I agree with your stance and I'm sorry that this happened to you.

I have the same opinion.

To elaborate: NFTs are a marketplace, and in -any- marketplace there are bootleggers. You can find things on Amazon that slip through the cracks. Stolen art on Amazon isn't internet stores' fault as a concept. Neither are stolen arts on NFT sites NFTs faults. We're in the infancy of a new method of ownership, and bootleggers always target the cracks of new markets. NFT marketplaces will figure out how to stop or mitigate bootlegging and then all these sour grapes can hopefully start to get tossed in the trash where they belong.

But it really sucks that somebody is making money off of your art. They should burn in hell.

Dude, NFTs will ALWAYS be a scam. You aren't buying art, you aren't even buying the rights to the art. All you are buying is a database entry saying you bought something

Ok? I'm excited for it to revolutionize giving money to artists you appreciate. I've seen good ideas for the music industry - in a world where you can get songs for free anywhere, being able to "buy" an album from an artist gives you that sense of ownership, and gives some money to the artist. I also love the royalty system I've seen, reselling always kicks back to the artist. If you're thinking of this as two dimensionally as "you don't actually own it" - then yeah it sounds dumb. But this is a new concept and a new technology that hasn't gotten its legs yet. Complain about where it is with hopes it will transform into something great.

You can already give artists money. We don't need it to be revolutionized.

Sure, but this could be a more efficient way to do transactions in the future than something like Patreon.
More importantly than that, though, ownership by contribution is now transferred to the artwork instead of the the creator. Anybody who monetarily supports someone else feels like they have a right to at least part of that person's time. Change like this isn't needed quite yet and the benefits of crypto don't outweigh the cost, but crypto is the new innovation currently being developed. Even if there could be other ways to improve quality of life, cryptocurrencies are making the most money for investors, so they are even more supported.
A database entry you bought something doesn't mean a whole lot right now, no one expects it to, but it may mean a whole lot more in the future.
Here's a few ted talks about the possible future of crypto: https://www.ted.com/topics/cryptocurrency

The future is bright to the point of blinding. Where we go next, we can not see.

This is part of why crypto stuff is getting such a backlash from creatives: the assumption that people who do not like it, who do not think it is for the best, don't actually have any understanding of it whatsoever and would change their minds if only they did.

I'll tell you what I definitely don't understand, though: the statement "anyone who monetarily supports someone else feels like they have a right to at least part of that person's time." If you buy a commission, you bought the time it took to create it. If you are someone's patron, you are contributing to the cost of the time it took for that person to make their content. How much more time do you need? You want the rights to something, that is another cost. None of this requires new technology, it already takes place all the time.

Sorry, I actually meant nearly the exact opposite of that. Relegating the purchase of digital art to only showing that you own that product in a database makes it less likely that the person who "owns" the art will feel like they deserve a connection with the creator.

I've heard plenty of stories of new creators feeling bound to do whatever their audience wants. Patron services only help to increase that effect, while being very tempting to those same people.

Didn't expect you or anyone else already educated to change their mind at all, arguing is rarely effective at that. I only want anyone who sees their favorite creators bashing a technology to know both sides of the exchange. I didn't mean any disrespect.

Imma have to agree to everyone here whos against NFTs especially given a lot of the people your responding who are have lots of veterancy in the community and while may not fully understand the tech they do understand the means and systems that have always been here to use to support your favorite artists basically if it aint broke dont fix it. NFTs as they stand right now only act in this use case as a forced upon middle man to things that can already be done with systems that are already available and much more straight forward. I always give NFTs this definition

Nonsensically Funding Things: A thing you nonsensically fund thinking it means something when it tangibly means nothing. Because thats the problem the NFT on ownership terms doesn't Tangibly mean anything you don't own the art you quite literally only own a paper that is a non pinned crypto price to it that you can never reasonably sell for what you bought it for and in fact has been used in this case once again to steal and profit from said art without the artists or commissioners consent. It also does not help the Crypto Market just recently crashed while stock markets have before theres a lot more regulation and safe guards to prevent that from occurring where as with crypto there is no regulation and that leads to all the cases of rug pulling schemes you hear across the net. With NFTs tied to crypto that not only makes it sketchy but is just asking to get rug pulled.

