Wow, okay... I didn't think there would be such a negative response to the idea of comic NFT's.
Firstly, I have had no success or known anyone to have success with comic NFT's, so it's more of an experiment for me. I wouldn't go so far as saying it's a scam, artist's can make a good amount from the buying and trading of their work even years down the track with commission from every sale.
As for support for artists, it's only through a dedicated following that you are going to be financially supported through say merchandise and patreon etc. The possibility of your work to be sold and collected as an NFT gives any small creator the possibility to start to make an earning.
The environmental impact could be a concern, but that is only because this technology is yet to be refined to reduce the amount of energy it requires, like many new technologies it has a long way to becoming energy efficient.
I think you can definitely call it a scam based solely on the fact that the market is totally speculative. People are only buying NFTs because they think they'll be able to sell them later. People are only selling NFTs because they think people are willing to buy them...because they think they'll be able to sell them later. The logic goes round and round; there's no inherent value in owning a string of numbers that proves you own a string of numbers. It's ALL about the money...which is why theft and fraud are so rampant. Why bother enforcing rules or quality standards when no one in the "game" actually cares?
AND, speaking of "owning" a string of numbers...even that single redeeming (?) quality isn't really real. Last week I read an article that explains the logic behind cryptocurrency (and by extension, NFTs).
It's not called the 'long' version for nothing, but if you're willing to spend some time giving it a read, it'll teach you a lot.
TL;DR: if you don't care about sacrificing the environment for a quick buck, and if you don't care about all the artists who are having their entire galleries stolen for the sake of this fad, and if you don't care that NFT's aren't actually secure (and thus, are a complete fabrication right out the gate) and if you don't care about keeping company with scammers and thieves and cultists...then sure. It's an 'exciting new possibility'. T_T
I'm surprised that you're surprised. The biggest issue with NFTs, and why I'm sure many people see it as a scam, is because there's no inherent utility in them. From my understanding, it's trading the chance of something becoming worth more than its supposed value, which is its scarcity. But with that scarcity comes nothing, if I'm not wrong. Which isn't the same for other collectibles of today.
Let's take Pokémon cards for example. At least there's value in the nostalgia and in the fact you can play a game with them, even though the most rare of cards stay in glass cases or their original packaging. And you can trade them for ACTUAL currency, that's tangible and less volatile. What can you honestly use NFTs for other than waiting around for someone to come and purchase it? If you have an example, I genuinely want to know; you can never stop learning.
And there's all the legal issues with copyright if it is an IP NFT, like that sounds like a headache if your work is at the center of it. Like fanart NFTs. Does that sound like fun to you?
And then on top of all of that, Cryptocurrencies are horrible for the environment. We are already behind the curve, why put ourselves any further for tokens with arbitrary and fallible value.
But do what you want. If you think it's worth it, none of us are going to stop you.
I think one of the most fundamental issues of NFT on it's current state is that it doesn't protect an artist's intellectual property as well as it promises. It lacks the measures to properly verify ownership of the NFT BEFORE uploading it to the cryptomarket, which is the key method on how people steal art.
I wouldn't be caught dead in the NFT game.
The environmental impact is real. That alone is enough to keep me out of it (beyond the fact that NFTs make no sense at all). I know the argument tends to be that the tech for it simply needs to evolve first, and then they won't have such a huge cost but...here's the thing.
It's not up to just a few of us to decide that the path to lower costs is worth it when it comes to the environment--which billions of people and other creatures live in. We can't make that decision for them, especially when it's just digital art. It's literally just digital art. It's not some big grand thing that could save millions of lives. It's stuff our screens reflect back to us in a pattern our eyes see as a picture.
It's not like the environmental cost of space exploration which can and has lead to insane advancements in other tech and related fields-. There's a renewed interest in reducing the amount of energy it takes to do anything, every year. NFTs aren't the cause of that.
My art isn't worth the environmental cost, and I'm certainly not deserving of any kind of fortune at the great expense of the world around me. That's my stance on it, and I refuse to partake in NFTs directly and indirectly through support.
The most immediate thought that comes to mind regarding NFTs and comics is how it could divide the fanbase, on moral grounds, which is applicable to art in general, not just NFT comics. There's been a lot of outcry about NFTs in general. But I don't know if it could do long-term damage to an artist with NFTs. As people, we can be extremely forgetful and move on rather fast, and also tend to try to justify the actions of those we have parasocial relationships with because severing that relationship would mean letting go of something we found joy (entertainment) in.
