Artist monmoncats had his design taken from RipNDip with no credit; no permission from the original artist to use their design
Worst part is, their thinking of launching their Fall Collection, including monmoncats originally design; this Thursday, and Monmoncats will be getting no credit or anything while RipNDip gets credit for something they stole.
I told Monmoncats on instagram if by chance RipNDip asked them for their permission in using their design;
Please guy’s, help spread the word, reblog to and help Monmoncats from having RipNDip use their design this Thursday. For more information please look at @Monmoncats instagram
Bless!
Current update:
Company RipNDip instagram deleted the post containing Monmoncats design-
However seems that the company just took down the post and still selling it; regardless of not receiving any permission from Monmoncats.
Image screenshot from their official website; if you zoom in closer
The still have the windbreaker in their list thus, refusing to remove it completely-
If the company has shown anything, it’s the fact that they don’t care about stealing from other small time artist, unoriginal, and plain disgusting. They will be launching the fall collection this Thursday, August 16th, 2018; along with Monmoncats without permission from the creator himself.
Artist monmoncats had his design taken from RipNDip with no credit; no permission from the original artist to use their design
Worst part is, their thinking of launching their Fall Collection, including monmoncats originally design; this Thursday, and Monmoncats will be getting no credit or anything while RipNDip gets credit for something they stole.
I told Monmoncats on instagram if by chance RipNDip asked them for their permission in using their design;
Please guy’s, help spread the word, reblog to and help Monmoncats from having RipNDip use their design this Thursday. For more information please look at @Monmoncats instagram
Bless!
Current update:
Company RipNDip instagram deleted the post containing Monmoncats design-
However seems that the company just took down the post and still selling it; regardless of not receiving any permission from Monmoncats.
Image screenshot from their official website; if you zoom in closer
The still have the windbreaker in their list thus, refusing to remove it completely-
If the company has shown anything, it’s the fact that they don’t care about stealing from other small time artist, unoriginal, and plain disgusting. They will be launching the fall collection this Thursday, August 16th, 2018; along with Monmoncats without permission from the creator himself.
Artist monmoncats had his design taken from RipNDip with no credit; no permission from the original artist to use their design
Worst part is, their thinking of launching their Fall Collection, including monmoncats originally design; this Thursday, and Monmoncats will be getting no credit or anything while RipNDip gets credit for something they stole.
I told Monmoncats on instagram if by chance RipNDip asked them for their permission in using their design;
Please guy’s, help spread the word, reblog to and help Monmoncats from having RipNDip use their design this Thursday. For more information please look at @Monmoncats instagram
Bless!
Current update:
Company RipNDip instagram deleted the post containing Monmoncats design-
However seems that the company just took down the post and still selling it; regardless of not receiving any permission from Monmoncats.
Image screenshot from their official website; if you zoom in closer
The still have the windbreaker in their list thus, refusing to remove it completely-
If the company has shown anything, it’s the fact that they don’t care about stealing from other small time artist, unoriginal, and plain disgusting. They will be launching the fall collection this Thursday, August 16th, 2018; along with Monmoncats without permission from the creator himself.
Whoever run that profile, is posting pictures without credits. There are a bunch of fanart too, along with one of my replies for the Ask to Jin: it’s a small thing, but it’s MINE. They cropped it, so my sign isn’t visibile. And since i draw for work, it’s important that my sign is visible. Not to mention, art theft is ALWAYS BAD, even if you draw just for fun.
So take a minute to browse and if you recognize something yours or know the source, please report them.
Thanks for reading.
[[Reblog here too because this is bullshit. The pictures they stolen from my ask blog is this one: http://asktojinkazama.tumblr.com/post/94294242061 Please reblog it and check if they’ve stolen something from you or someone you know. -Mana]]
Recently a large online group posted some of my images without credit. This is what happened. I haven’t encountered this level of misogyny in a long while. Notice the ‘sweetheart’ and ‘attention seeking’ bits? Amazing. Just amazing.
Weird how kinked up people get at “calling out” artists for not being #Starving-artists, even though just because a handful of artists make a break through, it doesn’t minimize the hardships they went through to get there. The reason we point out how little artists make, is because on average, literally artists is one of those professions where you’ll experience a shitton of abuse, and lack of funds. It’s never a guarantee you’ll make it, and making it seem like the artists don’t deserve the money, or the artist is “bad” for wanting to make actual money that’ll allow you some freedom and possibility to save up, is honestly baffling.
Also, just a hunch but I feel like people love to lie about how much artists are able to earn, or will point blank ignore how the artist got to the point they’re at, or how the artist is planning for the future, because they just believe artists don’t deserve money for their work. It’s one of those typical “I don’t view it as REAL work!!” Reminds me of “Clients from Hell” where people will literally accuse the artists, and designers of being “Greedy” for asking to get paid for the work they do, or “do it for the "exposure”.