As for what works Commissioning and patron work perfectly fine for all the artists here and that's usually gonna involve direct communication of some kind you couldn't ask for a better connection. The consequences you pose can occur with any payment method if the wrong kind of social exchange's or mentalities are birthed because that's not payment related that's mental/social state related that would occur during the process regardless of what payment methods are used.

It isn't "new" in any way, all it is is a database system spread out over a truly insane amount of computers

It will never not be a waste of energy and computer parts. All it is is a database system

they're essentially desktop shortcuts with a serial number attached to the text file it leads to. You know, things a computer does on it's own?

Yeah, as much as I loved the original concept of Bitcoin, the way it's been just turned into another sort of stock trading has left me really disappointed. After the 2008 financial crash that happened just as I got out of high school, my trust in banks plummeted, especially when I started to see he much debt I was getting into with college and the interest rates I was having to deal with. I had hoped with something decentralized like Bitcoin we might be able to break free. Instead the banks and wall street effectively turned Bitcoin into another part of their portfolio.

Make sure you've got that in your ToS as well, Shiro. That way if someone tries to commission you for that you can still file a takedown for violating their agreement with you.

we're gonna be tackling that over our break here. cause yeah. people...

It doesn't need to be in the ToS to file a takedown, the artist retains all copyrights in commissions. Still a good idea to put in there regardless though.

cheers, I'll drink to that.

Maybe place a second but hidden signature in your arts so when the original signature is gone. It could help prove it.

They don't remove the signature. Or, if they did, they didn't need to. It's not actually an issue of ownership. It's just pretending to own it, as a scam, so that you can sell the fake ownership.

no they did not even take the time to do that
they even acknowledged the original commissioner as having commissioned the piece.
but as you know.. acknowledgement and CONSENT are two very different things.

ah yes the good old "credit to the artist" (fuck you too whoever does this)

One of the tricky things about NFTs is that they're completely unrelated to the 'image' they supposedly represent. They didn't actually take anything from you or the commissioner to sell. You could make as many NFTs from that image as you wanted to, so they didn't even take the opportunity to make an NFT out of it if for some reason you wanted to do something like that.

It's a huge scam to trick people into thinking they own the image or something special related to the image, and they make up a bunch of crypto mumbo-jumbo to make it seem like a real business practice. Then, when so many people are in on it, it also seems more legit, but it's not. Not in the slightest. Of course, once you buy one, you can't sell it unless other people are also tricked into thinking it's legit, so people who got tricked have a vested interest in tricking other people too...

It's pretty messed up. The fact that it's using up so much power and also physical resources like semiconductors, well, that's just icing on the evil cake.

I think it would still constitute a violation of an Artist's ToS and IP rights if you're using their content without consent for monetary purposes. Even if they're not technically "Selling the image" what they are doing is using it as a way to promote the NFT, that's still illegal.

Yes. We can and have filed takedowns for use without permission that was not, as far as we could tell at least, generating profit for the reposter. Any unauthorized used can be subject to a takedown notice.
And frankly, I'd consider use as part of an NFT a commercial purpose because even if the art itself or rights to it are technically not being sold, the image is being used as part of the marketing for the token. If someone uses art you drew on packaging for another product altogether that itself does not feature the art, they must still license that use.

I mean, the ToS is irrelevant to the NFT seller, since they're not dealing with the artist. The IP rights, well, that's a complicated issue. Especially in the modern day. IP law has gotten so complex over the last couple decades...

I would think that they would be violating a contract if they violate the Terms of Sale. Which means not going after them for Copyrights, but actual contract violation. It's probably something you could do research on.

I think what they're trying to say is that someone using art for an NFT who didn't exactly commission the artist or purchase the rights isn't dealing with the ToS anyway, because that's part of the agreement or contract when a consensual transaction takes place with the creator. But the IP rights aren't complicated. The copyright belongs to the artist unless otherwise sold or agreed - commissions are not by default "work for hire" in which the rights are part of the purchase.

Which is precisely why people who want an outright abolition on IP laws really confuse me, especially when they say it helps artists, because in that case this guy can legally get away with profiting from your work and you'd not be able to protest about it to the NFT marketplace.

Current IP laws could probably use an adjustment as they've been warped into a mess by certain huge corporate interests. Personally, I would not like anything less than life of the artist (I made it, it's mine, if I want to release it into public domain earlier that is my decision).

