An artist and programmer in Australia creates The NFT Bay, a torrent website where anyone can download 15TB of NFT JPEGs

The NFT Bay is the galaxy's most resilient NFT BitTorrent site!

VICE 2021-11-20 Matthew Gault

Context & Ripple Effects

The NFT Bay places NFT imagery in the same replication-friendly distribution model that produced hundreds of Pirate Bay copies through The Open Bay. BitTorrent had also pursued a token-based incentive layer for faster downloads, underscoring the protocol’s capacity to support both distribution and crypto-linked activity.

First-order effects

NFT creators and collectors now face a widely downloadable archive of the JPEG files associated with listed NFTs, making the files themselves less controllable as scarce digital objects.

Second-order effects

NFT marketplaces and project operators face stronger pressure to distinguish what a buyer receives from an image file that can circulate freely through a torrent network.

Third-order effects

If NFT projects continue to rely on publicly reproducible media, competition is likely to shift toward the rights, access, and provenance attached to a token rather than control of the underlying image.

The trend: NFT markets are confronting the divide between blockchain-linked ownership claims and the unrestricted copying of the digital media those claims reference.

Discussion

@geoffreyhuntley @geoffreyhuntley on x
💀OMG WHO RIGHT CLICKED ALL OF THE #NFTs?☠️ 🛳🏴‍☠ ️ https://thenftbay.org/... 🏴‍☠️ 🛳 👀 https://twitter.com/...
@geoffreyhuntley @geoffreyhuntley on x
Some stats! https://www.thenftbay.org/ just passed 1.2 million since launch. https://twitter.com/...
@deepakshenoy Deepak Shenoy on x
Nice work. Effectively all image nfts are public and what you own is not the image. You own the ‘event’ that you had at some point paid money for it while knowing it wouldnt be yours. The owner can choose to give you exclusive ownership but not necessary. https://twitter.com/...
@brokep Peter Sunde Kolmisoppi on x
Did someone make an nft of the nft bay and upload to it yet? And then pirate bay could spread it illegally and also sue the nft bay for copyright infringement, and ... There could be such a fun mess here! https://twitter.com/...
@triciawang Tricia Wang on x
I predict more educational efforts like this in crytpo space from Web 3.0 folks who are properly upset at the direction it's going due to the crytpo blockchain space. & we need it. I'm critical too but will be doing my part quietly working on social impact w/ likeminded folks htt…
@ashrust AshRust.eth on x
As an owner of NFTs who believes the market will grow, I think this is awesome. Are they going to keep the database updated? Will they expand it to other use cases, like museum collections? The project might even be a good use case for a DAO. https://twitter.com/...
@malteengeler Malte Engeler on x
“this handy torrent contains all of the NFTs so that future generations can study this generation's tulip mania and collectively go 'WTF? We destroyed our planet for THIS?!” https://www.vice.com/...
@harrymccracken Harry McCracken on x
What a heist. Condolences to the NFT owners, and hope they were insured. https://www.vice.com/...
@bramcohen Bram Cohen on x
You can get all the actual art in all the NFTs using some old technology https://twitter.com/...
@aaronmcdnz Aaron McDonald on x
Awesome to see someone stepping up and providing free backup storage for NFT content. https://twitter.com/...
@bigblackjacobin Edward Ongweso Jr on x
Don't just right-click. Seed. https://www.vice.com/...
@elitebayplays Zach on x
Well everyone my wallet hacked all my hard earned Nft collection “$100k” gone in the wind. I marked my acct as compromised and people are still purchasing my Nft from this scum not sure what I can do about this but all theese we're stolen along w my staking coins https://twitter.…
@dclblogger Matty on x
LMAO someone made an “NFT Bay” - uploaded all NFT media content and fudding NFTs saying “it's over”. The top comment - “Literally all of Etherium's value is GONE due to this site.” “Etherium” “All value gone” lol. https://twitter.com/...
@crypt0e Shaquille O'Atmeal on x
When you download the latest NFT bundle from Pirate Bay. https://twitter.com/...
@vince_van_dough VincentVanDough on x
Feeling inspired by the brilliant work of @GeoffreyHuntley I've minted my next piece. The NFT Bay is now open for bids https://foundation.app/...
@losowsky Andrew Losowsky on x
“What people dream to build with “web3” is quite amazing. The underlying technology not so much and the greed/scamming going on is sick[en]ing.” https://twitter.com/...
@anildash Anil Dash on x
This is more interesting and funnier than most criticism that's solely performative. https://twitter.com/...

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