How is it even an argument to say “You talk about starving artists, but this artist isn’t starving.” Ok? Do you want this artist to be starving? Or you want this artists source of income to be ruined? You want them to work under minimum wage so they fit that exact measurement? Do you expect artists to only ask for money they need then and there, and not enough to build a safety net, or for future endeavours? Or do you just refuse to realise that “The starving artist” is more of a general view on how hard it is to make it as an artist, and that the occasional break through, doesn’t remove the fact that it’s incredibly hard to make it, and even after a break through it’s no guarantee you’ll continue riding the popularity train for long.
I honestly don’t get how this weird opinion building is used to excuse stealing artist’s work, especially when it’s individual artists, or small businesses, so that big businesses can profit from the artists work. So an artist being defended is only valid if they’re starving and straddling poverty. But the fact that big businesses and companies steal from artists is completely fine because YOU benefit from it.
Someone who being really kind just contacted me and I just realized my artwork were stolen and made prints onRedbubble shop, and I felt so angry and stressful about it.
To be clear, I created these fanart purely based on my own interest, and I do not have any issued copyrights to allow my Eldenring fanart to be repost, recreated or made into prints. I hated to see them being sold for profit especially at the time when I myself am struggling a little bit for life, but most of all, feeling betrayed for not putting my name on the artwork, so people may not feel disturbed when seeing these lovely characters.
I appreciate people who like my art, and it meant a lot to me. If someone really would like to support me, please consider commissioning me with your own ideas&Characters, this is a way where I could appreciate you back with all of my effort to make you happy, and I also enjoy hearing about people’s brilliant ideas and try to realize them, that’s the meaning of my work tbh.
Please help me spread this post, at least I would like to remind people to double check with the artist before buying any fanart products, I couldn’t be the only victim and I felt sorry for those who has experienced the same thing. I am trying me best to contact those who I have seen their art before, and I truly wish these thefts could be punished. YOU THIEVES ARE STEALING LIFE FROM THE ARTISTS.
I will consider to put my name&watermark on my work in the future, and if you are creating any fantastic works, please consider doing so. I know that some people (like me) would feel like this somehow destroys the aesthetic, but it’s the most efficient way to prevent things like this to happen.
Please also let me know if you have seen my artwork anywhere else, and I would try my best to fight them. Thank you so much again for reminding&Support me!!
So… if a person who had recently been outed as someone who traced other people’s art (for commisions, among other things) and left tumblr after she got caught now is back under a new name, once again uploading art/commissions:
Is it better to call her out on her past shit or wait until it’s possible to prove once again that she’s still tracing (something I believe but can’t prove yet)?
I wouldn’t even mind this much if she didn’t offer commissions, but having other people pay for what is essential stolen material without their knowledge is a hugely shitty thing to do and I feel like they should be warned about it?
SHE WHO SLEEPS BENEATH THE WAVES IN WAIT AND WANT ; WHO OOZES ELEGANCE AND CARES NOT FOR THE WOES OF MEN ; FOR I AM YOUR WILLING MARTYR AND I WILL BRING BACK WHAT BELONGS TO US.
SHE WHO SLEEPS BENEATH THE WAVES IN WAIT AND WANT ; WHO OOZES ELEGANCE AND CARES NOT FOR THE WOES OF MEN ; FOR I AM YOUR WILLING MARTYR AND I WILL BRING BACK WHAT BELONGS TO US.
SHE WHO SLEEPS BENEATH THE WAVES IN WAIT AND WANT ; WHO OOZES ELEGANCE AND CARES NOT FOR THE WOES OF MEN ; FOR I AM YOUR WILLING MARTYR AND I WILL BRING BACK WHAT BELONGS TO US.
did you just snatch this off pinterest and not even try? a 0.3 second google image search found the op. CREDIT TO ABCDREAMER@abcdreamer-art
hate people reposting art. you’re not helping the original creator one bit and you’re stealing their thunder. can’t even bloody @ them. your whole blog is like this. you should be ashamed
@neoqueenserenitysworld You follow me and like my posts quite a lot, so I just have to speak up and say that this sort of behavior really isn’t cool. Saying “credit to the artist” (Who? Which artist?) is absolutely not a substitute for giving the artist proper credit by naming them/linking their page.
Art theft and reposting is absolutely rampant online and it discourages many artists from sharing their work. You should always, always do the bare minimum by crediting the artist and letting people know where they can find more of the artist’s work.
It’s pretty simple to track down the source of artwork that has been reposted without credit on places like Pinterest. You just have to do a reverse Google image search or use TinEye. The original result is typically on the first page and on a website known to host artwork (like DeviantArt, Twitter, etc). Also, oftentimes artists will also put a watermark on their artwork (specifically because artwork is stolen so frequently) so you can search for their handle name as well.
And if you can’t find the original artwork source despite your best efforts? Don’t post it. No credit means no posting. Also, if the artist has already posted their art on Tumblr (as in the case here), just reblog their post instead of reblogging. And if you find out the artist has note on their bio saying “no reposting allowed,” respect their wishes and don’t repost on other sites even with credit.
