we will let you know.

There is more to this than fears of art theft.  Though many people are, with justification, worried about that.  If anyone were to steal any of my work I'd consider it a compliment.

I've had a growing sense of disillusionment with Daz for a while (and I don't think I'm alone).  Over the last few years I've spent a small fortune here (I dread to think of the actual amount, well into five figures), and I now think I've wasted it.  There seems to be next to no quality control on new products, and a lackadaisical attitude to after sales service (sales support is okay, but that's about money isn't it?)  When problems are brought to your attention, nothing happens.  The latest example, disappearing thumbnails, raised a week or so ago.  Still nothing.  How long should that take to fix?  But now we know why it isn't fixed: all your energies are focused on this NFT swindle.  We can't even get the hardware that your software needs, because scalpers and their bots are seizing it before your customers get a chance, all for this blockchain scam which you are now supporting.  Is it any wonder we're angry?  Our only outlet to vent is these forums, yet heavy handed moderation removes any post which comes close to reflecting this depth of feeling.  I'm sick of my posts being deleted (I expect this one to last about ten minutes).

And what's happened to the content?  There was a time when every new day was exciting in the world of Daz.  Now, I believe, the word is 'meh'.  Are your PAs suffering the same disillusionment as your customers?

There was a time when I'd recommend Daz to anyone who would listen.  I would sing its praises - Daz was a way for the artistically challenged, such as myself, to produce something of their own which resembled art.  I loved it.  Now if anyone expresses any interest I tell them to avoid it like the plague.  I'll probably stick around purely because I'm reluctant to write off all that I have spent here, not because of any customer loyalty.  I'm afraid you've lost that.

...pretty much sums up how many of us feel in a neat little package..

fred9803

Thirty pages in and I still have no idea why someone would buy a NFT, apart from the speculation the NFT price might rise at some point in the future, or the vanity of having one's name attached to a piece of artwork, while not producing or owning it. Both reasons seem to have nasty philosophies attached to them when it comes to the concept of art... avarice and vanity. If there are any other reasons I like to know them.

Ippotamus

Oh!  Daily NFT Sales Banner on the daily sales page?

Thanks for the daily reminder not to buy what you're selling.

Should make it a lot easier.

BlueFingers

fred9803 said:

Thirty pages in and I still have no idea why someone would buy a NFT, apart from the speculation the NFT price might rise at some point in the future, or the vanity of having one's name attached to a piece of artwork, while not producing or owning it. Both reasons seem to have nasty philosophies attached to them when it comes to the concept of art... avarice and vanity. If there are any other reasons I like to know them.

Well, if you have surplus capital, feel stocks are inflated or already own all the ones you feel are worth it, bond yields are too low, and don't care about the enviroment crypto's may be an option. Still as you mentioned it's specutalive, so it depends how much capital you have whether it would be atractive. NFTs are not about art.

BlueFingers

Ippotamus said:

Oh!  Daily NFT Sales Banner on the daily sales page?

Thanks for the daily reminder not to buy what you're selling.

Should make it a lot easier.

I couldn't believe they did that either, in fact it literally made me laugh out loud. 

plasma_ring

Daz, I'd like to suggest again that it'd be interesting if you added a subforum specifically for people to offer and request commissions and other 3D art-related services. This is going to sound really snide even though it's just the state of things, but saying this is about supporting artists here while exclusively selling in-house and brand partnership crypto art is hopefully beneath you. And I'm sincerely curious to see how it'd go over. 

wolf359

Wonderland said:

Here an artist sold this for 0.50 ETH which is currently $991. So you can make money, but it’s a gamble if you’re not a cryptocurrency investor. 

Awesome modeling in any case!!!

Chohole

Threads merged

ironclawxii

plasma_ring said:

Daz, I'd like to suggest again that it'd be interesting if you added a subforum specifically for people to offer and request commissions and other 3D art-related services. This is going to sound really snide even though it's just the state of things, but saying this is about supporting artists here while exclusively selling in-house and brand partnership crypto art is hopefully beneath you. And I'm sincerely curious to see how it'd go over. 

Exactly. A company that wants to support artists should have had such basics implemented years ago.

The fact there's no efficient way to request/offer commissions here is baffling.

AbyssalEros

MeneerWolfman said:

Also, if you really are bugged by the NFT and have no interest in it, you can use ublock origin and just block the element. The "NFT" alone is selectable under "Block element".

Now it's one less button to clutter the site 

This even works for the Daily NFT banner. Just saying.

Sera

Several of the Shudu NFTs have had thier price reduced. The ones with bids say "reserve price not met" which I take to mean that Tafi will not accept them because they are too low. The Champion stuff looks like it's sold a few copies, but not that many and only for about $15 each. More "Reserve price not met" bids there as well. So it looks like this NFT venture may not be going as well as Daz had hoped. I hope that's the case and that they lose money on this. Maybe that would convince them not to try it again.

AbyssalEros

certaintree38: Thanks for the information. I have already added the IPs of Tafi and OpenSea to my blacklist. I do not want to be part of this crime against the eco-system. And that of The Diigitals too - just to be sure to filter them all out.

