Meme Ownership and the Rise of NFTs: How Know Your Meme is Tackling Authenticity
Summary
In this article, we explore the challenges of meme ownership in the age of NFTs and how Know Your Meme is using technology and community relationships to authenticate the true owner of a meme. We also discuss recent incidents of NFT fraud and how the Know Your Meme team helped identify and remove impostors.
Table of Contents
- The Challenge of Meme Ownership
- Authenticating Meme Ownership with Know Your Meme
- The Use of Live Tracing in Adobe Illustrator
- Recent Incidents of NFT Fraud
- The Future of NFTs and Meme Culture
- Conclusion
The Challenge of Meme Ownership
Memes have become an integral part of our culture, but who owns them? This question has become even more complicated with the rise of NFTs, which allow for the auctioning off of digital assets. The challenge of meme ownership is not just a legal one, but also a cultural one. Memes are often created collaboratively and shared widely, making it difficult to determine who the original creator is.
Authenticating Meme Ownership with Know Your Meme
Know Your Meme is a website and research group that specializes in documenting internet memes and their origins. They use computer technology to trace the origins of memes and maintain close relationships with meme creators and communities to get tips and leads. They also consult fan communities to discover where memes come from. When it comes to NFTs, Know Your Meme plays a crucial role in authenticating the true owner of a meme.
The Use of Live Tracing in Adobe Illustrator
One tool that Know Your Meme uses to authenticate meme ownership is live tracing in Adobe Illustrator. This tool allows them to create vector art recreations of raster images, which can help identify the original creator of a meme.
Recent Incidents of NFT Fraud
Recently, the Know Your Meme team discovered a fake NFT of Magusta being auctioned off on the NFT Marketplace Foundatio. The original Magusta image was an illustration done by Ma, and the fake NFT had been vectorized, losing the original’s level of detail. The team was able to identify the fraud and have the auction removed. They also helped certify the authenticity of a Doge NFT auctioned off on Zor, which sold for $4 million.
The Future of NFTs and Meme Culture
Despite the challenges of meme ownership, NFTs are likely to continue to be popular, providing artists with new ways to be rewarded for their contributions to culture. Historians and anthropologists may also use memes as a way to understand the culture of our time.
Conclusion
As the popularity of NFTs continues to grow, the challenge of meme ownership will become increasingly important. Know Your Meme is playing a crucial role in authenticating the true owner of a meme and preventing fraud in the NFT marketplace. The future of NFTs and meme culture is exciting, and we can’t wait to see what new developments will emerge.