While there are some people who do want to support artist through NFTs, there is also a huge chunk of people who buy and trade NFTs who don't do it to support artists. People buy NFTs for the same reason why scalpers buy popular toys, they don't care what the item is, they just want to resell it for a higher price.
It is common for NFTs being resold to newbies in the promise that they could get back on their investment. This is why people say it is a pyramid scheme. People make a lot of money getting new people into the market. I wonder if people figured this out after what happened with the GameStop stock. Cryptocurrency has always been an unstable currency and fluctuate like stock on the market. And similar to stocks, everytime a new person hops on the Ethereum bandwagon, the value of Ethereum goes up.
I also really hate the NFT community. They are very rude and I feel like they don't really understand copyright. Owning an NFT is like owning a Pokemon card.
You can own a card but you do not own the copyright for Pikachu. You are not allowed to use the card as the cover of your book. You can not have the rights to sell it to make a movie. All those are owned by the creator. What you own is the physical card. You can scan the card into the computer and post it on your social media or print it out and give it to your friend for free. Being able to right click and copy NFTs is perfectly legal, because the "value" of the NFT is who owns the token. Similar with Pokemon cards, NFTs hold value from scarcity. You can buy a "one of a kind" (or OOAK) for a lot of money. But the original creators also have the rights to make a copy or even 1000 and put them on the market. And all of a sudden, your card/NFT is no longer a OOAK.
Tokens only hold value because of a marketplace. An issue with NFTs is that if there is ever an issue with the host site, all the NFTs lose their value. No one learned their lesson in 2017.
As of today I don't really like NFT, basically because they don't have utility other than speculation. At the end what you "own" is in most cases just a link to an image which anyone has free access to. I understand why people are interested in them, they seem an easy way to monetize art, which does sounds appealing, but I believe the ones making money are just a few lucky ones. And most of people just buy them to sell them at a higher price, not because they appreciate the art (but that can apply to regular art and physical goods too).
I think they can have potential if they are given some actual utility. For example giving some bonus content to anyone holding a specific NFT, like early access, discounts, etc. But then I'm not sure if NFT could provide any improvement to current solutions or if the utility would justify the overall cost of using NFT.
Besides utility, then there are other concerns like the environmental impact and the scammers/thefts. For one side it's true there are scammers, but that it's not exclusive to NFT. Being NFT, twitter or a blog, anyone can steal any content you put on internet and claim it as theirs. So in this matter I don't really see a difference. Yes, it sucks if someone else tries to make money with your content but in most cases there's nothing you can actually do to prevent it (fortunately my content is bad enough that I haven't experienced this, as far as I know).
Then what it seems to be the main reason against NFT, the environmental cost... It's a fact that NFT, and crypto in general, have a significant impact. There are numbers about how bad crypto is, but how does it compare to the power consumption of tapas, webtoons, patreon, instagram? (maybe NFT is worse, but some reference is needed to put everything in perspective).
At the end it's difficult to compare as, while you can find some numbers here and there, I don't know what it is actually taken into account or how reliable those numbers are. For example a study said a single bitcoin transaction consumes as much as 1000 VISA transactions, does that takes into account the power consumption of banks, ATMs and everything the banking system, and therefore VISA, relies on? I'm not here to defend crypto, just saying that things might not be so black or white.
The very concept of NFTs affecting already existing media (charlie bit me video, etc), how it could lead to more strict restrictions on how we access/save/use files from the internet if successful, how easy it is to "steal" NFTs people share with little to no change on the quality and compression of the original product, and the kind of people and soulless art behind it, makes me hope it doesn't last long.
I don't think the idea by itself is bad, perhaps some of it could even help artists from having their art uncredited and used for purposes unknown to the creator of the art, but it feels like a dirty move from coorporations and the like to get more people into crypto.
One just can hope the future gives a far more efficient technology, and less dumb ways to use it.
Also, no. Why would I NFT my comic?
I'll always welcome money because S T U D E N T D E B T but what's the point of making money from a comic few people can access to spread and share with friends?
I made a hard pass on the crypto currency years ago, NFT is no different and I will actively restrict/block anyone related to it. I simply don't wish to engage or humor anyone affiliated to it either
Not to mention that it won't hurt my life experience to filter that stuff out. Got plenty of entertainment ready at hand that don't involve toxic practice or marketing.
It's a GOOD question!
With all the voices on Tapas, let me shed you some light.
First, I need you to remove and forget about all the NFT knowledge you had learned from whoever and whatever person you learn it from.
