Quote:
Originally Posted by NickBaer
If you have questions about NFTs, and comparisons to traditional digital distribution methods, there are webpages and YouTube videos which each explains parts of the puzzle.
As for Chris Crocker's "Britney" video NFT, I did some Googling and found that it was sold on a private member's-only site, by professional art dealers.
I am working on listing my first. The first is the most complicated. Followed by the second. Then, it should be more normal.
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That's the thing, but those webpages and YouTube videos don't explain how exactly selling digital files like videos as NFTS are preventing piracy.
But when NFTs are used to sell digital files, I really don't get all the anti-piracy claims which pretty much all of the NFT enthusiasts, website articles and sellers are all so crazy and hyped about.
For example: You are going to put up a downloadable video on sale in the shape of an NFT. When you mint your very own NFT on a marketplace site like Rarible, you can only choose and set an
one-time static value, which will become visible only to the owners of that NFT (all future buyers).
Hence the word "static" here, while this is useful for immutable data like copyright certificates/contracts, hashing and timestamping certain content to proof you're the original author etc... But having to use a static value for "downloadable files", really limits your options to protect your content server-side drastically.
Some options for that static value could be:
Option 1 -
A mintable password - which the buyer of the NFT can submit on your website to download the video file... or maybe use to decrypt the video file afterwards (or whatever you choose, since all the validation happens server-side).
This option does not prevent piracy: owners of the NFT can simply share the password with anyone else.
Option 2 -
A mintable download link
Does not prevent piracy: new owners of the NFT can simply share the download link to the video with anyone else.
The worst part is that when ypur password or download link does get leaked online, it can't just simply be changed afterwards, because the blockchain data is immutable. So if that link or password to your video gets spread online, your only option is to either change/remove the file on your server, but that would also make your NFT entirely completely useless to all the current and future owners of your NFT, since they will no longer be able to access the actual content.
Assuming you are planning to sell digital files as an NFT? Which I believe you do, right? Doesn't matter if that would be photos in a zip file or a video or whatever, doesn't matter... But what If I would buy that NFT from you on Rarible.com right now? And then go on and post your "hidden download link" just one minute later here on GFY? Wouldn't your NFT be completely useless from that moment on?
Lol, either I'm a complete moron and somehow missing an important key factor here: but isn't sharing a single "password" or "key" among multiple people (and without the ability to change security later on) a big no-no in terms of security, and thus, rather
increasing the chances of piracy instead of preventing it?
And OK, one could implement the meta mask wallet on his website or server to prevent direct access without verification of the NFT ownership, but that's still not stopping the buyer(s) of your NFT from spreading the files once they've downloaded them or rip them from your site once they have access to it. This would also require some serious coding skills and knowledge of the ETH blockchain.