Art Theft With NFTs Leads to Closure of Accounts

The NFT market has been popular this year. We have seen many pieces of art go for extremely high prices through various different marketplaces. The hype for NFTs has led many corporations to join in and make their own collections. Even South Park made an episode about the tokens. The push to get new NFTs onto the marketplace has some scrambling to find new images to use.

The artwork found in NFTs typically fits into three categories; limited edition classic artwork, collectibles that are released with a product, and generative images like Apes and CryptoPunks. While it feels like generative images have taken over, a majority of the NFTs on the marketplace fall into the artwork category. When these marketplaces first started people would take random images online and post them as their own NFT for sale. 

The main issue now is that the quality of artwork people are buying has risen dramatically, and some users have stolen other people’s work in order to make money. OpenSea and other NFT marketplaces have a place to report stolen artwork, but with the increased demand and volume of trading going on, there are major delays.

This weekend an artist named Liam ‘Sharpy’ Sharp, announced he is shutting down his Deviant Art account after 14 years of creating content. The reason for the closure was due to the art being constantly stolen and sold as NFTs.

Sharp went on to say that he always reports the thefts, but the length of time it takes to get a response – as well as the lengthy procedure he has to go through to prove he owns the artwork – was not worth continuing.

It looks like NFTs have gone full circle now. From creating technology that would prove ownership of the artwork to having artwork being stolen for NFTs. There is an obvious gap here that needs to be fixed to stop thefts like this from happening. We cannot expect every artist to create NFTs and we cannot have artwork being stolen and sold for large amounts by other people. 

Some NFT enthusiasts worry that having extra systems in place would centralize a lot of these marketplaces and increase censorship. What do you think the solution should be? Let us know!

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Written by Tudor

Works as a developer and helps keeps the digital cogs turning. Leave them alone, they're busy.

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