As a remarkable fact I'm one of the people who want an outright abolition on our IP laws!

However, I also support artists like the ones in this thread and want them to be rewarded for their work.

If you want to talk about it, I could explain my perspective on that, but unless CatMonkShiro is interested in that too, we probably shouldn't have a big off-topic conversation in their journal's comment thread.

If you're interested (or anyone else!) just sent me a note and we can talk.

I was covering the "If this was commissioned" part, but yeah. Copyright would be in play. Now hypothetically: If say Relee sold a commission and assigned the Copyright over and then a third party came and used it in NFT. The ToS could say that the buyer have to go after the person.

But I agree with your assessment. I would submit a takedown to remove the violation. Also, I'd talk to a Lawyer.

Most artists tend to keep the commercial copyright with themselves so they can retain the rights to use it for self-promotion or reselling in artpacks/prints. Commissioners usually get non-commercial rights to do similar things, so as long as money isn't involved they could turn it into an NFT that never gets sold around. But given that NFTs are unregulated anyway that's a bit iffy since it's like you're jumping into a recently evolved legal blindspot.

How it was explained to me is:
- Take a piece of art and make numerous receipts.
- Sell the receipts, not the piece of art.

You literally own a "receipt" instead of the actual art being "sold". It is a scam.

Yeah, pretty much. There's also a database that says you own the "receipt" and you can transfer ownership to someone else, which is where the 'sale' of NFTs comes in. The really twisted thing is that in order to make it seem more "Real" they involve a Crypto layer, which uses a ton of computer processing power to generate, which requires a ton of electricity and actual computers that require physical resources. It's been causing a semiconductor shortage irl that's having knock-on effects in every industry.

I had it described as 'the serial numbered text file linked to from a desktop shortcut, but over the internet.'

That's pretty accurate. Honestly the whole thing is so messed up, and people are not only not treating it like a crime, but trying so hard to legitimize it. They're even taxing them, now.

Even Stan Lee wasn't immune to this: https://youtu.be/MYhJZJ-2IkQ

woooooooooooowww...

no depths too low, huh?

none. they used his twitter account. someone's reply though got me a laugh

'to whoever is posting this under his account, great power comes with great responsibility, and you failed.'

Hence why just screenshotting the damn things is a thing.

I still don't get NFTs and I don't really want to get it.

Who the hell is trying to by someone else's diaper fur art as an investment? Like, what's happened to the internet that made people so dumb?

My adorable icon is probably worth a few hundo though right? (But I don't want Strawberry Neko to beat me with a hose)

the piece in question was not abdl related at all, actually.... I DO other work you know :P
but still it was a commission featuring my work and the commissioners characters. I fail to see just HOW this person THINKS they're supporting artists by doing something like this. they're not even supporting my client for their part in it...

the whole thing is entirely self-serving. They're trying to make money off a project they had absolutely no hand in.

"I fail to see just HOW this person THINKS they're supporting artists by doing something like this"

I'd wager they don't actually think that way, and they're just lying to save face. Either that, or they're super immature, naive, etc...

"the piece in question was not abdl related at all, actually.... I DO other work you know :P"

Sorry, I didn't mean it like that I just have very selective vision when it comes to browsing FA

Mmm yes you can buy "ownership" token of a jpeg of art that doesn't have ones own characters

For what its worth, had I come across it my first instinct would be you didn't approve this.

NFT's suck and those who support it need to rethink severly...

glad you spoke about this

Glad to see another person speaking out against NFTs. So sorry that happened to you... :c

It's a shame that happened to you, dude.

I mean I have no idea what an NFT is, but it's a bummer your work was misused.

Imagine you have a box you can, supposedly, place an ownership contract into and once it's in there you can be 100% certain it has not been changed and that that contract says "the person who owns the box owns such and such a piece of art." You then use the box to interact with a marketplace where all the transactions are vetted based on either:

1 - The number of boxes the vetters own.
or
2 - How many extremely difficult crossword puzzles the vetters have solved lately.

The more I keep hearing about these things, the more I feel that they are a scam.

These “things” in my opinion are pointless.

Damn I’m sorry to hear this, unfortunately I hear lots of artists going through this same problem and it really sucks. This whole NFT craze has to be some kind of scheme and I loathe it to my core.

