Either you are with the NFTs or you are against them. There seems to be no middle ground when talking about this technology on the Internet. On the one hand, there are users spending thousands of dollars on unique images . On the other, there is a whole army of trolls multiplying them to show that these holders are deceived. Who is really right?
An NFT is not a jpeg
CryptoPunks or Bored Ape Yacht Club are just some of the examples of NFT that are out there on the Internet. Every day, we can see on Twitter how some user acquires one of these avatars. The tweet usually also includes the savage price that has been paid for it. And then … the horde of haters arrives. Mentions are filled with reposts of the same image over and over again. Some save the photo in their gallery to upload it to the comments. Others take screenshots with their mobiles, and the funniest ones even capture the right-click “Save As” option. All to show that they have bought smoke .
Some users might take it badly and even admit that they feel cheated . This is what a Twitter user wanted to capture as a trolling (captured @JackShawhan. It is not a real situation (precisely @tropofarmer is specialized in the management of NFTs) but it serves to perfectly illustrate all this and laugh a little He passed:
Help I’ve been giggling about this for an hour. pic.twitter.com/GnmE4gtBiB
– The Terrier (@JackShawhan) November 9, 2021
On the other hand, there are users who defend tooth and nail that this group of haters benefits them . This is what @drakedanner, an investor of NFTs, thinks for example:
” When you save the image and use or share it, you are making the underlying token more valuable, ” he wrote. ” It’s kind of ironic that right-click saves are doing free marketing to non-fungible token owners .”
So … can an NFT be stolen from you?
All these cases of “theft” of NFTs are really a misunderstanding . Most NFTs consist only of a JSON file with a link to the multimedia work in question. That is the content that is transferred when one of those tokens is acquired. In very few cases, the NFT is integrated into the blockchain itself, which is really what should have been established from the beginning. In fact, many NFT sales services are migrating their systems to more complex platforms for precisely this reason. This is the case of CryptoPunks, for example, which made a series of changes last August.
But even so, saying that you can “steal” an NFT is like saying that you have stolen Velázquez’s Las Meninas because you have entered the Prado Museum and you have taken a picture of the painting with your iPhone. The ownership of the canvas will not be yours, no matter how much you print it, share it on Twitter or put it as your wallpaper.
Property rights, copyrights and NFT
Regarding the latter, property rights, there is still an absolute legal vacuum at the international level regarding NFTs. We understand that the owner of the digital work has full control over the rights to exploit the image , but… And when the NFT is not unique and runs of several tokens are created? And what about the copyright of the work ? Are they transferred with the NFT or do they remain associated with the creator of the work? All these questions will continue without a clear and forceful answer until the regulatory bodies of the moment establish the first laws that allow this chaotic market that has only just begun to settle a little.