The Associated Press will sell its photography as NFTs

[Shawn Knight]

What just happened? Add the Associated Press to the growing list of companies looking to cash in on the non-fungible token (NFT) craze. The news agency has announced plans to launch an NFT photography marketplace on January 31. The initial collection will feature photos from current and former AP photojournalists complete with original metadata detailing the time, date, location, equipment and settings used to capture the image.

Pulitzer Prize-winning images will also be available to purchase as rare drops that take place once every two weeks. These photos will have increased scarcity to preserve their status and may be limited to the market’s most active collectors, we’re told.

The news agency is partnering with Xooa on the project. The NFTs will be minted on the Polygon blockchain, an Ethereum-compatible layer two platform founded in 2017. AP digital collectibles will support secondary market transactions and will be purchasable using credit cards as well as crypto.

Matic, the native cryptocurrency of the Polygon network, is up nearly 13 percent on the news.

The AP said price points will vary in order to appeal to a range of novice and advanced collectors, adding that as a non-profit, proceeds will go towards funding AP journalism.

The Associated Press isn’t the only news organization to hop aboard the NFT bandwagon. Quartz last year sold its first NFT news article for $1,800, and The New York Times sold its first-ever NFT article for 350 Ethereum, or nearly $1.1 million given current exchange rates. Proceeds from the NYT’s sale went to the Neediest Cases Fund.

Image credit: JPizarro

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/92947-associated-press-sell-photography-nfts.html

 

[Rock Dirty]

Is the person who "invented" NFT's subject to the death penalty?

Because if not, they should be.

 

[Aceseven]

How is something that you can screenshot worth that money?

I still dont understand nft's.

probably never will.

 

[Crazy4Ciri]

How is something that you can screenshot worth that money?

I still dont understand nft's.

probably never will.

Because the quality of the screenshot is degraded?

 

[QuantumPhysics]

I can create NFT with the COPY/ PASTE button

 

[Dimitriid]

Is the person who "invented" NFT's subject to the death penalty?

Because if not, they should be.

I would encourage you to think not of who invented NFTs but the material conditions that enable this late capitalist environment of maximum exploitation and wealth accumulation instead as the real cause of such heinous inventions like NFTs

After that you're more than welcome to maintain your "Death Penalty is warranted" line of thought for those responsible for perpetuating all of this of course.

 

[psycros]

The only digital goods worth owning are ones that other people can't replicate but which you can trade. That narrows it down to...none.

 

[Mister_K]

Problem with NFTs is they don't utilise blockchain. This means that if a third-party website such as opensea goes down for whatever reason, you-are-f*kt. With crypto the only dangers are manipulation via whales or simply no one wanting to trade in currency X (or Government interventions). But if you are not relying on Coinbase/Binance etc to handle your wallets, then if they go down, you are still safe. This is not the case with NFTs.

Or am I wrong?

 

[p51d007]

80's...
Why did you buy a minivan?
Because everyone is buying them.
2000's...
Why did you buy an SUV?
Because everyone is buying them.
2020's...
Why did you buy an NFT?
Because everyone is buying them.

Sheep...follow the herd mentality.

When I bought my 5th Mustang in 40 years, someone asked me why I didn't get an
SUV. I said because I wanted another Mustang.

 

[MyIOnU]

NFT is another big scam thing created for people that have too much money and do not know what to do with them.

 

[Lew Zealand]

Q: Do NFTs make other people's money flow through the economy so my money doesn't have to?

A: Yes. Therefore I like NFTs. More NFTs for everyone! Just not me.

 

[MyIOnU]

 

[Uncle Al]

And soon games will require NFT capable monitors? Will games generate images as NFT's? Do I really care .......

 

[amghwk]

This world has gone crazy.

 

[wizardB]

Is the person who "invented" NFT's subject to the death penalty?

Because if not, they should be.

NFT's prove that PT Barnum was correct.

 

[VabaX]

How is something that you can screenshot worth that money?

I still dont understand nft's.

probably never will.

You can't screenshot the provenance. That's what an NFT actually is - provenance for digital assets.

The reason why (prior to NFT's) digital asset rights management has always been a huge issue is because, as you say, you can simply copy and duplicate something into infinity, and there is no way to tell which is the original. Fundamentally, that is an issue of provenance, being that there's no way to tell where a digital item/asset came from, if it's just a screenshotted version, etc.

But with ownership of an asset being attached to the blockchain, that original item (the 'genuine' photo, if you will) has an irrefutable record of its ownership ingrained into it by way of the NFT. The blockchain provides further benefits by making it impossible to copy/duplicate this record, and therefore makes it possible to on-sell to a new buyer, who can rest assured that because of the blockchain he's not getting duped into buying a duplicate. He's buying that provenance.