My two cents is that the recent influx of misusing art is people from the NFT community trying to cause outrage and stir up a community that is an easy target in their eyes.

In this case, an NFT is a token associated with an art piece. By causing outrage the tokens can gain value, eg. "This is the NFT furries got mad over."

"Don't feed the trolls", as they say. They can legally form a community around buying and selling digital notes with urls on them.

If they claim the artist had any involvement, then it becomes fraud if they did not. All an artist can do is affirm they haven't and discourage it.

Copyright is involved if they try to say they drew it, or if they create copyright-ingringing art (which is a separate issue, but associated by the intent to cause furry outrage) such as the pepe collage guy.

This is not true. You don't have to claim to have created something for it to be a copyright violation. Any unauthorized use can be subject to a takedown. "Credit to the artist" or other excuses do not save you from takedown notices.

Correct, the issue with NFTs is that the token itself is essentially a unique link.

What it links to can be an infringing use of the work, but there is not precedent for the token itself being a use.

You can request the link taken down, but if in theory the NFT links to the FA page, or it is secret what the link goes to specifically, there is not precedence for the token itself being a "creative use" under copyright law

In Shiro's case, his image is hosted without authorization on the platform hosting the NFT. That's enough. And that's the case with many of these NFTs - OpenSea has no right to host any work not either posted by or authorized by its creator.

Indeed, effectively users are collecting art into OpenSea's gallery then creating tokens for each.

The gallery could be hit with DMCAs by any artists involved. The catch is the NFTs perceived value also comes from what they used to link to and any drama that use stirred up.

You could go after the copyright of the NFT as a derivative work potentially, and take down any links you can find under DMCA, but the thing they are trading can still be traded and the attention makes it more valuable

I mean if people want to buy a stupid link that -had- a picture on it, we can't stop what happens after the image is rightfully removed. But it's really stupid, and it has no actual value or merit.

Agreed, the issue is the community seems to aim for that. The NFT part is what is confusing and problematic, but the art is the thing that "exists". Hence my comment of 'don't feed the trolls', NFTs are best ignored by both artist and potential buyers

I find "don't feed the trolls" sometimes works just as well as "ignore the bully." People take ignoring them as silent consent to their behavior.

By "Don't feed the trolls", I mean more of "React, but don't give them the desired reaction", less people will mint furry-art NFTs if they get quietly taken down and furries/furry-supporters aren't in the market.

This is end game capitalism, where people are twisting the very idea of ownership I side out to extract a few more dollars as the world burns. The current system is exploding in slow motion and its going to take everyone putting their collective foot down on practices like this so that we can brace ourselves for the end.

Reform is impossible.
Revolution is inevitable.

I am so out of the loop. I don't even know what an NFT is. I hope you can get this cleared up. It's stealing plain and simple.

Dominus tecum

It stands for 'non fungible token'. Technically it's basically saying that this specific digital asset is unique like a painting and whoever owns the code or whatever owns the item. People for some reason are paying large amounts of money for these things, even though it technically is not 'real' and the code can be stolen and then there is no legal recourse (that I know of).

To me it seems like a bunch of WTF but I dunno. I can understand buying ebooks or downloading video games, but NFT's? WTF. Supposedly things like bitcoin or whatnot are supposed to be safe because the ledger is stored on multiple servers around the world, but there is that guy who lost his password and now cannot access the millions he had in bitcoin. Literal millions, all gone. Because he lost his password.

Ouch, that sucks. Yeah, if you want to own something, get a physical copy. All the electronic stuff depends on... the infrastructure of silicon and electricity, and the interest of the hardware/software developers to support older file types.

Dominus tecum

Generally I agree, and I just don't see the sense of NFT's. Though I do like being able to download games and e-books. :)

Naturally it's nice to have those electronic copies, but I still prefer having the physical copy that backs it up. I buy CDs and make my own mp3s from them.

Dominus tecum

Same.

I just don't see the sense in them at all. I'm behind you 100%.

It just.... I dunno. Digital collectibles are just.... I dunno.

While I may not be a artist myself, the fact I am working on a project that will be for artists. NFT's are really just a whole new low for humanity and will not be supported at all on our project. Artists have been hurt enough and it's time to put a end to it.

Couldn't agree with you more! NFTs are garbage cryptoschemes/ blatant scams, and no one can sway me away from that fact.