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Why NFTs Don’t Have a Screenshot Problem
Markets for traditional art and collectibles are thriving despite forgeries, and the issue is even smaller with NFTs
If you’ve heard about NFTs and have a rough idea about how they work, you’ve probably heard about the most common criticism from the skeptics: A digital file, whether an image, a gif, or a piece of audio or video, can easily be copied and shared. To use a concrete example, the artist known as Beeple recently sold a piece of digital art for $69 million. I just grabbed a screenshot of it. It looks identical to the real deal. And my screenshot was free.
The above can be said and done for any of the multiple million-dollar pieces of digital art and collectibles that have been sold in the last year, whether we’re talking screenshots or other forms of duplicates depending on the original’s format.
To most of the skeptics, this is the fundamental problem with NFTs and why digital art and collectibles in their minds have zero value. If the above is all you know about NFTs, and assuming it’s correct, you can certainly understand why they think so.
So, let’s address the elephant in the NFT room and discuss why screenshots aren’t nearly as big of a threat as many people seem to believe.
