It was never a solved problem, it was an addressed problem. And the method of address poorly allocated credit.
Maintaining records for art transactions, and thus enacting a fee structure that would benefit the artist when art is traded, traditionally meant introducing a middleman - and the associated overheads are why "fine arts" are known as a gatekept world and commissions have become the default for digital art. A sneer like "yeah well did you commission art before NFTs" is tautological. Commissions are the business model because they're available with minimal financial technology, not because they're ideal for society. The result you want is "more art is produced and more artists can afford to produce at a high level". But not everyone is interested in commissioning a large quantity of art of their furry OC getting porked. And likewise, people have trouble commissioning an artist to work freely without adding some kind of externalized upside like "build my own personal brand". There's a saturation point to that business model in and of itself.
It's only been relatively recently that artists also started to be able to access intellectual property law as a business model, but running an IP business involves a perpetual defense of property through legal enforcements, since we are in the age of mechanical reproduction. So it also has barriers to entry and ongoing overheads. I don't hear anyone saying that game developers should all work on commission, though.
The proposition of NFT art is just a revision of the gallery system - make intellectual work an asset, but on a much broader scale. The fee structure is automated, and the art itself is open to viewing and therefore doesn't need the same degree of IP enforcement as a paywall model; the only provenance question is the initial one of whether you actually minted your own work. And naturally, among the first people to have jumped on this are charlatans who have tested that exact question of initial provenance.
But I can say, having closely observed and participated a little, that NFT art on the whole is not uniquely bad or good, it's still "just" an art market, just one geared towards the artist who is interested in making their brand a speculative investment. And that is another way to get art made.
Assuming blockchain (and OpenSea atop that) count as "no middleman, no overhead" and not a new middleman (but it's a good one, because Andreessen Horowitz will make bank if it succeeds) atop technology that requires more energy consumption than small countries, it still isn't some magical wand that creates more people that spend disposable income on art.
Commissioning art is one of _many_ ways you can do this. Non-commissioned works are readily available too! I also purchase those! Some of these are one of a limited set (common for photo prints), some of these aren't (Bandcamp albums). Point being, if you were someone who wanted to buy art before NFTs, you could do so. I'm skeptical of there being some large market segment that desperately wanted to buy art but only realized they could with the advent of NFTs.
The royalty business model also already existed, where it made sense. There's no contract governing me reselling the painting I bought from someone at the local farmer's market because there wasn't any expectation on either my or the artist's part that it'd be resold at all, much less for a sum vastly greater than its purchase price. It's going to hang on my wall until I die, at which point it'll likely get tossed in a bin.
That's in contrast to say, a film score, where the expectation is that it will be resold (as part of your theater ticket price, but whatever) many times over: ASCAP exists, and handles paying the IP lawyers on behalf of its members, because that's a business model that works for them. They've been managing this just fine for over a century.
> atop technology that requires more energy consumption than small countries.
Look, this argument is a narrow one against PoW chains. You can point out correctly that a large share of the market/money is on those, and maybe Ethereum will or will not switch at some point, but it remains an argument against PoW nonetheless. Go support artists selling NFTs on Tezos then.
> This is a solved problem: you pay them for their work, which is how artists have made money since time immemorial. The degree to which artists can make a living off their art is a function of demand and discoverability, not whether they have a payment system (they do need this, but they already have them).
Some digital art cannot be printed (i.e. videos). "Paint my portrait"-style commissions are undesirable for many artists. "Here is some money create whatever" style commissions run into the same problem that for digital art, in that it is not clear what the buyer actually gets. People are commissioning NFT artists! It's all good.
The attitude of "buyers don't need NFTs they can support artists another way" is strangely inverted. If you can convince more people to spend money on art in other ways, that's great. Meanwhile, /artists/ need to find a way to earn a living.
How many new art buyers will NFTs bring when the speculative dust settles? How much will artists need to adapt to cater to that audience (i.e. creating PFP style collections?). We do know that the number is > 0.
Maintaining records for art transactions, and thus enacting a fee structure that would benefit the artist when art is traded, traditionally meant introducing a middleman - and the associated overheads are why "fine arts" are known as a gatekept world and commissions have become the default for digital art. A sneer like "yeah well did you commission art before NFTs" is tautological. Commissions are the business model because they're available with minimal financial technology, not because they're ideal for society. The result you want is "more art is produced and more artists can afford to produce at a high level". But not everyone is interested in commissioning a large quantity of art of their furry OC getting porked. And likewise, people have trouble commissioning an artist to work freely without adding some kind of externalized upside like "build my own personal brand". There's a saturation point to that business model in and of itself.
It's only been relatively recently that artists also started to be able to access intellectual property law as a business model, but running an IP business involves a perpetual defense of property through legal enforcements, since we are in the age of mechanical reproduction. So it also has barriers to entry and ongoing overheads. I don't hear anyone saying that game developers should all work on commission, though.
The proposition of NFT art is just a revision of the gallery system - make intellectual work an asset, but on a much broader scale. The fee structure is automated, and the art itself is open to viewing and therefore doesn't need the same degree of IP enforcement as a paywall model; the only provenance question is the initial one of whether you actually minted your own work. And naturally, among the first people to have jumped on this are charlatans who have tested that exact question of initial provenance.
But I can say, having closely observed and participated a little, that NFT art on the whole is not uniquely bad or good, it's still "just" an art market, just one geared towards the artist who is interested in making their brand a speculative investment. And that is another way to get art made.