Several Youtubers have denounced the theft of their channel by NFT sellers. StakeTheWeb, a user of the OpenSea platform, uses the URL of these famous channels as well as their profile picture to then resell them, without of course asking their opinion beforehand. Some creators even find themselves on pornographic montages.
Rarely has the Internet been so divided on a subject. Since their arrival in our daily lives, NFTs have unleashed passions. Where some see it as a technology that will revolutionize our society, others see it as a dark scam intended for candids thirsty for fortune. What is certain is that NFTs can no longer be ignored. At the end of 2021, the market was worth no less than $22 billion.
Just as with cryptocurrencies, to which they are intimately linked, the NFT boom has attracted the covetousness of many unscrupulous individuals. While hackers have already stolen 130,000 euros by dangling a free NFT on Discord, schemes of this kind are multiplying. And some are clearly not lacking in nerve. On Twitter, several Youtubers have been denouncing the theft of their channel and their profile photo for a few days.
He steals YouTube channels to resell them as NFTs
“At least if you stole my content and tried to sell it, make a t-shirt out of it. A mug. A clock. A thing. which you can use. And enjoy. Selling a profile picture for a do-it-yourself collection on a Facebook photo album is frankly a new level of pathos”, exclaims Caddicarus. The person responsible is StakeTheWeb, a user of the OpenSea platform, on which he has put up for sale the rights to the URL of several YouTube channels.
“Honestly, I’m not surprised that a profiteering leech turned my channel into an NFT”, said Jim Sterling, another victim of StakeTheWeb. “As disgusting as this is, I find it justified — I didn’t consent to this, I don’t want this, and it goes to show everything I’ve said about this market being disrespectful and exploitative . Scum. »
Related: NFT — Web Source Code Sold for $5.4 Million
Unfortunately, it goes even further. Alanah Pearce, another famous Youtuber, had her image used to make pornographic montages by another OpenSea member. “Unsurprisingly, I have just been informed that someone took an image of me, which I own, added a trademark pornographic logo to it, and stole it to sell as an NFT. Naturally, I was not asked for permission”, she explains.
OpenSea, the platform that hosts this stolen content, responded in a press release: “OpenSea supports an open and creative ecosystem in which people have more freedom and ownership over digital objects of all kinds. One of our operating principles is to support creators and their audiences by deterring theft and plagiarism on our platform. To this end, it is against our policy to sell NFTs using plagiarized content, which we routinely enforce in a variety of ways, including delisting and, in some cases, banning accounts (such as c was the case in this case). We are actively expanding our efforts in the areas of customer support, trust and safety, and site integrity so that we can act more quickly to protect and strengthen our community and our creators. »
Source: The Gamer
