Several prominent gaming Youtubers have had their likenesses stolen and minted as NFTs.
As reported by Eurogamer, the stolen images, which popped up on OpenSea, an online auction site which deals in all things non-fungible, include James Stephanie Sterling, Alanah Pearce and Jim Caddick.
Of course none, of these hard-working folk are happy with the situation and they’ve all taken to Twitter to deride the work of OpenSea user StakeTheWeb, work that includes an image ripped from their YouTube channels alongside an URL which takes you straight to said channel. It’s very strange what some people are prepared to pay money for.
Commander Stephanie Sterling was, quite rightly, furious about the situation, saying that the NFT market was “disrespectful”, the work of “scum”, and that they felt violated by the situation. Sony Santa Monica’s Alanah Pearce has had her image inserted into adult website-related NFT, which is just…yeah.
Speaking to TheGamer, OpenSea released the following 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.”
Thankfully, at the time of writing, Alanah Pearce has had her images removed from the site, although Sterling and Caddick‘s are still available for purchase. Let’s hope OpenSea gets itself together and puts a stop to this blatant image and artwork theft ASAP.
Further reading:
.