Like@titimylove said, your entire blog is full of uncredited reposted art. It’s very bad etiquette and just disrespectful to the artists who work so hard to make art for all of us to enjoy. I really hope you take my words to heart and be better from now on.
There’s an instagram “business” whose entire practice seems to be basically taking images off google, painting it on a T shirt, and selling it as theirs. They posted a copy of my art and blocked me & anyone who confronted them (and was reportedly very immature and rude in their message) so… beware and do not buy from them. The account names are wolfenfox and shop_luxblk run by the same person.
Also, if anyone has experience making a DMCA report on plagiarized work like this, I would love to hear from you.
Making some little shark stickers to sell at the Dartmouth Comic Arts Festival (DCAF) this coming weekend! I’m not ready, but these little guys will keep me company, even if I have nothing else to sell.
Sharks are so great, aren’t they?
2020 Sockie here.
Hi.
Its been a while.
I left this blog back in 2019 but recent events have resurrected me from the dead. Once again, I’ve found that these sharks (posted originally in 2015) have been stolen and reproduced as knockoff/similar art and are being resold as other products I don’t offer. It’s not the first time and I’m sure it won’t be the last but I implore you - DON’T DO THIS.
Please.
If you see these pieces floating around on Etsy, AliExpress or any similar site, please know that I am NOT the seller, and that these have been copied and stolen from an independent small artist (me). If you see these sharks specifically (I know that there are other artists with similar sharks-with-scrolls-and-words-on-top products, but I’m not talking about those) please report the vendor immediately and/or let me know via DM on Twitter or Instagram. You can find me in both places @ sinksanksockie.
I’m just so tired of seeing these pieces, my first original product being resold in cheaper formats when it’s obviously traced and copied. I know it’s the internet. I know it happens. But please, if you see these anywhere and it’s not under my Etsy shop’s header, it’s stolen. Back when I was active here I had numerous folks message me to let me know that people had been reposting my content without permission and I appreciated it so very much. If you’re able, just keep an eye open and be aware of what you’re buying from whom.
An artist : Aw man! I saw my arts were reposted on Instagram. I’ve asked them to take my arts down but they ignored me.
Me : Say no more! Click this link, then click ‘fill out this form’. Fill the form and wait for about 1-2 days, the staffs will remove the image you were reporting from the reposter’s account :^)
hope you don’t mind me adding some more info :’D
Many websites have those complaint forms you need to fill out to submit DMCA notice. Here are some of them:
GeekyComTV called my comic a “silly” comic and that he can make one too…. and then did this http://shopistyles.com/ ….is he purposefully trying to piss me off? He says we’re the ones picking fights…. I can’t even deal with this right now, I’m getting depressed. I’ve neglected my health, art homework, and my social life dealing with him…. I just want this to stop. Please stop touching my comic! Is that really so hard to ask for?
This revoking does not apply to the animation of the Teaser of City of Lies! Which means Lia-Brisa also has permission to use my comic and to animate it! (her and another artist, no one else is allowed to animate it).
Avoid collaborations with dubious monetized YouTube channel GeekyComTV
I’ve held my tongue about this channel for almost a month and I can’t frickin’ do it anymore. This is a call out post.
[WHY?] To make a long story short, this user has been posting videos for over a year now, using miraculous art. Although in some cases he has asked permission to repost, he began monetizing [making money off of] his videos at some point without notifying any of the artists.
None of the artists agreed to monetization.
@maristoryart is only one of many artists that reported him upon finding the monetization, but for some reason, Geeky has focused on her as the reason his channel is being reported [for a second time at least, since this isn’t the first account he has lost]…
GeekyComTV’s creator has resorted to blackmail, to defamation, to actual threats, and finally to identity theft, in an attempt to bully mari and others into complying with his wishes.
It’s gross and it is NOT okay.
[^^^ just 20 of the 200+ videos being monetized]
[WHY? part 2: the long version] And now the entire thing. Strap in and get ready to get real damn mad. And apologies in advance for the lack of a read more, but I need to avoid censorship of this post. So yes, this post is VERY LONG, but this needs to be seen.
For ease of reading, I will do a bullet list+screenshot setup.
July 9th, GeekyComTV’s channel is linked amidst 4 others by a discord user on a small ml server.
Geeky’s is shown to be directly monetizing most of the videos.
Maristoryart is the only one active at the time whose art is on there, so she reports the videos using her content.
.
[censoring names for protection from this creep]
A few days later [the 13th], the owner of the channel begins to message Mari via her social media and email
He reminds her she gave him permission to post the artwork on his channel and asks why she reported him; he reveals her reports put two strikes on his account
He says he will remove the videos if she retracts her claims
^^^ to explain: He has 2 strikes on his account. He counterclaims them, which means he is disputing the strikes and youtube cancels the deletion of the videos. If he deletes the videos now, the strikes remain on his account. If Mari retracts her claims, his account is in the clear.
