Web Inventor Berners-Lee To Auction Original Code as NFT (ft.com) 59
Sir Tim Berners-Lee is auctioning his original source code for the web in the form of a "non-fungible token," as digital collectibles continue to fetch millions of dollars despite the recent sell-off in cryptocurrencies. From a report: The auction at Sotheby's will be the first time that Berners-Lee has been able to raise money directly from one of the greatest inventions of the modern era, with the proceeds benefiting initiatives that he and his wife Rosemary support. "The idea is somebody might like a digitally signed version of the code, a bit like plenty of people have asked for physically autographed copies of the book," Berners-Lee said. Auctioneers hope that the one-of-a-kind digital artefact will ignite interest in NFTs beyond their mainstay of artworks, games and sports memorabilia. Investment in NFTs has waned since March's record-breaking $69.3m sale of Beeple's "Everydays: The First 5000 Days."
In an interview with the Financial Times, Berners-Lee, 66, said the auction was an "opportunity to look backâ...â30 years on from the initial code, which was very, very simple, to the state [of the web] now, which has some wonderfully simple aspects to it but also has a lot of issues of various sorts." Unlike the founders of Google, Facebook and Amazon, who gained enormous riches through the web, Berners-Lee is no billionaire. The source code behind the world wide web and its first browser, which were conceived and coded by Berners-Lee between 1989 and 1991, was never patented. Instead, it was released for free into the public domain by Cern, the particle physics laboratory in Switzerland where the British scientist worked at the time. The move enabled widespread uptake of a technology now used by more than 4bn people every day. But for potential archivists and collectors, it also complicated the idea of authenticating Berners-Lee's original work.
In an interview with the Financial Times, Berners-Lee, 66, said the auction was an "opportunity to look backâ...â30 years on from the initial code, which was very, very simple, to the state [of the web] now, which has some wonderfully simple aspects to it but also has a lot of issues of various sorts." Unlike the founders of Google, Facebook and Amazon, who gained enormous riches through the web, Berners-Lee is no billionaire. The source code behind the world wide web and its first browser, which were conceived and coded by Berners-Lee between 1989 and 1991, was never patented. Instead, it was released for free into the public domain by Cern, the particle physics laboratory in Switzerland where the British scientist worked at the time. The move enabled widespread uptake of a technology now used by more than 4bn people every day. But for potential archivists and collectors, it also complicated the idea of authenticating Berners-Lee's original work.
Dumb money needs dumb tools - NFT is one of them (Score:5, Insightful)
NFT is the same idea as selling lands on the moon; Beside the nonsense, this concept is just a waste of time.
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It's like the "Name a Star after Yourself" gimmick. It's not recognized by any international organization, scientific organization, or government (except as a taxable registered business!). It's just some company that publishes a fake registry that nobody buys except the people who paid to "name" a star.
The twist here is you can make an NFT on one network and it means nothing on the other network. And you can sell the same shit three times over if you really want to.
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NFT is money laundering.
Re:I don't understand NFTs. (Score:4, Interesting)
It only works if you are already famous.
For instance, Banksy can scribble on a wall and make a million bucks. If you or I scribble on a wall, it will likely decrease the wall's value.
Actually a better Banksy analogy is this: https://news.artnet.com/opinio... [artnet.com]
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An artist should have a message that he/she can express and that others can hear. Banksy is famous in part because people want to hear what he expressed in his art. The art doesn't even have to be very technical for that to work.
Has anyone tried to sell their soul as an NFT? (Score:2)
It's past time Foustian Bargains were disrupted by blockchain.
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Yes, I tried (seriously; see my Twitter feed).
Top bid was $25.
I'm going to hold our for more.
I got my copy for free (Score:3)
Why on earth would anyone pay for it?
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I wonder if the buyer can claim copyright ownership of the work sold by Berners-Lee? Can the NFT be interpreted as a transfer of rights by, say, a judge, in the context of a litigation brought onwards by the buyer? And if the buyer succeeds in getting these rights transfered to him, what happens next?
I hope Berners-Lee has a good lawyer.
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Given that the copyright probably belongs to CERN, unlikely in this case.
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No, the code is public domain. The only reason that anyone would consider buying this token is to sell it [or they need a loss of offset major profit for taxes].