The inescapable irony of the kicking and screaming that 'tech enthusiasts' and gamers on this website and other popular forums beginning with the letter 'R' is that if every digital item such as iTunes songs, movies, or copies of games, etc, were sold attached to the blockchain it would actually enable the creation of second-hand markets. You could literally on-sell your digital copy of a game second-hand to someone else after you're done playing it, just like you used to do with the CD's or cartridges of yester-year. Eg, a publisher could sell 20,000 copies of a game, each attached to the blockchain, (obviously requiring some sort of DRM to only allow the person who's wallet address is recorded as the current owner to play it, but that'd be pretty trivial and could easily be done with local private keys, and could be automated to be re-keyed each time it's sold, not even requiring internet access thereafter to play. There you go, a system that allows publishers to have fool-proof DRM AND ALSO get rid of online requirements for games that shouldnt need it, and yet you all hate the idea), and only the current owners (per the blockchain) would have the ability to run the game, yet could sell it on the second-hand market without any risk to the publisher of having a million people download illegal copies.

nb: whether or not publishers would be amendable to the idea of enabling a second-hand market for their games is irrelevant to the discussion of if the technology can do it. Don't forget that the sellers of NFT's usually receive a % cut of secondary sales in perpetuity, like a commission, so publishers could still be set up to make money from people selling a game on the secondary market and therefore provide some incentive for the concept.

 

[Fearghast]

Is the person who "invented" NFT's subject to the death penalty?

Because if not, they should be.

IMHO NFT's do not make a lot of sense in this day and age, but where we are heading digitally, in the future, they might be.
It might even become the only "ownership" you will ever have. Not now, that's for sure, but if everything becomes a service, not owning cars for example ... does not sound all that crazy.

 

[Aceseven]

You can't screenshot the provenance. That's what an NFT actually is - provenance for digital assets.

The reason why (prior to NFT's) digital asset rights management has always been a huge issue is because, as you say, you can simply copy and duplicate something into infinity, and there is no way to tell which is the original. Fundamentally, that is an issue of provenance, being that there's no way to tell where a digital item/asset came from, if it's just a screenshotted version, etc.

But with ownership of an asset being attached to the blockchain, that original item (the 'genuine' photo, if you will) has an irrefutable record of its ownership ingrained into it by way of the NFT. The blockchain provides further benefits by making it impossible to copy/duplicate this record, and therefore makes it possible to on-sell to a new buyer, who can rest assured that because of the blockchain he's not getting duped into buying a duplicate. He's buying that provenance.

The inescapable irony of the kicking and screaming that 'tech enthusiasts' and gamers on this website and other popular forums beginning with the letter 'R' is that if every digital item such as iTunes songs, movies, or copies of games, etc, were sold attached to the blockchain it would actually enable the creation of second-hand markets. You could literally on-sell your digital copy of a game second-hand to someone else after you're done playing it, just like you used to do with the CD's or cartridges of yester-year. Eg, a publisher could sell 20,000 copies of a game, each attached to the blockchain, (obviously requiring some sort of DRM to only allow the person who's wallet address is recorded as the current owner to play it, but that'd be pretty trivial and could easily be done with local private keys, and could be automated to be re-keyed each time it's sold, not even requiring internet access thereafter to play. There you go, a system that allows publishers to have fool-proof DRM AND ALSO get rid of online requirements for games that shouldnt need it, and yet you all hate the idea), and only the current owners (per the blockchain) would have the ability to run the game, yet could sell it on the second-hand market without any risk to the publisher of having a million people download illegal copies.

nb: whether or not publishers would be amendable to the idea of enabling a second-hand market for their games is irrelevant to the discussion of if the technology can do it. Don't forget that the sellers of NFT's usually receive a % cut of secondary sales in perpetuity, like a commission, so publishers could still be set up to make money from people selling a game on the secondary market and therefore provide some incentive for the concept.

I still dont see the point after that whole explanation.

for these photos, someone took the original picture correct? turned that into a digital copy, now someone buys that and its claimed as "theirs"

but doesnt the original picture still exist on a roll of film or sd card somewhere?

in the end these people still buy copies for an insane amount of money, this just seems like an extremely convoluted and expensive way to buy digital things like we already have been.


I see the benefits you mentioned but I also look at how most things get handled and dont see it working out like that, the whole system just seems very suspect, even more so when these tech companies are chomping at the bit to make it stick.

NFT's, so this is the stop where I realize I'm old.