Mari asks for advice from the chat and we unanimously tell her not to retract her claims, since he monetized without notifying her OR ANY OF THE 100+ ARTISTS HE IS STEALING FROM
During this conversation, another user who dealt with him previously points out Geeky’s previous channel was shut down for the same reason, so we learn he is a repeat offender
Mari ultimately decides to tell Geeky she will not retract her claim due to the monetization of hers and others art without their permission
At the same time, I share Geeky’s channel with the main public ml art server and begin to contact artists on tumblr
.
[in which a user lets us know geeky tried to find out who ‘told on him’ lol. spoilers: it only matters cos he wanted to send threats and blackmail to the person lol]
yes, geeky:
.
[just one of a few ppl who likely ended up reporting him lol]
.
[lol yea that 2 years of hard work putting songs on top of ppl’s art and making money off it, boo hoo lol]
.
[^^^ talking about his previous channel, which is deleted now. jan 11 is when the posts about his new [current main] channel started to appear for a while.]
Immediately after Mari sends her explanation, Geeky tries to claim he only monetized a month ago
Another user calls bs; she had tried to contact him several months prior about removing videos with her art because she didn’t allow monetization
Geeky offers to pay Mari the money he made off her work, if she will remove the strikes
Geeky begins to message Mari incessantly, repeating that he will pay her
He tries to claim it wasn’t he who ‘decided to monetize the videos’ … [note: heartbeat indicates nearly all his videos are monetized by him DIRECTLY, save for one or two, which are monetized by WMG for music used]
.
.
Meanwhile, I have gotten in touch with one of the artists on tumblr and explain the situation to them
This artist chooses to contact Geeky personally
When this artist asks Geeky to remove the video with their content, he claims he can’t remove any videos until Mari removes her strikes from his account [note: this isn’t how youtube works lol. this is also part of the blackmail aspect]
During this convo, Geeky has caught on that artists in this community actually talk to each other and he begins to set his videos to private so that no one else can claim their artwork
Thankfully I still have the window with all the videos still loaded, so I begin to send individual urls to the artists i recognize from the thumbnails, so they can remove their work from his channel
.
[^screenshot the tumblr artist sent]
.
.
The third and final strike on Geeky’s account comes from @ferisae, who sometimes allows dubs, but does not allow monetization
Despite being private, Feri still had the URL, so she was able to report her video
Geeky emails Feri, saying she made a mistake, she doesn’t want to do this etc
Feri clearly tells him she never gave approval for her work to be monetized, and he repeatedly messages her and tries to tell her he wasn’t monetizing, that she is making a big mistake, etc
Feri lets him know she has an app that lets her see when a video is monetized and by who, says she won’t talk about it anymore, and blocks him
[^ i don’t have screenshots of this exchange, it was relayed on voicechat]
.
.
.
.
Geeky begins to message all the people who contacted him to remove their art, asking them if they know Feri and Mari, could they message them about the issue, etc etc
He begins to message Mari multiple times per day, interrupting her daily life
[she ignores the messages]
He also makes a new email account and begins to message Feri again, begging her to resolve this
[she ignores him as well]
.
.
.
[^from the new email to feri. bigger image… pls note the lie about removing the videos. they were all still on private,NOTdeleted.]
Finally, when no one responds, he resorts to threats [on the 14th and 15th]
Mari asks for advice on how to respond, and one of the users in the chat helps her craft an email to send him.
We advise her to do what Feri did, to simply block him, but he responds again before she has a chance to and threatens her again
Mari is understandably stressed out and logs off for a while
.
[^^^ sorry but if simply ignoring your attempts to guilt trip her into removing rightful strikes on ur account isn’t ‘peaceful’, i don’t know what is lol]
[bigger image- ^^^ in which he sends basically the same message twice??? and my, i’m so glad ur a good person because you chose not to hack. much brave, very morals, wow!! ]
After seeing this, I am raging, so I start looking into this guy, hoping I can find his family and show them the emails he has been sending to Mari, so maybe they will straighten his ass out :P
I don’t have luck finding his family [aside from a possible sibling], though I do find out where he lives and works
I kick it up to a friend of mine [@seibatooth] who digs up a lot more info on him, including work history
We learn is a college student from Morocco, who hasn’t held a stable job for more than 6 months
I share this all with Mari to reassure her that this guy has no power and to not worry so much lol
In light of all this new information, no one responds to him
[^^^seiba is a boss. again… no one used this information against him, no one contacted him, and it was all obtained by simple google searches.]
He is quiet for a few days, then on the 19th, a very badly worded email from Geeky’s “Lawyer” comes
It is sent to Feri, Mari, and a Third Artist who did not want to be named in this post
It claims he is seeking legal action against all three artists and lists an email, a website, and a linkedin url
A quick search shows this lawyer to be a real person, but that the contact info in the email is incorrect
So here, we learn here that Geeky is impersonating Real Lawyer [which is where we get identity theft]
Seiba calls Real Lawyer to appraise him of the situation
Seiba and Feri then respond to Geeky [on the fake lawyer email] to let him know that Real Lawyer will be contacting him soon
When I check on Friday, his account is still up, but monetization appears to be disabled … YAAAAAAAAAAS
.
