'Historic one-off sale': Tim Berners-Lee to auction original source code for WWW as NFT

British computer scientist and inventor Tim Berners-Lee is selling off the original code for the world wide web as a non-fungible token (NFT). According to a press note, the auction for the world wide web NFT - titled ‘This Changed Everything’ - will be run by Sotheby’s in London from June 23-30. The bidding will be starting at $1,000 and the proceeds of the auction will benefit initiatives that Berners-Lee and his wife support. 

It is worth mentioning that NFTs are a form of unique ownership for digital-only items and do not necessarily include copyright control. Sotheby’s is auctioning off a collection of four different items as a single digital NFT. They include original time-stamped files containing the source code written by Berners-Lee, animated visualization of the code, a letter written by Berners-Lee on the code and its creation, and a digital “poster” of the full code created by him.

In all, the files represent nearly 10,000 lines of written code. It will be the first time that Berners-Lee will be able to capitalize financially on what is widely viewed as one of the greatest inventions of our time. He has never sought to make money directly from his creation and the web remains an open standard. Cern, the research organisation Berners-Lee worked for at the time, relinquished all its rights to the technology and put it in the open domain in 1993. 

‘Only signed copy of the code’ 

According to the press note, Berners-Lee said, “Three decades ago, I created something which, with the subsequent help of a huge number of collaborators across the world, has been a powerful tool for humanity. For me, the best bit about the web has been the spirit of collaboration. While I do not make predictions about the future, I sincerely hope its use, knowledge and potential will remain open and available to us all to continue to innovate, create and initiate the next technological transformation, that we cannot yet imagine”. 

He added, “NFTs, be they artworks or a digital artefact like this, are the latest playful creations in this realm, and the most appropriate means of ownership that exists. They are the ideal way to package the origins behind the web”. 

The auction house, on the other hand, said that the digital auction is endorsed by its creator and "digitally signed" as authentic. They advertised the collection as the “only signed copy of the code for the first web browser in existence”. Sotheby’s also maintained that the carbon footprint of this NFT is negligible" because it will pay for a carbon offset for the minting and transaction costs of the sale - through the blockchain on which the transaction lives has immense day-to-day running costs.

(Image: Twitter)