>>15869472Leaving aside the value of the product, which is subjective, when it comes to the initial sale between the initial owner of the product and a buyer, the ethical burden of the seller is at worst the fact that they should be aware that this method of transaction is supporting a system that likely eventually results in someone getting fucked because of their own stupidity. I don't particularly blame artists for selling NFTs. Coupled with information that the seller can put out from other verified channels they control, with their own public reputation and livelihood at stake, the buyer can be assured that what they are getting is indeed what is on the tin - legitimate artwork. In that sense, the NFT transaction is no more than a convoluted method of payment. At the heart of it, the transaction is no different in terms of legal liability. If anything, it is satisfying to see artists getting paid for rights to their own art for once, even if the motivations for most buyers ultimately result from trying to flip it. That said, if the artists clearly promote NFTs as some way to get rich, they deserve lots of shit for that.
The rest of the system, however, is ridiculous, because beyond the first one the rest of these transactions conventionally leave the seller hidden behind an anonymous pseudonym. There is no recourse if the art turns out to be lifted from someone else, or the work does belong to the artist, but he has never put it up for NFTs, or there is an internet trail but it's completely fake and the art came from a random deviantart... And of course, the most egregious and offputting thing is the sheer number of people, emboldened by that anonymity, trying to pull their own shitty versions of the violin scam.
It would be amusing to see the buyer dropoff for an artist who sold NFTs the same way digital prints are sold - without a commercial license, so you can make copies of the image, but you cannot sell them or the print; that the artist would pursue legal action against anyone who transferred that NFT to someone else later. If would be an interesting artistic statement in itself, and ironically more enforceable than conventional means because of the blockchain.
