Artists Share Their Frustration Over Stolen Artwork Becoming NFTs
NFTs are the newest tech fad that’s grabbing the internet by the throat - they seem unpopular but they’re selling like hotcakes, raking in thousands for those at the top of the pyramid scheme. They’re essentially receipts to say you really own something, often jpegs and gifs, but gaming has decided to join in and further muddy the waters with cosmetics. The idea is that you can buy a skin for your M16 in Call of Duty: Warzone and waltz over to Animal Crossing: New Horizons and hold up Nook’s Cranny with that same skin. You can’t. You never will. It’s ludicrous.
They’re silly, environmentally disastrous, and are making the infamous chip shortage even worse - can’t get your hands on a PS5? Between scalpers, supply issues, and crypto bros buying up a server room full of graphics cards, it’s not surprising. But NFTs started as something meant to prop up artists. They were meant to give them a new means to sell their work and prove ownership. However, as WendiBones explains, NFTs are failing at even that.
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“[NFTs are] another way to steal artists’ work and monetise them without there being control over the actual copyright,” WendiBones tells me. “NFTs are not helpful for artists and it was probably a broker who said they were. Not all artists are good at monetising their work but with NFTs, artists think everything is easier. It’s not. It’s an illusion. It’s a chasm that opens up management costs for both the artists who sell the work and for collectors. I’m not an economics expert but since a lot of the work is stolen, I believe this mechanism will hurt artists and enrich thieves. It’s the last frontier of undeclared work and the consequences will be irreparable.”
Stolen
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