You guys. YOU GUYS. We (@ReginaHarsanyi@habitual_truant@KelaniNichole) sat down and read the legal terms and conditions of a very popular NFT platform, and our minds are blown. (1/)
When you buy an NFT from them, ***you are not buying the work.*** Not even a little bit. You have no rights to it. The artist could still turn around and sell it to someone else (as long as they don't mint it). You really are just buying the NFT. (2/)
We were trying to figure out if a museum could borrow the work from the person who bought the NFT. The answer is no. And not because the rights aren't granted. It's because you don't actually own the work. At all.
Think that sounds bad? IT GETS WORSE. You know who DOES own the work?
The platform. (4/)
The platform reserves all rights to use the work however it needs to--including sublicensing it (!!!). I'm not a lawyer, but this sounds a lot to me like the platform could sell the work. But you, the buyer of the NFT, can't. Because you don't own it. Even a little bit. (5/)
Okay, I'm being slightly hyperbolic. They're not claiming "ownership," just certain "rights." But you know who DOESN'T get those same rights? The buyer of the NFT. (6/)
So basically, the buyer of the NFT and the artist who made the NFT ***are paying the platform a commission for them to acquire the rights to the work.***
By "them," I mean platform. You're paying the platform for the platform to get rights to the work that the artist made. I'm really bad at this numbering thing btw, sorry. That was (7/). This is (8/).
This means that ultimately, the buyer of the NFT isn't a collector at all. You have collected nothing (as collecting something would mean acquiring some rights, if not actually also possession). Basically the artist selling NFTs is kinda issuing bonds of themselves. (9/)
First of all--Duchamp FTW, again (Monte Carlo Bond, go look it up if you don't know it). Second of all--WHY NOT JUST BE TRANSPARENT ABOUT THIS??? As @habitual_truant said, gamers love paying other gamers to game. Maybe art lovers can love paying artists to art. (10/)
In this light, NFT platforms aren't competing with the auction house or gallery--they're competing with Patreon. (end, I think)
Dropping this further clarification in here in case it helps people catch this:
I'm enraged: A company called @globalartmuseum has begun minting NFTs of works in the @rijksmuseum collection. They claim "Any revenue derived from sales or rental will be shared with the museum" to help them during the COVID. How? Does the museum know about this??
The use the title "The Rijksmuseum Collection" and the website link at the bottom here goes to the Rijksmuseum website. I would love to know if the @rijksmuseum knows about this.
On December 22, 1995, I was diagnosed with Type 1 (aka juvenile) diabetes. I was 12 years old.
But today, I don’t want to talk about how I’m diabetic.
I want to talk about how I’m disabled.
Until now, I have never identified that way. Even though I’ve always known that I am legally disabled (according to the federal government), I never claimed disability as an identity.
Despite the endless hardships and limitations (and brushes with sudden death), I didn’t feel “entitled” to it: I’m not “really” disabled, I told myself—not like someone who uses a mobility aid, or who is blind or deaf.