Screenshotting NFTs

[Wictorian]

I see a lot of people suggesting screenshotting NFTs. Isn’t it something like piracy?Do you think it is ok to screenshot NFTs?

[Dissitesuxba11s]

Right click -> Save Image As... for a better quality image. 

[rrats]

1 hour ago, Wictorian said:

Do you think it is ok to screenshot NFTs?

That's morally correct

[duncannah]

2 hours ago, Wictorian said:

Isn’t it something like piracy?

Why would it be? I figure it would be a copyright violation if you were to try to profit off it but nothing about NFTs specifically.

[lewdicrous]

I don't think laws have evolved enough to consider stuff like NFTs. At least for now. (I could be wrong of course)

[Avocado Diaboli]

People really need a better explanation of what an NFT is: It's a receipt. It proves ownership. It's not the thing (image, song, whatever you sell) itself. 

[vetali]

2 hours ago, Wictorian said:

I see a lot of people suggesting screenshotting NFTs. Isn’t it something like piracy?Do you think it is ok to screenshot NFTs?

You worried about the cyber police catching you with screenshotted NFTs?

[Slayerking92]

https://kotaku.com/someone-right-clicked-every-nft-in-the-heist-of-the-cen-1848084379

 

[8tg]

That’s why you need physical NFT’s, digital media exclusive stored and shared on physical formats and released in limited and tracked numbers, with value that increases over time related to demand and rarity of a particular series.

 

Also known as niche vaporwave music releases

 

real chads have NFTs on floppy disks 

[Helpful Tech Witch]

I dont think any one here but @Avocado Diaboli get what a nft is..

Its not the image, but its the certificate saying you own the origonal of that specific image. 

[Sauron]

3 hours ago, Wictorian said:

Isn’t it something like piracy?

No, you're not breaking DRM and you're not sharing copyrighted content.

3 hours ago, Wictorian said:

Do you think it is ok to screenshot NFTs?

Yes.

8 minutes ago, Helpful Tech Wiard said:

Its not the image, but its the certificate saying you own the origonal of that specific image. 

It's meaningless, ownership of "the original image" doesn't even give you that image or copyright over it. You have a useless receipt for something you have no control over. You can make more tokens out of the same image and they're all worth the exact same, nothing.

[beace]

56 minutes ago, Sauron said:

It's meaningless, ownership of "the original image" doesn't even give you that image or copyright over it. You have a useless receipt for something you have no control over. You can make more tokens out of the same image and they're all worth the exact same, nothing.

That's the point I wanna agree upon and second. If you own an NFT, it doesn't really mean you control the use of the thing you bought, you are, like, a certified owner and stuff, but it doesn't work the same way it does for physical things.

 

However, comparing it to something like, say, a phone or a chair, which you undoubtedly own and are free to use as you please, I don't think someone else taking a picture of your chair or carving an exact copy of it or sitting on it counts as illegal, immoral or piracy. Perhaps there are precedents and some laws actually do regulate the chairs we, the average Joes, buy and sit on, and who's allowed to used them exclusively, and also some penalties, but I somewhat doubt that.

 

Similarly, here. You are the owner of the NFT you paid for, whatever that means. You use it as you please, it is your property, but it's not like snapping a screenshot or making a copy actually takes the NFT itself or whatever you have NFT'ed away.

 

Same way with digital piracy, I think piracy in general is not the right term because that's not theft, as in, the original is there, intact and in possession of the owners/copyright holders, and while corporations cry about "losing profits", that's nothing but a very optimistic assumption that even the half of the people who pirated their product (let alone 100% of those people or at least 51%) would have bought that in a way that would benefit the owner/benefactor (think second hand market), let alone buy at all.

[TetraSky]

https://medium.datadriveninvestor.com/i-bought-an-nft-what-exactly-do-i-own-f1026d715377

 

It is technically recognized as copyright theft in the US, yes. But just like how you can screenshot Google's logo and display it elsewhere, nobody will care as long as you're not making money out of it.

But the thing with NFTs... all you own is a certificate that links to a server where the original creator or whoever controls the server can decide at a whim's notice to take it away. Basically, if you bought NFTs, you bought something even more worthless than dirt. Because at least with dirt, you can actually have it and display it, no one else can have your dirt and no one can take your dirt.

[Quackers101]

I mean some NFT's are stolen goods... sooo.

who cares?

 

To build on that point, NFT is more than piracy currently, compared to just take a screenshot of said image.

That can break more laws than one.

[Heliian]

Nft's don't have to be pictures, they can be anything. 

 

The idea of having a digitally signed piece of art isn't new either.

