NFTs unbundle ownership from enjoyment
I think the author has got it all wrong. The blockchain (and the NFT contract) don&#x27;t make digital art scarce, nor do they confirm &#x27;ownership&#x27;. It&#x27;s been pointed out many times that anyone can create an NFT on a blockchain, and just because you own an NFT with a URL of <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;example.com&#x2F;example.jpg" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;example.com&#x2F;example.jpg</a> doesn&#x27;t stop anyone else from creating another NFT with the same URL.<p>An NFT is &#x27;genuine&#x27; solely because <i>the artist says it is</i>. Anyone can make another NFT of Beeple&#x27;s $69m picture, and it will be identifiable on the blockchain, but it won&#x27;t be the &#x27;original&#x27; because Beeple says it isn&#x27;t. In other words, none of this is decentralised, it&#x27;s all based upon real world authority.<p>Despite all the crypto verbiage, blockchains don&#x27;t add or enable anything with NFTs. The artist, or a company, could easily just maintain a database showing who &#x27;owns&#x27; which artwork NFT, and could update it when works are re-sold. The fact that this runs right now on the blockchain is just because it provides an existing database (and a polluting, expensive and cumbersome one at that!)