.
Also, the Third Artist who did not want to be named offered some screenshots from an exchange they had with Geeky:
[Translation: “everyone else is stealing from you so why can’t i????” gross.]
[^^^in which he pretends to be the lawyer from his own acct……..wowww x’DDD]
The next day [i think? it was during SDCC which was chaotic lol], Real Lawyer calls Seiba
Real Lawyer lets her know that he is pursuing legal action against Geeky… fite!
Another few days pass and Geeky begins advertising his new channel on instagram
In each post, he publicly announces that Mari is the reason he is losing his account, that she doesn’t love the miraculous fandom anymore [????] and that he is just a poor wee bab victim who did no wrong guys really ;0;/
[about page on his newchannel. goo.gl link just makes you directly subscribe to this new channel >>; ugh.]
.
[^^^his posts are decently popular]
[…lol fake claims my butt.]
[my fave part about this is that he claims mari incited a buncha artists to riot against him, when in actuality it was the fact he was MAKING MONEY ON OUR ART. mari had nothing to do with it, aside from sharing his gross guilt trippy and then THREATNING responses lmao. sorry bruh, u did it to urself.]
[…..sigh.]
Alright, so while I was tidying up everything to post, Geeky actually has done more things I need to post about. Literally in the past 24 hours, heck, in the last HOUR, he is still screwing artists over and taunting everyone about it. I have permission to name a few artists effected, so I will not censor their names here.
Today, I found out that Geeky has counter-claimed Mari, Feri and the Third Artist
This means his account is still active, despite the previously pending deletion
He has turned on monetization again, so he is again making money off everyone’s artwork
He is publicly taunting everyone about what he has done
[^^^ the comment in yellow has since been removed by geeky]
.
[^^^ bragging and more threats….also, just lying out his ass. sorry but i have receipts, bruh.]
[^^^ ANOTHER threat/brag. they deleted this comment pretty much immediately but bbwolf was kind enough to screenshot her activity feed so we can still see it lol. also, like how his time frame keeps changing? interesting lol]
[^^^ one of the counterclaims, shared by the Third Artist. Geeky’s explanation (the english bit) as to why he’s allowed to make money on someone elses work is that it’s okay that he is making money off ppl’s work cos we didn’t create the characters…… what??? ?????? ? ? ??? also he lives in morroco, so he can’t actually claim fair use because it doesn’t apply to him lol… alsoalso, NONE OF US ARE MAKING MONEY ON OUR WORK. HE IS. WHICH NEGATIVELY EFFECTS US BECAUSE IT IS AFFECTING HOW WE W. DERP]
[eden is allowing me to name her in this post now]
[^^^ just one of a few that was linked]
.
[^^^^ proof that he was contacted 6 months ago about monetizing videos. despite the fact he said claimed he only started 1 month ago. proof that he waited a bit and then just turned it back on when eden stopped checking.]
[^^^setting this here as proof he is monetizing in case he turns it off lol]
Aaand that is where we are at this very minute. I will likely update this post via reblog as the situation changes, but good lord, y’all. Can we please work together to take care of this guy? I can’t stand that he seems to be getting away with this behavior.
[THE ACCOUNTS] (as tempted as you may be after this post, DO NOT HARASS THIS USER. just look for your content and report it at your own discretion. if you do harass him, he might use your words as proof he is being ‘wrongly harassed’ … and he will definitely hide the videos again, so that no one can report their artwork. please report discreetly.)
Small note! wishofficialis selling my art without permission; if you should see my stuff on there, please don’t purchase it. I’ve contacted them about it and so far they’ve chosen to ignore me…
Just been notified that someone on instagram has been stealing a lot of peoples art, inculding mine. So might have to add big watermarks over all my art
Enter the img url, enter a link to a legit copy of the artwork, enter your name and email address, and done!
They raided my ancient Deviant Art gallery, watermarks an all.Buuut I managed this process in like 5 min, no stupid complex takedown obstacle course
⭐ Any SU artists… please check for your work on OpenSea!! This ass has an entire ‘SU Gallery’ of stolen fandom art, recognized a lot of my favs in there https://opensea.io/collection/steven-universe-gallery: ( - QQ
WTF is an NTF? No matter how many times I’ve had it explained to me, it still makes no sense. The best I can figure that it’s a form of cryptocurrency with personalized artwork made on a really environmentally unfriendly material being sold for ridiculous prices just so suckers can get unique furry artz
Wwwwwelp, let me take a shot at it. *cracks knuckles*
Okay, so: you know how there are people who collect currency (the traditional, paper-and-coins type)?
And for some people, the specific thing they collect is “bills with unusual serial numbers”:
So if you find a $1 bill with a serial number like “010101010″, a collector might be willing to pay $50 for that bill.