 

As long as you don't try to display it in public it doesn't matter. 

 

Kind of like how bars are supposed to license the content they show on tv's.  

[Guest willies leg]

I just took a picture of the Mona Lisa so now I can sell it for millions!!!!!

 

[darknessblade]

What is the problem with using a default feature of keyboards that existed as early as: 1984 [IBM Model F 'AT'].

 

[05032-Mendicant-Bias]

On 12/7/2021 at 4:47 PM, Wictorian said:

I see a lot of people suggesting screenshotting NFTs. Isn’t it something like piracy?Do you think it is ok to screenshot NFTs?

An NFT is a fancy link stored inside a blockchain.

There is no problem with right clicking->save as. Anyone can see and download the image using said link.

 

The owner of an NFT has no more and no less right to the image linked by the NFT than the Right Clicker. Neither can use it commercially unless they have an off chain deal with the copyright owner of said image. It probably depends on the copyright laws of the country whatever it is considered piracy. As long as the NFT owner/Right Clicker do not use the image linked commercially, you are likely in the clear.

For reference, the Bored Ape collection explicitely allow some commercial use with an off chain copyright notice to NFT owners. It depends on the creator of the collection if such rights are extended to NFT owners and to what extent.

[airborne spoon]

i own 1 NFT not because i believe in it but i wanted to support a specific artist. Anyway the only way for me to show an NFT that i own is to save as and upload to Instagram or wherever. 

 

Now if somehow another person tried to make a profit off of my NFT after they saved it then yes i could see that as a criminal offense because its stolen goods. but just saving it because you like it and its a cool pic go ahead and do it.

[Spotty]

1 hour ago, airborne spoon said:

Now if somehow another person tried to make a profit off of my NFT after they saved it then yes i could see that as a criminal offense because its stolen goods.

Buying an NFT of an image does not give you the copyright of that image or exclusive use of that image. There's nothing stopping the artist from actually selling or licensing the image to someone else. If you were buying it because you want to support the artist and not because you think you own the image then it's whatever, though you could have done that without needing to use NFTs just by sending money to their paypal or even ethereum directly to their wallet.

[LAwLz]

On 12/7/2021 at 4:47 PM, Wictorian said:

Isn’t it something like piracy?

It depends. Are you breaking the copyright of the image by saving it? If yes, then it's piracy. If no, then it's not piracy. Depends on the image and doesn't really have anything to do with NFTs. Same can be said for screenshotting my profile picture for example, which isn't an NFT. 

 

On 12/7/2021 at 4:47 PM, Wictorian said:

Do you think it is ok to screenshot NFTs?

I think it's a "funny meme" mostly said by people who dislike NFTs without understanding what they are, and the people getting mad at them for screenshotting NFTs are either playing dumb to get publicity, or they themselves don't understand what NFTs are.

For example the ape guy is clearly just pretending to be mad so that people talk about it, but people are so stupid that they fall for it. 

 

On 12/7/2021 at 6:51 PM, duncannah said:

Why would it be? I figure it would be a copyright violation if you were to try to profit off it but nothing about NFTs specifically.

It can be copyright infringement without you profitting from it.

If I download a torrent of Avengers Endgame without paying for it I am most likely violating my countries copyright law, and could potentially be punished for it. Copyright law also covers images. Depending on the image, downloading an image could be a copyright violation. But as you said, nothing about that is specific to NFTs. 

 

On 12/7/2021 at 7:02 PM, lewdicrous said:

I don't think laws have evolved enough to consider stuff like NFTs. At least for now. (I could be wrong of course)

There is nothing in the law that is specific about NFTs, but as I have stated several times over, it doesn't have to. Unauthorized copying of a work, be it a picture or movie, is against the law. Doesn't matter if it's an NFT or whatever. But it's worth nothing that the picture is not the NFT. I think that's something many people don't understand, and as a result people don't understand NFTs. 

 

On 12/7/2021 at 8:43 PM, Sauron said:

No, you're not breaking DRM and you're not sharing copyrighted content.

It could still be piracy. Like I said above, me downloading Avengers Endgame would be piracy even if I am not breaking some DRM or sharing the content. 

 

On 12/7/2021 at 8:43 PM, Sauron said:

It's meaningless, ownership of "the original image" doesn't even give you that image or copyright over it. You have a useless receipt for something you have no control over. You can make more tokens out of the same image and they're all worth the exact same, nothing.

On 12/7/2021 at 10:08 PM, TetraSky said:

But the thing with NFTs... all you own is a certificate that links to a server where the original creator or whoever controls the server can decide at a whim's notice to take it away. Basically, if you bought NFTs, you bought something even more worthless than dirt. Because at least with dirt, you can actually have it and display it, no one else can have your dirt and no one can take your dirt.

