The NFTs cropped up on auction site OpenSea, including an image of the content creator and a unique URL for the cards that’s merely the YouTube channel address. The user StakeTheWeb appears to be making NFTs of influencers across social media, including gaming YouTubers James Stephanie Sterling and Caddicarus who tweeted their disapproval. “Shilling off a profile picture for a collection you can just make yourself on a Facebook photo album is honestly a new level of pathetic,” said Caddicarus. “Frankly not surprised that some freeloading leech turned my channel into an NFT,” said Sterling. “As gross as it is, I find it justifying - I did not consent to this, I do not want this, and it demonstrates everything I’ve said about how disrespectful and exploitative this market is. Scum.” Not only is this practice theft, creator and writer at Sony Santa Monica Alanah Pearce has had her image used in pornography by a different user on the platform. “In extremely predictable news I’ve just been informed that somebody has taken an image of me, that I own, added a trademarked porn logo to it, and ‘minted’ it to sell for profit as an NFT. Naturally, I was not asked for permission,” said Pearce on Twitter. “I cannot wait for the lawsuits”. An OpenSea spokesperson responded to TheGamer with a statement. “OpenSea supports an open and creative ecosystem in which people have greater freedom and ownership over digital items of all kinds. One of our operating principles is to support creators and their audiences by deterring theft and plagiarism on our platform. “To that end, it is against our policy to sell NFTs using plagiarised content, which we regularly enforce in various ways, including delisting and in some instances, banning accounts (as was the case in this instance). We are actively expanding our efforts across customer support, trust and safety, and site integrity so we can move faster to protect and empower our community and creators.” While the Alanah Pearce NFTs appear to have been taken down, the James Stephanie Sterling and Caddicarus NFTs (as well as others) remain available at the time of writing.
