“The NFT Bay” Shares Multi-Terabyte Archive of ‘Pirated’ NFTs

by curmudgeon22 on 11/20/2021, 6:45 AM with 181 comments
  • by quakeguy on 11/20/2021, 7:44 AM
  • by judge2020 on 11/20/2021, 7:47 AM

    Isn’t the point of NFTs that it verifies ownership, not “you’re the only one that can access the content” (although there are indeed NFTs that can only allow the owner to decrypt the content)? It’s like video game cosmetics - many people can have the same skin, but people you want to impress or show off to can see that you own x, y, and z.

  • by mrspeaker on 11/20/2021, 7:33 AM

    I think the biggest problem the art project will face is that nobody actually wants 19.5TB of not-terribly-good art.

    If there wasn't a fun speculative element, then most of the artists would have trouble getting anyone to download their stuff even for free (just like most game devs struggle to get anyone to play their games - even when they're pretty good).

    So really, if this art project does succeed it could be an interesting new distribution channel!

  • by mattdesl on 11/20/2021, 8:31 AM

    there is a certain irony in peer hosting IPFS-based NFTs thru BitTorrent as an attempt at some kind of critique… I hope they do this with Hicetnunc[1] NFTs too and help back up all that media. :)

    [1] - https://mattdesl.substack.com/p/hicetnunc-and-the-merits-of-...

  • by manigandham on 11/20/2021, 8:30 AM

    NFTs are about the token ownership, not the asset, so this archive is rather pointless on its own.

    But it's a very meta "art" piece as described by the article, especially if it also serves as an NFT asset itself. Will be interesting to see how how far this layer cake will go.

  • by crispyporkbites on 11/20/2021, 8:22 AM

    NFTs are obviously a bit silly, BUT, it would be nice if things bought on platforms like Steam, Roblox, Amazon, iTunes etc. were transferable to other games/platforms.

    The platform providers would still need to agree that a specific blockchain / NFT is actually the source of truth, and so it's not really trustless. But the internet itself isn't perfectly decentralized either. I could see a future where developers could enable web3 support in their games/apps and allow importing assets, identities etc. between platforms, which would be nice.

  • by tlrobinson on 11/20/2021, 7:22 AM

    Soooo the obvious question... when does the NFT of the “The Billion Dollar Torrent” drop?

  • by sebow on 11/20/2021, 7:43 AM

    Ah yess, when you put something publicly available then claim piracy and copyright infringement when people actually use those "public bits".

    Gotta love this logic.So if i don't right-click your precious NFT I don't pirate it, how about if i get it from my browser's image cache?Am i pirating it then or not?(I'm not going into copying and selling, which is more nuanced, but even then one could argue in the same manner).

    To me these questions are extremely rhetorical, especially if one believes in the concept of property. If you don't want to freely give people copies of your precious hard work,don't put it on the internet, period, not even under a protected information system. I would further argue on this principle about computer security aswell, but that actually requires understanding how computers work, which the vast majority doesn't know.

    By putting your work publicly available you already explicitly give permission on people to copy your bits into their computers(a.k.a viewing).I guess people think machines are like humans and automatically "forget" what they see, thus enforcing the value of copyright.

  • by da39a3ee on 11/20/2021, 12:35 PM

    I’m very confused about NFTs. If they are kind of an in-joke (that maybe some influencer types are taking a bit too seriously) why did they get mentioned by zuckerberg in his keynote address for meta? Say what you want about him, but I think he and his team are above falling for crypto jokes making fun of influencers.

  • by ghuntley on 11/20/2021, 7:55 AM
  • by granaldo on 11/20/2021, 9:37 AM

    A piece of Bored Ape is priced now at $200,000 https://www.coingecko.com/en/nft

  • by GoodJokes on 11/20/2021, 4:04 PM

    NFT’s sound like the trump of politics. Why are all of you giving it air time.

  • by easytiger on 11/20/2021, 8:16 AM

    Art stopped existing subsequent to the widespread availability of digital imaging

  • by clippablematt on 11/20/2021, 9:38 AM

    Guy spends $200 a month and fills a 20TB hard drive because he doesn’t understand nfts aren’t drm.

    Thanks for backing up all the art dude. Much appreciated.