ArkadySkies

ironclawxii said:

plasma_ring said:

Daz, I'd like to suggest again that it'd be interesting if you added a subforum specifically for people to offer and request commissions and other 3D art-related services. This is going to sound really snide even though it's just the state of things, but saying this is about supporting artists here while exclusively selling in-house and brand partnership crypto art is hopefully beneath you. And I'm sincerely curious to see how it'd go over. 

Exactly. A company that wants to support artists should have had such basics implemented years ago.

The fact there's no efficient way to request/offer commissions here is baffling.

We're their customers, nothing more. If they don't see how that improves their own profits, it likely isn't useful to them.*. After all, they're trying to sell US NFTs when we make zero sense as the target audience: NFTs are completely useless to digital artists as they're basically just fancy schmancy energy intensive receipts that point to a link somewhere, not actual 3D assets themselves. Maybe they hope the fact that Shudu is a celebrity Daz doll whose NFTs Daz has decided to endorse and promote will be enough to convince us to buy a token that links to an image of her. Seriously, it makes ZERO sense that Daz thinks 3D artists are the target audience for NFTs, we'd be likelier be sellers if the general consensus here wasn't anti-NFT. If I thought Shudu was impressive (I've seen better realistic 3D work), I could just copy any image of her onto my computer. An "exclusive" link has no real value aside from the possibility some other gullible person might buy it from me for more money. Might as well go straight to vanilla cryptocurrency at that point though. Seems more stable.

* though more artists visibly making a living off Daz commissions would probably increase the demand for daz products from both the artists currently making money off commissions and other artists that see their success and want in on the action.

Richard Haseltine

We realise that the whole NFT topic has unavoidable quasi-political elements, and we've been trying not to be too literal-minded about removing posts for politics, but there was a bunch of stuff that had gone too far into general politics and had to be removed. Please try to keep the discussion focussed on the topic and resist the temptation to branch out.

RobotHeadArt

No DAZ employee has yet been able to explain how NFTs actually empower artists.  DAZ already has a marketplace with infrastructure for selling items, and they could have easily sold these images, videos, and whatever packs of assets that "inspired" the item.  Why OpenSea?  Why Ethereum?  How do these two things help the customer or the artist?  The OpenSea/Ethereum market look to be completely deregulated and free from any sort of buyer or seller protections that a traditional credit card/Paypal transaction would have.

nicstt

AlmightyQUEST said:

nicstt said:

I haven't seen an answer anywhere.

Is it possible to opt out of emails from Daz if they contain NFT?

If not then everything it is.

You could also contact support, but previously people reported that they asked support this and it was confirmed that all the newsletters are part of the newsletter you sign up for.

I subscrive via ATI, just noticed as Daz frequently stopped sending me stuff anyway. 

So just unsubscribing from ATI's emails.

I'll miss out on some sales, but that isn't to my disadvantage

 

Torquinox

Because the internet provides, here is an article in The Atlantic about the aspirational beginnings of NFTs and what they have become.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/04/nfts-werent-supposed-end-like/618488/

“Right now NFTs are built on an absolute house of cards constructed by the people selling them,” the software engineer Jonty Wareing...

SolitarySandpiper

just look forward to how satisfying it will be when this has all blown over and Shudu is available to buy as a figure for $0.99 in the end of year sale...

(or better still free with the purchase of Z on the john plops and poses).

Erdehel

RobotHeadArt said:

No DAZ employee has yet been able to explain how NFTs actually empower artists.  DAZ already has a marketplace with infrastructure for selling items, and they could have easily sold these images, videos, and whatever packs of assets that "inspired" the item.  Why OpenSea?  Why Ethereum?  How do these two things help the customer or NFTs the artist?  The OpenSea/Ethereum market look to be completely deregulated and free from any sort of buyer or seller protections that a traditional credit card/Paypal transaction would have.

NFTs do not empower Artists. Thus, DAZ employees can't explain.

Why Ethereum or Blockchain technology?  To be trendy, there is no other explanation. While they disregard the impact, this has on our environment.

Deregulated? The world is willingly running into the abyss. How can we build a post-covid investment plan or something similar in a deregulated financial environment?

FirstBastion

It doesn't take much critical analysis to recognize the front end fees drive this NFT market. The rest is just hype.

RobotHeadArt

Some amazing quotes in this article https://www.theartnewspaper.com/news/ghosts-of-crypto-past

“Ethereum was basically originally a platform for these illegal securities,” Castor says. “The problem was, regulators came down on them, a lot of these people faced fines and charges and the market came apart.”

Buying into the network causes the price to appreciate, benefiting the largest holders. “That’s why NFTs are a real boom for the crypto bros,” Castor says. “They’ve found a new way to bring fiat currency [that is, dollars, pounds and euros] into Ethereum.”