Secondly, I need you to understand what is Decentralised Storage System and IPFS.
Third, I need you to re-learn how a Non-Fungible Token works and help artists in the future.
If you are unable to do that, sorry, better keep the idea to yourself at this time.
If you can do it. Let's continue...
Key point 1: NFS as Proof of Membership
Where it is a tool to ensure your supporter is able to directly reward you and access your content after they pay you. It is like a service, it helps you to manage your supporters without the need for a centralised platform.
Example Tapas, you need to go through Tapas to connect with your subscriber. With NFT, the interaction between you and your subscribers are two-way, direct. You may code your system to manage the NFT owner, like a membership system.
- Is that an advantage? Yes and no! NFT will only help famous and larger artists who already have some followers and fans that they are able to be independent on their own. But small artists like those in Tapas still need a CENTRALISED community here to support each other. So NFT generally does not benefit the smaller artists in a whole.
- Personal take: at the moment, too many hypes and scams in the realm. A lot of people are on NFT just for the money and not for the art. So we need time to wait for it to cool down. Again, it will still go to the question above. Will it benefit small artists like us? Nope.
Key point 2: NFS as Intellectual Property Rights
The more valuable feature of NFT is that you may permanently date your works on IPFS and secure it and no one shall be able to tamper the data that is already on the chain. That is some strong form of protection over your work. However, is that something you can bring to the court for any potential violation of IP rights?
- Let's look at the case of Beeple. He explicitly uses the trademark of Disney and sells his work as an NFT. Disney was unable to bring him to court for many reasons. One is the method of exchange for the NFT is not in an enforceable currency, another issue is, the location where it took place.
- Thus, it comes to a question, if we are the original author, how can NFT protect our IP other than protecting our claim of the published date? At the moment, it does nothing other than that. Due to no country having established any policy or rules regarding that. That's why we haven't heard Disney took any legal action on Beeple yet. And he is lucky, that he gets away with it. But all came back to the fact that others may still steal your work and sell it. Therefore, NFT is not a good IP protection tool.
Key Point 3: NFT as Tool of Royalty
One advantage of NFT is its ability to reward the author with the pre-programmed royalty system. Example, author issue NFT, sell it to owner A, and then owner A sell it to owner B, the part of the selling profit will be rewarded to author automatically. This system is designed to fix the problem of existing auction system that does not benefit the original author.
- The royalty system does help the author, but it will only work when the author themselves can become famous and highly desirable.
- This system can also be useful if you use NFT as membership. It means your membership can be transferable yet you still earn profit from part of the transfer activity.
- This might be something promising for artists. However, one must read the smart contract to learn whether this system was programmed properly into or not. At the moment, a lot of NFT services smart contracts are still not publicly accessed, means, they are not fully open source! You'll be surprised, the site might tell you they are open source, in fact, how many of you seriously go and check their git and try to run their git? I would like to let you know this truth, very very little! Artists, most of us are not engineers and not educated in computer science (I am professional, and also a "person in the art" <- legal term) thus, a lot of them fall in a trap of fraudulent NFT platforms.
Summary...
To issue an NFT, it is expensive! The cheapest that I know of, well still cost around USD1 for a single file. If you are not using the IPFS, there is no point to do an NFT. Unless you are focus on key point one, which is the membership management, yes, may be you will have better success. But if all you want is to get rich quick like Beeple, you better don't involve in the realm! As for the environmental concern... well, I guess those who wrote about those long long argument never really know where the major environmental impact really from. I can always post more long long long articles that counter that. but then, will they read it? nope! As in Tapas, there aren't many novel readers, most are comic readers. So I doubt people will read my reply too. LOL.
okay, so let me just do the same thing... yes, by sharing some long long article for the pro-blockchain argument on the environmental issues. So this is not trying to start a war in this forum okay, if you really into it, you may read it. if not into it... it is still okay to be ignorant. Here's one SHORT article, please take note about the source of the article is from OECD:
https://www.oecd.org/finance/Blockchain-technologies-as-a-digital-enabler-for-sustainable-infrastructure-key-findings.pdf1
And another additional note about the environment. If you are still drinking with a plastic straw, if you are still ordering take-away with disposable containers, you're contributing to the harm of the environment way worst than using decentralised technology!
Who am I? I'm a professional technologist. My comments above were not paid and It should not serve as any financial advice.
But I hope one day the decentralised technology shall redeem itself and may the next generation of interconnectivity and trust be developed into something that can benefit the world. Peace!