Not necessarily. The NFT isn’t embedded in the image steganographically, for example. There’s nothing (including the mechanism that compensates the artist a portion of future re-sales) preventing the current holder from detaching the image itself from the NFT. That action could likely be recorded in the blockchain ledger as a transaction note.
See my earlier comment:
Depends on the blockchain and currency/token, but in this case (trying to replicate the shady bonded-warehouse laundering/tax evasion art trade) most likely they’re anonymous. There is probably a record of the original creator of the token somewhere in the on-line exchange/market, but those places aren’t exactly known for complying with a given jurisdiction’s laws.
We’re talking about stolen/copyright-infringing in this case. But the point is not that artists shouldn’t make money from their work, the point is that (per my earlier quote above) obsessive collectors care very little about the pieces of art (or baseball cards or Hummel figurines, etc.) themselves but care very much about owning them.
You sound like someone who collects art mainly for its aesthetic pleasures, which I don’t think anyone finds distasteful. I own a couple of expensive pieces of art, but I keep them mainly because they’re pretty and well-executed and also because they invoke deep associations with my family and my personal interests. If they didn’t have those, I’d sell them to someone who’d appreciate them more.
The larger point is that, despite claims by the techies who developed NFTs, this is just another way to cut the vast majority of independent artists (i.e. ones who can’t afford to pay an IP lawyer’s fees) out of realising any real revenue from their own work. Put another way:
