(Original Post 07/03/22)

I am halfway down this rabbit hole, and I have some thoughts I would love to share.

What is an N.F.T.?

A Non-Fungible-Token. Make sense? Yeah me either.

An N.F.T., in a way, is the digital version of a certificate of authenticity. Not entirely unlike what we see in the collector world of fine art, antiques, cars, and the like. Like certificates, N.F.T.'s are valuable extensions of assets, which they represent but are not the asset themselves. 

This is where the similarities end between an N.F.T. and its analog ancestor.

N.F.T.'s. and the future of commercial art.

Like Bitcoin, an N.F.T. is built on blockchain technology though not a currency itself. As I see it, all the advantages of a blockchain certificate have yet to be realized; however, we can already see some apparent game-changing integrations into the world of commercial art.

1. Creator Protections. Each N.F.T. assigned to a singular piece of the creative asset (images, music, logos, even blog posts) could have built into the agreed-upon usage terms preventing the end-user from using the piece of creative past the agreed-upon time, medium, scale, website, etc.

2. Buyer Protection. If a creator agreed-upon exclusive rights to a buyer, the N.F.T. would prevent that creator from reselling usage-rights to another party. This is a severe problem in my world of commercial photography. Almost every client and model I know have a story of seeing their images on stock-photography sites despite having signed contracts to prevent this type of malfeasance.

3. In the case of a total buy-out, the buyer/client has exclusive use in any medium in perpetuity. Basically, they own the asset out-right; if they, in turn, resell the asset to another party, you would automatically receive a royalty upon the new transaction if you so choose. The creator just has to set a royalty parameter into the N.F.T.

And that's the beauty of an N.F.T., theoretically anyway.

It allows creators to add a layer of end-to-end protection for all parties involved. By digitally setting parameters that are actively checking a million times on servers when a transaction is placed, or the asset is moved, published, etc, creators and buyers can rest easy that no-one is being taken advantage of. These parameters could include timed limitations of ownership, size of the presentation, locations on the internet, shared ownership with talent etc.

There are many credible objections that I take seriously about this technology and its effect on art. I highly recommend this article by Seth Godin to start where he rightly points out N.F.T.'s potential as an energy-deficient trap for an artist. And by energy, he means actual electricity and the power of the artist.

N.F.Ts, or something like it, already seem inevitable to me, for better or worse. We would be wise to keep on top of this one, as so many digital trends of the past caught us all of guard.