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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I wonder if the buyer can claim copyright ownership of the work sold by Berners-Lee?
Absolutely not.
NFT's and copyright have nothing to do with each other.
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No.
NFTs by themselves have no legal value, or any value at all for that matter.
You can probably make a license tied to the NFT if you own the rights, to give it some extra value. And that's when you need a good lawyer. I don't think Berners-Lee did that.
But now, the owner of the NFT has even less rights than the owner of an signed copy of a book by a famous writer. At least the owner of the book can decide who gets to see the book. And by the book, I mean the physical copy, the author still owns all of the
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This.
I can find all the buffer overflow vulnerabilities and poor HTML design decisions I need on StackOverflow.
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Why on earth would anyone pay for it?
This is digitally signed to prove it came from him.
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You are getting a token that says you own the original copy.
But there is no such thing as an "original copy" when it comes to digital files.
TBL would have made numerous copies (probably thousands)
as he developed the software. He has simply designated one copy as
the "official" one and connected it with an NFT.
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This has to be one of the most idiotic things I've seen in a long time. You can not have a original digital copy of anything. Unless he wrote the code in one sitting without any bugs, and didn't require him to re-edited it, and is selling the original media it was stored on.
Anything else, and you are just selling a copy of the original work, and not the original work.
why? (Score:3)
are we supposed to care? just more NFT bullshit
Fools and their money (Score:5, Interesting)
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This has to be some kind of warning sign, right? When the investing class invests in total batshit, instead of in businesses, it cannot be a good thing. When they have all the money, it means none of the rest of us do. And while some people are enjoying relatively small infusions of cash from the wealthy world, mostly they are going to be trading these things amongst themselves and their currency won't be employing anyone when they do.
Under this damned-near-pure-capitalism system, we NEED investors to inves
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When the investing class invests in total batshit,
They have been doing this forever.
It's called "money laundering".
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It'll be a transferal of funds from someone with more money than sense, to someone with a bit more sense. In that way it might not be a total waste. (I'm assuming Berners-Lee would be above the average celebrity selling an NFT, and above the average rich guy buying an NFT, but I really don't know much about him.)
Talk about a bubble (Score:2)
Bitcoin...blahblahblah...child porn..blahblahblah..young girl's virginity taken...blahblahblah
It 's pretty obvious NFT's are nothing but a scam to either launder money or to empty dumb people's wallets.
Re:Talk about a bubble (Score:4, Insightful)
"It 's pretty obvious NFT's are nothing but a scam to either launder money or to empty dumb people's wallets."
Like art and other collectibles.
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I can hold the Mona Lisa. It's tangible. It's an important cultural artifact. There's only one. It cannot be replaced.
I can make as many copies of some source code as my hard drive will allow. I can give copies to as many people as I please. There's nothing really special or unique or scarce about any given copy. I could have the man sit down at my keyboard and type it out himself, but it's still just bits on a hard drive.
NFTs are brilliant. Almost zero effort and cost to produce and yet idiots will pay vas
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"Art is the proper task of life" -- Friedrich Nietzsche.
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“We are here on Earth to fart around, and don't let anybody tell you any different.” –Kurt Vonnegut
Benefit (Score:2)
Almost holidays...
For what? (Score:2)
To launder a million bucks for some crufty Objective-C and Interface Builder nibs
that someone can maybe build or run in a hobbled emulator, but not repurpose for anything worthwhile?
If he needs money for a worthwhile cause, just raise the money without encouraging grift.
Hello World (Score:1)
Reboot? (Score:2)
post it here (Score:2)
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Post the code here, so I can make my own copy (for free)
Here you go. [github.com]
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Super. I just downloaded a zip of the repo. Now I have my own copy, and I did not have to pay for a NFT!!!! LOL
The NFTIAA will be breaking your door down shortly.
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testing the waters (Score:3)
so long and thanks for all the fish (Score:2)
First web server ran on NeXT Computer (Score:1)
As least you get a card with Pokemon (Score:2)
Any real money involved? (Score:2)
CERN and MIT might object. (Score:3)
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I'm glad... (Score:2)
...they finally found the business model for making money out of open source software :-P
NFTis fool's gold (Score:1)
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