NFTs: Look at That Pile of Funge

December 10, 2021

This comic gets to the heart of the matter with my problem with NFTs. Defending your claim of ownership. Basically all media has this problem, but NFTs add an extra layer of bullshit. I think Brad makes my point pretty concise. How do you claim ownership of something that is freely available? As a webcomic artist I have to deal with the fact that at any moment a comic I made might be reuploaded by someone else, with little or no credit given to me. That's just the nature of the internet.

Ask any artist who's posted fan art to Deviant Art, only to find their work stolen by some foreign short run t-shirt business. And not just art from average everyday fanboy, or girl, they've taken art from actual Marvel and DC artists as well. Ask them how that worked out for them, how much money they saw from it? Most artists have found it not worth fighting. As soon as a complaint is filed the company will claim that they're no longer making the shirt, so you can't claim damages, or that they don't owe you anything because it's fan art, or litigation is a nightmare because of the difference in copyright laws between your country, and the country the business is incorporated in. However most of the time these companies form, print shirts made with stolen art, then dissolve, reform under a different name, rinse and repeat. Now we come to NFTs.

It's only a matter of time that someone sues over an NFT. Someone will buy an NFT of Kobe Bryant's last dunk, then because of the nature of the internet someone will make a copy of it, post it for all to see, and a lawsuit will be filed. A lawsuit in which, and I repeat myself, the plaintiff will have to prove sole ownership and control of something that was made available to see by anyone, in which time any of those people would have been able to make partial, or complete copies of. How will that eventual lawsuit play out? Hopefully the NFT bubble will burst as the stupid fad it is before we get that far.

But you know what bubble won't burst? Our Patreon! I mean it can't burst if it was never a bubble to begin with.