In general, currency is “fungible”, which just means interchangeable. If I loan you a $1 bill today, and you pay me back tomorrow with a different $1 bill, same difference, that’s an equal exchange.
But if you find a person who specifically thinks Bills With Weird Serial Numbers are a neat thing they like having – they’ll pay extra for the weird $1 bill. And they wouldn’t be willing to swap it for some other $1 bill with just any non-remarkable serial number. It is a Non-Fungible Bill.
…to the collector, anyway. Not to anybody else! You can’t take it to the grocery store and say “please give me $50 worth of groceries for this $1 bill because the serial number is interesting.”
(Although, hey…if you had a way to convince lots of people that (a) all of them should turn into collectors and (b) every single random serial number is a special one they should pay extra for…that sure would be a way to make a lot of money, huh?)
Non-Fungible Tokens are the same idea, but with cryptocurrency.
Bitcoins have ID numbers. (Same with any other crypto token – I’ll just use Bitcoin as our example here.) If you can find a collector who likes Bitcoins with weird ID numbers, maybe they’ll pay you 50 Bitcoin for it?
…okay, it turned out nobody cares about Bitcoin ID numbers for their own sake.
But! The ID can be used in a URL.
This is where the art comes in.
You upload an image to that URL. Then you tell people “look, if you buy this token from me, it’s like you’re buying the image! Art collections are fun and interesting, right? Someone give me 50 Bitcoins now.”
Note that the file doesn’t needto be personalized, or unique, or anything like that:
You can upload literally any file at that URL
You can upload someone else’s art
You could upload the same file to 20 different URLs, and sell 20 different NFTs of the same art
You could load the page for a token someone else owns, download the file, and directly re-upload it to the page for a token youown
The whole server could go down, and the URL from your token could be a 404 error for the rest of forever
So if you’re thinking “this sounds like a stupid deal that makes no sense” – you’re right! You are understanding the situation perfectly. This is total stupid nonsense. For the buyer.
For the person who owns some Bitcoins, and would like an easy way to turn them into even more Bitcoins? This is a fantasticracket.
Pay me a ton of tokens – or, preferably, the US$ equivalent of tons of tokens – for this single token I have! It’s totally actually worth that much, I promise.
Also, go ahead and Venmo me $50 for every random $1 bill in my wallet. This is a great deal for you.
And if you believe all that…I’ve got a bridge to sell you.
Sidenote: the “environmentally unfriendly” part isn’t about material, it’s about energy. Producing and exchanging cryptocurrency takes an obsceneamount of computing power, which uses an obscene amount of electricity. And it’s not a special thing about NFTs – it’s how all cryptocurrency works.
(A comparison I saw recently is, at the current rate, “people mining Bitcoin” for 1 day uses about the same amount of energy as “powering every commercial building in the United States” for 2 months.)
Sidenote 2: pretty sure the reason so much NFT art is ugly is, most of the Actual Artists have thought about it for 5 seconds and realized it’s a big racket. (Or been warned off it by other Actual Artists.) And the people who want to buyActual Art are commissioning the artists directly, same as always.
So the people left in the NFT-buying scene are mostly people who…don’t care about the art quality at all. They just want in on the hype.
This is an absolutely amazing explanation! But it leaves me with another question, how does “mining” for cryptocurrency use more energy than normal internet use?
Whoo boy, let’s dive into this one…
Short answer: because it was designed that way. On purpose.
Long answer: for a currency to have any useful value, the amount and production has to be limited somehow.
(Which makes sense, right? If we tried to pay people in leaves, nobody would go to work for 15 leaves an hour, not when they could go for a hike and pick 15 leaves off the trees in 15 seconds.)
Precious metals – gold, silver, copper – have been popular for all of recorded history, because the limiting factor is “this material is physically difficult to dig out of the ground.”
With US dollars, the limit is part “bills are printed with complicated techniques that you need special equipment to pull off” and part “it’s illegal to for anyone except the government to print new dollars, and we will take you to jail if we catch you at it.”
With cryptocurrency, it’s all digital, so there’s no naturally-rare mineral involved. And it’s decentralized, so nobody has the authority to claim “we are the Bitcoin Police and we can take you to jail if you do this wrong.”
If you want it to work, you have to come up with some artificial limit, and then build that directly into the base code.
I’m not any kind of expert in the technical details here, so please nobody get too picky about it…but the general idea is, the blockchain will only spit out a new coin in response to a computer running calculations.
And for every new coin, it demands more calculations than the last one.
If you could still get a new Bitcoin by, say, “not using the internet for a day, have your computer use that power for mining instead,” then nobody would spend thousands of dollars to exchange for one Bitcoin, right? Anybody who wanted one would just take a day off Tumblr to mine it themselves.
Basically, there’s no reason to buya Bitcoin for a dramatically higher price than it would cost you to minea Bitcoin.