The problem in 2017 was that many of these companies were explicitly or implicitly promising returns on investments into their businesses, which made their tokens look a lot like illegal securities. But an NFT does not come with that problem—with the barest amount of effort you can mint a work of art that subsequently sells for thousands. And if it doesn’t resell? Well, nothing can be done, because nobody expected to profit anyway.

Paintbox

Why not does Daz & co start their own Patreon like business, Daz has most of the infrastructure already, a client base full of artists. They should do something with that. Maybe even start their own eco friendly, sustainable NFTs combined with that. Just trying to steer this debacle into more blue waters.

Or an instagram for CG works or something. 

Wolfwood

Paintbox said:

Why not does Daz f co start their own Patreon like business, Daz has most of the infrastructure already, a client base full of artists. They should do something with that. Maybe even start their own eco friendly, sustainable NFTs combined with that. Just trying to steer this debacle into more blue waters.

Or an instagram for CG works or something. 

Are you proposing replicating an already proven and working business model and limited and taking advantage to the scope of this site? But that ...that would be.....LOGICAL!!!!

I don't think logic and common sense are terms worth considering to some people.

 

margrave

RobotHeadArt said:

No DAZ employee has yet been able to explain how NFTs actually empower artists.  DAZ already has a marketplace with infrastructure for selling items, and they could have easily sold these images, videos, and whatever packs of assets that "inspired" the item.  Why OpenSea?  Why Ethereum?  How do these two things help the customer or the artist?  The OpenSea/Ethereum market look to be completely deregulated and free from any sort of buyer or seller protections that a traditional credit card/Paypal transaction would have.

The "protection" is in the blockchain itself. Every buyer and seller has a unique ID, and the blockchain stores the records of everything they've made and sold. So if you verify the ID of the creator, you can go through the blockchain and track all the hands the NFT has passed through to verify it is an "original".

The "art theft" mainly exists because people don't verify the ID of the person who's selling it to ensure it's original.

tsarist

RobotHeadArt said:

No DAZ employee has yet been able to explain how NFTs actually empower artists.  DAZ already has a marketplace with infrastructure for selling items, and they could have easily sold these images, videos, and whatever packs of assets that "inspired" the item.  Why OpenSea?  Why Ethereum?  How do these two things help the customer or the artist?  The OpenSea/Ethereum market look to be completely deregulated and free from any sort of buyer or seller protections that a traditional credit card/Paypal transaction would have.

Agreed. I want someone to explain to me in plain English how as an artist, I can make this work for me and other artists.

BlueFingers

margrave said:

RobotHeadArt said:

No DAZ employee has yet been able to explain how NFTs actually empower artists.  DAZ already has a marketplace with infrastructure for selling items, and they could have easily sold these images, videos, and whatever packs of assets that "inspired" the item.  Why OpenSea?  Why Ethereum?  How do these two things help the customer or the artist?  The OpenSea/Ethereum market look to be completely deregulated and free from any sort of buyer or seller protections that a traditional credit card/Paypal transaction would have.

The "protection" is in the blockchain itself. Every buyer and seller has a unique ID, and the blockchain stores the records of everything they've made and sold. So if you verify the ID of the creator, you can go through the blockchain and track all the hands the NFT has passed through to verify it is an "original".

The "art theft" mainly exists because people don't verify the ID of the person who's selling it to ensure it's original.

You suggest that having an original art work is the primary motivation of an NFT buyer, I beg to differ. And besides that, how would you suggest enforcing a claim of being sold a stolen piece of art attached to an NFT, especially if the piece originates from a forgein country? In practice I mean, NFT are nice in theory but with a horrible practice.

RobotHeadArt

margrave said:

RobotHeadArt said:

No DAZ employee has yet been able to explain how NFTs actually empower artists.  DAZ already has a marketplace with infrastructure for selling items, and they could have easily sold these images, videos, and whatever packs of assets that "inspired" the item.  Why OpenSea?  Why Ethereum?  How do these two things help the customer or the artist?  The OpenSea/Ethereum market look to be completely deregulated and free from any sort of buyer or seller protections that a traditional credit card/Paypal transaction would have.

The "protection" is in the blockchain itself. Every buyer and seller has a unique ID, and the blockchain stores the records of everything they've made and sold. So if you verify the ID of the creator, you can go through the blockchain and track all the hands the NFT has passed through to verify it is an "original".

The "art theft" mainly exists because people don't verify the ID of the person who's selling it to ensure it's original.

No, there is no consumer protections under US Law.
DAZ already has a store in place that provides the normal protections along with the user's credit card companies which also have laws protecting the user.  What is the benefit to the DAZ customer or artist by forgoing these legal protections?

https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/what-know-about-cryptocurrency
 

You don’t have the same legal protections when you pay with cryptocurrency.

Credit cards and debit cards have legal protections if something goes wrong. For example, if you need to dispute a purchase, your credit card company has a process to help you get your money back. Cryptocurrency payments typically are not reversible. Once you pay with cryptocurrency, you only can get your money back if the seller sends it back.

 

Before you buy something with cryptocurrency, know a seller’s reputation, where the seller is located, and how to contact someone if there is a problem.