Nonfungible tokens or NFTs are all the rage in the creator community. Unfortunately, artists are struggling with piracy as criminals use their work to create NFTs without their permission.
NFT Artists Struggling with Piracy Issues
The piracy issue of NFTs is a big problem for artists that have their content online. This is because anyone can take content that is online and create an NFT out of it. And the artist might never know an NFT was created from their work, especially if they don’t know about NFTs.
DeviantArt, one of the biggest digital art platforms in the world, has started protecting the content of the artist on its platform. As of January 4, 2022, it has sent 80,000 NFT infringement alerts. The DeviantArt Protect tool was created by the company in-house to detect potential NFT infringement by using state-of-the-art image recognition software. The tool scans public blockchains and third-party marketplaces for potential art infringements in the form of minted NFTs.
But the problem will persist as long as the sites that sell the NFTs don’t implement a more stringent policy for verifying the work. As reported on HYPERALLERGIC, Liam Sharp, an artist for DC Comics, said he was considering shutting down his DeviantArt page because so much of his work was stolen. Thankfully, as of January 13, 2022, his page is up, and it still has his incredible work on there.
On the same piece, HYPERALLERGIC also reported on how RJ Palmer and Loish had their work stolen and minted NFTs out of them on OpenSea. OpenSea is the largest NFT market in the world with more than 80 million NFTs for sale.
In the last 24 hours I have had to report 29 instances of my art getting stolen as NFTs. I am so very tired of this and it seems to be getting worse. Every artist I know is getting their work jacked and its just not fair or right. What can we even do, it feels hopeless.
— RJ Palmer (@arvalis) December 9, 2021
William Shatner of Star Trek fame also tweeted the same concern regarding his work.
So @Jack & @TwitterSafety @TwitterSupport I am very concerned about these @tokenizedtweets stealing content, images I upload and my tweets which are all under my copyright being tokenized and sold without permission. Authors, actors, models photographers, etc..should be concerned
— William Shatner (@WilliamShatner) March 7, 2021
If as an artist you are looking how to make an NFT or how to make money with an NFT, there are many resources available to you. But you must keep an eye on your work because there are criminals who will steal your work.
Ethereum and Solana NFTs on One Place for Free
Australian artist and programmer Geoffrey Huntley created a torrent website called The NFT Bay. This is a play on words on the hugely popular torrent site Pirate Bay. Using the Pirate Bay model, Huntley made around 17 terabytes of NFTs available for download. These are Ethereum and Solana NFTs.
According to Huntley NFT images are not stored in the blockchain contract. And this allows anyone to right-click the image and save-as and you can download the image. Although people that don’t own the NFT say they also own the image by downloading it, the reality is they don’t. Why, because they can’t sell that image as the original NFT.
This is tantamount to right-clicking an image of the Mona Lisa, downloading it, and claiming you own the Mona Lisa. An NFT is provably unique and non-interchangeable, just like the Mona Lisa hanging in the Louvre.
Granted these images can be lost or stolen through hacking, but the same goes for physical art. As an NFT owner, you have to protect your property. This includes using secure passwords and even storing your NFT on hard wallets
Huntley says, “As web 2.0 web hosts are known to go offline (404 errors), this handy torrent contains all of the NFTs so that future generations can study this generation’s tulip mania.”
This is far from a tulip mania because it is a tool that finally gives artists agency over their work. Not only that but they can make a commission perpetually every time the NFT is sold depending on how they set it up.
An NFT JPG has a single built-in certificate of authenticity that can’t be duplicated. And this will make NFTs a great asset for people that invest in them.
Image: Depositphotos
This article, “NFT Artists Struggling with Piracy Issues” was first published on Small Business Trends