And the mining process keeps requiring more power, so:
First you can’t do it with just spare processing power from your main device, you need to buy a new one that’s fully dedicated to mining if you want to keep up
The extra power usage is enough to put a notable spike in your electric bill
One computer won’t do it anymore, you need two
Then four
Then eight
You have a warehouse full of computers
You have the electric bill that it takes to power a warehouse full of computers
Plus the storage rental costs of the warehouse space
The internet bill to keep all your computers in touch with the blockchain
The air-conditioning bill that it takes to keep the warehouse from just flat-out melting
Ongoing maintenance costs
Replacement parts
Not just any parts, you are buying up high-quality graphics cards and computer chips that can do the fastest processing
And the processing requirements just keepgoing up and up and up….
When the exchange rate for Bitcoin is at $10,000, that implies “the cost of the equipment, maintenance, and power bills to mint 1 Bitcoin is now sohigh that people would rather pay $10,000 cash than deal with it.”
…okay, this is a little oversimplified – there’s also gambling and speculating involved. Say, you think oil prices are about to go up, maybe you pay a little more than the current rate, figuring the power costs of mining are about to get more expensive and you’ll come out ahead. Or say Elon Musk said something mean about a coin you have, maybe you sell all your tokens for a lower price, figuring it’s better to get out now than wait for it to crash even farther.
But you can see how they’re generally connected. Nobody would pay around $10,000 if the production cost was around $10.
One more link (which explains some of the same things in different words, in case mine aren’t working for everyone):
Another thing you need for your currency to work: it has to be usefulfor something other than “gambling on the price.”
It can’t just be something you endlessly swap for other currencies and hope the exchange rate works in your favor! There have to be places that say “we will take this in exchange for Tangible Goods And Services.”
Bitcoin has this, at least a little bit. Most places aren’t lining up to accept it, but it’s been around long enough to build up some credibility, so there are a few.
If I started a new cryptocurrency tomorrow where the cost of mining the firsttoken was $10K, nobody would bother. Because it has no credibility, no staying power, no way to ever convert that currency into actual stuff.
To be clear, people are launching new cryptocurrencies all the time.
Most of them aren’t even tryingto be useful, they’re just pump-and-dump schemes. Meaning the founders pump up people’s interest with “ScamToken will be the next Bitcoin, don’t miss this amazing opportunity, convert your $$$ into ScamToken now while it’s cheap!” Then they dump all theirtokens, selling them to all the people they’ve convinced to buy. It isn’t long before the hype fades, the cold reality of “we can’t do anything with this” sets in, and the buyers are left with wallets full of tokens nobody newwill buy, while the founders walk away with the $$$.
But some people are playing a longer game. They don’t want their currency to get “an afternoon’s worth of excitement from hyped-up crypto speculators” and then immediately flop. They want it to be useful for actually buying something, so it has a legitimate basis for getting some actual, stable value in the long run.
Or, failing that…they want it to appearto be useful for buying something. So it looks more credible. So the excitement lasts longer. So you reach outside the circle of “people who follow crypto for its own sake” and get the attention of “people who don’t care about crypto at all, but who do care about whatever Something you’ve convinced them your token will buy.”
So, hey: how big, do you think, is the market of people who care about digital art?
Now start paying attention to how many press releases for “an amazing opportunity to buy some cool new Non-Fungible Tokens” include “by the way, the specific Tokens we’re selling are from a cryptocurrency you’ve never heard of, let alone bought.”
This explanation is fairly concise and still gets to the point. I don’t think you could cover all of these facets that are relevant to the topic with meaningfully less text. And the post is still that long.
That’s another aspect of the crypto/NFT scam: you need to understand how cryptography and economics works and all the connecting parts between them. If someone levels a critique against them, crypto bros can always come out of the woodwork with another level of this whole construct and likely catch the complainer off guard with something they don’t know about or aren’t confident in.
The thing is though, most crypto bros are marks and also don’t understand how this works, instead they are psychologically committed to think that crypto is great because otherwise they lost a house worth of money for nothing but an ugly lion picture. The rest of them are true scammers, know exactly how this works, and rely on the complexity of it all to keep their marks in the dark.
That’s really dangerous! Almost nobody knows how this works! Legislators don’t know how crypto works, these people still don’t understand how facebook could possibly make money! And we expect them to regulate it?
It’s even worse though. Crypto exchanges are currently going mainstream, and wallstreet people are thinking about expanding their portfolios into crypto as well. I mean, why not? Bullshit investment instruments that serve no real purpose, that no normal person can understand and that are woefully underregulated is their whole deal! As soon as that happens the current crypto bro scammers will probably be edged out by the entrenched scam industry, i.e. the international financial sector.
Once that happens, it will practically be impossible to regulate crypto in any way. If finance has a tool to make money off, it will use its considerable influence over the political system that is stays that way.
