NFTs in the Art World
Art has always been an essential part of society. The ability to create works that contain multiple meanings accessed through interpretation is one of humanity’s greatest gifts. But as time progresses, new movements and trends are constantly being created. What we are seeing today, however, is nothing like the evolution from romanticism to impressionism. The creation of non-fungible tokens, or NFTs, was something that took the art community by storm. A collector’s heaven, NFTs can be art, videos, music, or even screenshots that are digitally purchased on a blockchain, a decentralized public ledger. Each NFT has its own value which varies with time, which is what drives people to acquire these digital tokens. Many sell for astronomical amounts.
NFT supporters claim that they are revolutionizing the digital art market, but I think the exact opposite. With the rise of NFTs has come the rise of plagiarism. Because the platform is decentralized, meaning there is no one singular entity managing the system and its operations, and there are no laws regulating the sales and interactions of NFTs, it is far easier to get away with plagiarism. NFTs make it extremely difficult for artists to protect their intellectual property. Many artists’ work is turned into an NFT without their consent or even knowledge.
Through a simple screenshot off an artist’s website, NFT users can pay miners to code the item into an NFT and sell the piece, and sometimes with it, its digital ownership and copyrights. If the NFT was sold, then the earnings would go to the NFT creator instead of the original artist. While this is undoubtedly plagiarism, the blockchain platforms cannot enforce much, as the nature of the platform is to solely add to the data ledger, making deleting the breached content nearly impossible. Everyday, while scrolling through Twitter, I am bombarded with the complaints of the artists that I follow; their art is being stolen and reproduced as NFTs. One artist in particular, Loish, was completely unaware his art had been auctioned off on the blockchain. With Meta recently announcing that Instagram and Facebook will now be housing NFTs and serving as a marketplace to buy, sell, and showcase them, many artists are fearful of what's next.
I have witnessed the NFT market commodify art and diminish its value. As both an artist and an entrepreneur, I am distraught with the lack of security surrounding the blockchain and the monopoly that NFT style digital art could one day have on the industry. I wish to help assess value accurately and gain the skills to become a leader in the art business world. I hope one day to find a balance – a world in which NFTs can exist and artists’ work maintains its value.