Punks on Hive by Blockhead Games made a huge splash during HiveFe.st. This limited release NFT by @punksonhive is a collection of punkish looking avatars. The release was limited to 10,000 avatars.
Punks charged 20 HIVE to mint an avatar during the festival.
They sold out. Since this was a limited release, the only way to get an avatar is to buy one through the market. Many people are listing their punks for sale at extremely high prices. I suspect that they are doing this just to have their punk in the market gallery.
The Market Hitory page shows which punks are for sale and the asking price.
I managed to cajole myself into owning a punk named "Abner Castillo" which has ID 8194. I will detail the history of the transaction below. Here is the irivers punk gallery . I decided to use it as the avatar; so it is not for sale.
Does One Have the Rights To Republish NFTs?
After acquiring the punk, the PunksOnHive page added a button to set the punk as my avatar ... which I did.
Because the button existed, I assume I have the rights to do this.
Setting the punk as an avatar brings up all sorts of copyright issues. Avatars tend to be republished all over the place. For example, someone publishing a post about an online meeting might copy and paste the avatars in the minutes of the meeting.
IMHO, I like the unrestricted ability to copy avatars. However, since avatars serve as an identity mark. I believe that they require a certain amount of protection. Miscreants can copy avatars and pose as people ... which isn't good.
BTW: Some microstock contracts will not let you use their images for avatars with their standard contract.
Unfortunately, I could not find a page on punks site detailing the copyright restriction.
I paid 20 HIVE to mint the punk. I assume the payment gives rights to republish the image.
Microstock agreements usually place strict limits on the image usage. For example, the agreement usually gives me the right to publish the image on a post, but the agreement prohibits my ability to resell the image as microstock.
The sad truth is that every word in these standard publishing agreements have been ground for litigation. One cannot derive such rules from the aether.
I am assuming that I can republish the image for my NFT on Hive Tribes. Can I republish on outside sites? I placed the image on Internet Rivers version of the review. The review is outside the blockchain. So, is it a copyright violation?
To be audacious, the review hotlinks the url for the image.
I am like livin' on the edge ... dude ... livin' on the edge.
If I were to sell my NFT; I assume I would lose the right to use it as an avatar and to use the image on posts.
When I sell NFTs, do, I need to remove the image from past posts?
My experience with lawsuits is that people can sue for any reason. Court tends to be a crap shoot.
These questions cannot be derived from the aether. Microstock companies tend to have long contracts and legions of lawyers at the ready to defend the firm.
Here is the image, which I will use as the avatar on this account. The name of the punk is Abner Castillo.
The Provenance of Abner
A NFT is actually an encrypted token on a blockchain. The NFT often includes a hash of the NFT image. So, I thought I would report the transactions related to abner so far. The links show the details on the transaction:
@irivers is a small account and I did not have 20 free HIVE. The account @yintercept had 10 free HIVE; I tried to sell some advertising for HIVE. I was fortunate in that @reseller loaned me HIVE to mint the image. I own a coin called OMA. I trade OMA as if it were worth one bit of silver. So, I tried to repay the loan in OMA.
Reseller has a really nice punk gallery.
I suspect that the long term value of an NFT will come from a combination of the rarity of the NFT and the transaction history of the NFT. Art dealers use the term "provenance" for the history of the object.
- @punksonhive advertised that they would mint punks for 20 HIVE during HiveFe.st
- I had only 10 free HIVE. So I made a desperate appeal to sell ads for 10 HIVE.
- The account @reseller loaned yintercept money to buy the punk
- yintercept spent 20 to mint the punk
- yintercept [sent 4.2 OMA to] @reseller as a marker for the loan.
- yintercept Transferred the punk to irivers
- irivers Set punk as avatar
- I decided I should pay for the punk, so irivers sent 6.66 OMA to yintercept for the punk. Note the price of HIVE rose in relation to OMA.
- I included the punk in a review and then wrote this post
- I then wrote this review
Abner is likely to spend a long time in limbo as the avatar for this account.
Conclusion
Punks on HIVE is one of the first programs using HIVE's NFT features. It provides an important test case for issuing independent NFTs on the blockchain. IT is worth taking time to study the transactions.