That’s why I think it’s so important to make fun of crypto and NFTs now. It’s not just because it’s fun to laugh at those idiots (even though it really is fun). The narrative on crypto still hasn’t solidified. The average person has basically only heard of it and probably thinks it’s some kind of new techy invention that will revolutionise the economy (just like previous techy inventions that revolutionised the economy - at least that’s what the story is) and that some people got really rich off it. That might be good, right?
If instead the prevalent association with the term NFT is some losers with purple lion icons losing their shit because they paid 200k for an ugly image and then someone downloaded it from twitter, the whole “industry” suddenly loses a lot of its cool factor.
By the way, this is why I use “dunning-krugerrand” as the tag for crypto stuff. The Dunning-Kruger effect is when competent people falsely consider themselves incompetent or when incompetent people falsely consider themselves competent. Crypto technology and culture is set up in such a way that it accomplishes both.
ive always wondered how its possible to do this with other peoples art without getting sued. is the answer that the art is just an image that happens to be at the url, and legally, has no actual tie to the transaction?
Unfortunately, the answer is just “most artists don’t have the time or money to bring a lawsuit every time their art gets stolen.”
And even if you manage to get one art-theft account shut down, there are 10 more being created to take its place.
We mostly rely on the hosting/sales platforms to take an active role in stomping this stuff out. Some rise to the occasion – I had a good experience reporting art theft on eBay, for instance. But the NFT marketplaces are enjoying their cut of the profits too much.
@wow-images Hey, heads up but this is stolen art. The piece was originally a commission I did for someone 3 years ago of their tauren druid. I would really appreciate it if you reblogged my original art here!
We recently found an etsy shop that was selling cross-stitch patterns of my art, that may have been what lead to this.
And here’s the infringing shop. Folks, this is not ok.
They are also using Ad’s to help promote their thievery =_=
They are using “Teechip.com” to sell other peoples work. So, if you see your art on there you can contact teechip and get the “product” removed and hopefully that account taken down.
Recently a large online group posted some of my images without credit. This is what happened. I haven’t encountered this level of misogyny in a long while. Notice the ‘sweetheart’ and 'attention seeking’ bits? Amazing. Just amazing.
Yesterday I received a lot of messages on my deviantart page, congratulating me for “winning” a 2NE1 fanart contest. Since I never submitted this to any kind of contest, took me sometime to understand what was going on. After some research I found out that someone won this fanart contest posting my work but after cropped my signature off from the original piece.
That person keep saying he didn’t stole anything, but he never contact me previously about the artwork, never mentioned it belonged to someone else and even accepted compliments towards the drawing. Once again, I ask you to compare what he subbimted and the original piece. The fact that the signature was cropped out is reason enough to show his real intentions.
I have extreme mixed feelings right now, because I LOVE 2NE1 and is great to see them holding my drawing, but reallySUCKS it was credited to someone else. TT-TT
I would really appreciate if this post was reblogged and the news about the art theft get spread. :/
Thanks(and sorry for the EngRish)
art theft…smh, the “winner” should be ashamed of him/herself……..
Oh my god I can’t believe someone stole this and won! :( that’s disgusting! I hope the real artist gets a message from 2NE1. Reblog to spread the word!
I don’t usually reblog things on this tumblr, but since I do a lot of 2NE1 fan art myself I wanted to spread the word about this as much as possible, because this is just a horrible thing to do to someone.
I don’t know what to do. I am so upset. Can anyone help me?
My painting was created back in 2010, (see it HERE) and since then so many people have expressed their love for it, not just on tumblr, but in many places. At least 9 people had it tattooed on their bodies. It’s one of my favourite images I created at University and I was proud of it in many ways.
Disney have used it on a cosmetics bag HERE (look at the back) and they have produced a Tshirt HERE with a really similar design clearly modeled from my painting
I’m so mad because I have no chance at getting Disney to do anything about it. I had so much respect for the company and now I am just SO upset and disappointed.
Any help, advice or signal boosting would be amazing. And thank you so much to the kind person who messaged me about this.
I know my art is on a lot of websites (facebook, reddit etc) without my permission and signature. I can’t tell how much it angers me but I can’t do sh*t, because even if one is deleted there’ll be another one. And I just can’t f*cking imagine what goes through someone’s mind when they cut down my f*cking signature and post it as their own. I’m really angry now. I share my art with everyone for free and these people not only post them without my permission, but they also remove my name!!! Unbelievable!!!! How can someone have stomach for this, and they call themselves Jacksepticeye fans! Didn’t they learn anything from Jack, the nicest man on this planet???! Anyway…
This started with someone reposting my art on Reddit, but a nice person wrote to them that this is my art and they should ask for permission. The reposting person then deleted the post and asked me, they were nice, so I’m not angry because of them. I am angry because they found it on Facebook without my credits and name.
So, let’s be clear… I DO NOT GIVE ANYONE PERMISSION TO POST MY ART ELSEWHERE! I made 4 accounts on the internet so people can see my drawings. Let it be enough, I don’t want my art anywhere else! I have tumblr, deviantart, twitter and instagram.
