Digital Collectibles: Ownership and Scarcity; Infinity and Ephemerality?

In this Interintellect Salon, Dominic Duffin will lead an exploration of digital collectibles, why, how and what we collect, and what collecting looks like in virtual space.

Human beings love to collect. Whether model aircraft or contemporary art, collectible cards or Swiss watches, collecting for the pleasure of owning and displaying a collection is well established in the physical world. Collecting has been a feature of the digital world since the early days of the internet, too. Badges and achievements on internet forums and multiplayer games, digital trading cards and in-game items are central to the experience of many of the places we spend time online. As online worlds become more sophisticated, digital versions of many physical collections are possible. You can collect digital goods or art and show them off in your space in a 3D virtual world. Would you collect digital versions of the things you collect in physical space, or are your collecting interests in digital space unique to digital?

It is generally taken for granted that we own our physical collections. Property rights are, after all, well established in the physical world. But in the digital world, a lot of the things we collect do not have the same established property rights. Badges and achievements on social sites and games, in-game items and other ‘digital goods’ are often simply connected to an account we have with a platform company. While we can say that these digtial collectables are ours, in reality we don’t really own them, and they can be taken away without notice. Platform operators can close our accounts, or even close down, and everything just disappears into the ether. In many cases, we can only display our digital collections within the confines of the platform, which is a bit like having a collection of Rolls-Royces but only being allowed to keep them in a Rolls-Royce showroom.

NFTs (Non-Fungible Token), a type of blockchain token where, unlike currency tokens such as Bitcoin, each token is unique, have been much-hyped lately as a solution to the ownership problem for digital goods. They can solve the problem by creating a cryptographically secured record of ownership over a digital item, effectively extending property rights into the digital domain. But is a record enough, is permanent ownership of digital goods possible and what else might be needed to complement NFT technology? Most NFTs do not store the actual digital item within the token, but rather link to it. Given that the property rights in an NFT digital item are based on cryptography as much as law, does this still leave them vulnerable to similar forces as any other digital item?

Physical collectibles also generally have automatic scarcity. Only a certain number are made, and many things we collect are limited edition or unique. Such scarcity does not necessarily apply to digital collectibles. Digital art, for example, is infinitely copyable in a way that physical art is not. A copy of a physical artwork can be materially differentiated from the original, a copy of a digital artwork is the same file. NFTs and other types of digital certificates can create scarcity of digital items, but does this have the same meaning in practice as physical scarcity?

What does it take to create a world of secure ownership of digital collectibles, and does it matter? Is there actually something valuable about a world without the certainties, scarcity and permanence of physical objects? Maybe it all depends on the purpose of collecting. Why do we collect things? Is it the sheer joy of collecting, is it to signify social status or group identity, is it a hope that we will make money if the things we collect go up in value?

Good to check out pre-salon:

Token Gesture: Tim Rivers Ryan on NFTs

In The Future Of Collecting, Is Anyone Having Fun?

Your million-dollar NFT can break tomorrow if you’re not careful

Designing Scarcity in an Infinite World

***

🗓 ii Calendar

📋 Code of Conduct

📚 Become a member, get a free ticket every month, access our forums, members-only events, and more!

–