I mean, the same can be said for any digital license. "Buying Halo Infinite is meaningless because you don't even get to own the trademark Halo or Master Chief. You just get a useless receipt that says you're allowed to play the game even though you have no control over it and Microsoft can create more license, or take it away from you".

[Sauron]

15 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

It could still be piracy. Like I said above, me downloading Avengers Endgame would be piracy even if I am not breaking some DRM or sharing the content.

If you mean piracy in the sense of illegally obtaining copyrighted content, that's actually not piracy in a lot of places. Ironically it would be illegal to rip a blu ray you own but not to download the same content from a google drive folder. Of course if you use torrenting software you're also sharing that content which makes it illegal, but downloading it alone is often not enough to break the law.

 

Regardless, if any part of this were illegal it would be illegal regardless of it being an NFT since NFTs hold no legal value.

21 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

I mean, the same can be said for any digital license. "Buying Halo Infinite is meaningless because you don't even get to own the trademark Halo or Master Chief. You just get a useless receipt that says you're allowed to play the game even though you have no control over it and Microsoft can create more license, or take it away from you".

Microsoft doesn't claim to sell you "the original copy" or an item with a certain scarcity, they sell you A copy (or more likely a license). They are the copyright holders and legally agree to let you use their copyrighted software. An NFT gives you no such legally binding license, it's just a link - however it's advertised as something unique and original and therefore marketable as a rare collectible. And unlike a license for a videogame, not owning the NFT of an image doesn't stop you from accessing it, be it legally or practically.

[LAwLz]

1 hour ago, Sauron said:

If you mean piracy in the sense of illegally obtaining copyrighted content, that's actually not piracy in a lot of places. Ironically it would be illegal to rip a blu ray you own but not to download the same content from a google drive folder. Of course if you use torrenting software you're also sharing that content which makes it illegal, but downloading it alone is often not enough to break the law.

Like you said, it depends on which country you are in, but the act of knowingly download (even without uploading) copyrighted material without proper authorization is in fact illegal in most countries. The idea that "it's only illegal to upload, not download" is mostly a myth.

Copyright does not just cover the rights to distribute a work. It also includes the rights for reproduce, display, perform and make derivative works. Even if you only download (not upload) you are still committing copyright infringement because you do not have permission to reproduce, display, perform or make derivative works.

 

 

1 hour ago, Sauron said:

Regardless, if any part of this were illegal it would be illegal regardless of it being an NFT since NFTs hold no legal value.

Exactly, it is illegal regardless of the work being an NFT or not. Not sure what you mean by NFTs "hold no legal value" though. 

 

 

1 hour ago, Sauron said:

however it's advertised as something unique and original and therefore marketable as a rare collectible.

Source? It sounds like you have an issue with some seller using deceptive marketing in that case, but that's not an inherent issue with NFTs.

Also, NFTs are unique. The NFT (not the picture) is unique, and it is the unique NFT you are buying.

 

2 hours ago, Sauron said:

And unlike a license for a videogame, not owning the NFT of an image doesn't stop you from accessing it, be it legally or practically.

I don't understand what you mean.

[Sauron]

18 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

Exactly, it is illegal regardless of the work being an NFT or not. Not sure what you mean by NFTs "hold no legal value" though. 

I mean that purchasing an NFT linking to a work does not automatically lift that work's copyright protections for you. If it's illegal for you to download or view that work it will still be illegal after you purchase the NFT, unless the author also explicitly gives you permission - which obviously does not require the NFT itself.

20 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

Source? It sounds like you have an issue with some seller using deceptive marketing in that case, but that's not an inherent issue with NFTs.

It is, because the whole idea is that the tokens are non fungible. If non fungibility is irrelevant because they don't make the item actually unique or rare (which is my point) then what is their purpose?

22 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

I don't understand what you mean.

Going back to my previous point, if I buy a game on Steam or whatever I get legal access to it and I can download it from Steam's servers. Without buying the game I wouldn't have that. NFTs on the other hand are mostly just containers for links to content that is legally and openly accessible to anyone - and if there are limitations on that, they don't depend on the NFT, meaning the NFT itself is of no use in the transaction. Even if the website checks for your NFT the same functionality could be achieved with much more efficient methods like public key cryptography or other kinds of authentication.

[mr moose]

On 12/8/2021 at 5:02 AM, lewdicrous said:

I don't think laws have evolved enough to consider stuff like NFTs. At least for now. (I could be wrong of course)

Most laws have not evolved anywhere near enough to deal with the digital age.