Owning NFT Art currently sucks.
Owner benefits, and sole access to unique NFT content I feel is something that seems to be a bit foreign to NFT marketplaces currently, but has been common among all digital products for decades.
Examples:
Bonus content and access to downloadable content after purchasing a DVD.
Every MP3 ever sold.
Digital Books.
Royalty Free Images for commercial use or personal use.
Video courses.
Upon purchasing any of the above, the marketplace removes it. It doesn’t leave it on display so that anyone can view it, listen to it, or read it. Only the owner, the purchaser of it, has that benefit. Its what they paid for.
NFT marketplaces are currently robbing NFT Art owners of most of the main owner benefits of owning a digital file.
Of course this doesn’t apply to all NFTs, but in my humble opinion it should be considered for Art, Music, and video in particular.
The full quality artwork in the NFT itself, along with the description, and the attributes, and being able to view it in full quality are buying incentives and are what give the value of the product to the owner. Having all of that available on a market page is giving all of it away for free and visitors really have no incentive to buy it if it was listed for sale. Its all there for free. One right click away from being downloaded. Listed or not.
Marketplaces are aggregating everything that gives NFTs value, and leaving it all out for anyone to come along and enjoy all the benefits that the owner paid for. And they don’t provide protect the owner benefits.
I realize all of these things are available publicly on the Blockchain, but it’s deprecated, and requires knowledge to find. As more consumers enter the NFT community, there will be less awareness of it, and the markets will simply be based on front end content.
Rather than continue griping, or creating my own marketplace. Here are some solutions that I hope will be considered by future builders.
-
Thumbnail and a preview size.
Full size artwork should be token gated, or unlockable by the owner only. This raises value and buying incentive, and its clear that someone stole it if they downloaded the preview size and resold it. This also protects the buyer. -
Description and attribute display options.
For gamified NFTs and/or project bonus content this provides owner benefits, and the owner should be able to select whether they are displayed publicly. If I had a Pokemon card with unknown attributes and was saving it to play strategically, I would be upset if the other player knew everything about it. -
Video and Audio Preview Lengths
As with any downloadable media for purchase, the entire media file should only be available to the owner. Similar to mp3s and videos on Amazon and other marketplaces, a preview should be all consumers should have access to without having purchased the product. -
Owner approval.
Public display of a purchased product should be determined and approved by the owner at the owners option. NFTs should be hidden unless specified to be displayed by the owner.
Tokenization and authentication is phenomenal, it’s what I love about NFTs. It can make a JPG equivalent to an original painting. That JPG should be treated as such to retain that value.
This of course, is all my opinion. As an artist, and a consumer.
I’m open to hearing your opinions, thoughts and comments as well, and can only hope this spawns some forward thinking.
Thanks for reading!