Prominent Gaming YouTubers' Likenesses Sold As NFTs Without Consent

Just keep giving me reasons NFT's, just keep giving them.

As much as Jim Sterling is a choad, no one deserves this. NFTs and blockchain technology aren't making things better for gamers, and I suspect this is only the beginning.

Do they want to make an NFT of me cause I am game?

Well that’s horrifying. Regardless of anything, selling somebody else’s likeness is a massive violation. And yeah, making Alanah Pierce’s one link to adult material is very very telling about the way female games journalists and personalities are treated.

I am not going to pretend to know the first thing about NFT's (I've tried and it just does not make any sense to me) but this was always going to happen in an unregulated marketspace. I wouldn't even want to try and figure out if this is legal. At least the law will be brought up to 2022 with situations like this and them having to act and update the rules.

Whenever I see something about NFT, I feel like leaving the internet. Is there any way to not see anything about NFT?

Yet ANOTHER reason I hate the NFT community. I'm sick of this.

NFTs are a complete waste of time and money, can't wait for this fad to die.
Then again, I've been saying that about zombies and we're getting our 527th Walking Dead spin-off

NFTs are just are a toxic plague that have no place in gaming or anywhere else for that matter.
I hope this trend ends soon enough.

Ha, this just shows how corrupt NFTs are, you can sell stuff that you dont own and can create in seconds.
Its a pile of crap and that site selling it are as corrupt as the sellers

I yet need to hear another purpose for nfts besides reselling them at a higher price to someone else

HOW COULD YOU DO THIS TO CADDY!? YOU SCUM!

Well, this isn’t good

This is awful, at this point, it'll get to the level of this happening:

Hey guys, I'm selling this NFT of this child with cancer without their consent, I will be sure to donate the money to my bank account.

@InkIdols did you even read the article, or ever the whole title?

@HotGoomba My outrage is linding my reason. Ignore the stuff i spew

This site is to blame too, by keeping reporting about this nonsense. Just stop reporting about this nonsense, Pleeeaaasssse!!

Even more than the question about why anyone would sell the likeness of a Youtuber is the bigger question. Why would anybody buy one for money? Like, can't you hit PrtScr on your keyboard for free if you really want to stare at Jim Sterling for long hours? Why would you exchange money for the privilege?

People who defend NFTs and support them deserve to be ripped off. It was a mistake to ever make it a thing.

@Henmii The criminals win if their criminal behaviour does not get reported to the public.

Isn’t it deadnaming Commander James Stephanie Sterling to refer to them as Jim? I thought people were against deadnaming in the modern day. They have shown disgust and displeasure to be referred to with male pronouns.

@Bass_X0

Sure, but I was more aiming at nft coverage in general. This site posts every article they can find about nft in gaming, it seems. Maybe a bit to much? Every gamer hates nft, me too. Because we all know in our hearts it takes away even more consumer-rights. I rather had they totally ignored it, maybe it goes away that way (who am I kidding, but I can hope right?).

Cosplayer and Nintendo Brand Ambassador, Li Kovacs, also had both her likeness and her art made into NFTs without consent. I hope whoever is stealing all of this eventually sees the negative impact once that NFT bubble bursts. Mark my words, it will burst.

@Bass_X0 They mentioned on Twitter that they prefer Stephanie but they're fine with whatever, since Jim Sterling is the brand.

I find it notable that the usual NFT defenders found on this site are nowhere to be seen currently. Please, come out of hiding and justify this, I would love to see what twisted logic makes it okay in your brains to steal the likenesses of others in ANY context.

Also Sterling was informed by the idiot that made that NFT that they were making a Sterling NFT purely out of spite for Sterling's anti-NFT views. THESE ARE TOTALLY GOOD PEOPLE AND NOT AT ALL VILE CRIMINALS!

Who the hey needs (or wants) a YouTuber NFT in the first place?

@sleepinglion Zombies don’t die… get it? 😅

@Elanczewski https://xkcd.com/1031/
Well you could do something like this.

Cartoons, movies, comics, hell even certain YouTubers have used likenesses of other people that are public figures. Isn't there some flexibility there with regards to the likeness of a public figure? I could be confusing it with political figures, but I seem to remember many a time in movies and games growing up where a similar likeness was used of a famous person without needing permission ahead of time.

@Debo626 What’s a “choad”?

@Edwirichuu It's a NSFW thing. Not very savory to talk about on a Nintendo site

@BloodNinja I’d assume it’s less the usage of their likeness, and more the fact these are taking their channel artwork and selling it.

@Henmii You don't stop criminal activity by not talking about it

@Eel Oh, I see. That's a shame, but then again the internet is just a series of tubes. I keep telling people it's not a dump truck but they aren't listening!

@nessisonett yup.
The worst is that acquaintances in the furry spheres(which hates NFT) are nothing it increasingly like OpenSea users are increasingly posting unauthorized NFTs as a deliberate publicity tactic because search algorithms can't differentiate between people searching NFT with intent to buy some and people searching for NFT websites to find if their likeness or art was minted as NFTs without authorization.
Both boosts the visibility of websites like OpenSea within search engines algorithms because intent doesn't matter to the algorithm.

The phenomenon was first noticed by re: furries as there was a massive wave of unauthorized uploads of furry artwork which led many artists to search which of their artworks was minted without their authorization. This is notable because most furries were highly critical of NFTs from the start(particularly the claims that NFTs were the only way digital artists could hope to make money while the furry community already had a very vibrant commission art culture that never depended on such gimmick to thrive. And it's believed many Open Sea folks or users have a 4chan background, for whom furries are a favorite group to pick on. This a maneuver to both get at furries and use their indignation to drive up the website in algorithms.

In fact the fact that so many NFTs are purely the results of random image generators is also a reason why many furries were dubious of the money spent in NFTs being legitimate in the first place considering the kind of highly regarded custom-tailored painting
commissions one could get from legit professional artists, digital or traditional, for that money instead of... well, a jpeg spewed out by a random image generator(many with technical know-how noted strange patterns in the way some NFT are purchased and sold, one maneuver being suspected that some of the purchases were "fake" in that they might have been made by the owner of the NFT itself, using a money loan to make the offer to try and drive up the value of the NFT before it's put on sale again and thus give the illusion it was worth more than believed in the history of the different times the NFT would be sold and purchased.
Lots of stuff like that.

@Ludovsky It does not surprise me in the slightest that 4chan and Kiwi Farms are cryptobros. It’s an entire economy built on screwing people over therefore will appeal to their mentality.

@Elanczewski I really don't understand this new trend, I really must be showing my age lol

@Kiz3000 It's easy to understand, look...

"Denny’s Applebee’s Max is the premier place in town for people to eat. But you are not seeing your true potential.

With NFTs you can give your customers unique digital goods on the blockchain, so much more than just food. How about the Applebee, huh? He’s got a little hat and a mustache. And this is Chicken Fried Steak. He ain’t no normal chicken, he’s wearin’ a bra!

Lots of people eat Denny’s and Applebee’s. And lots of people know about NFTs! Right here in the middle, you know what this is?

People who eat Denny’s Applebee’s and know about NFTs… that’s your target audience, baby!"

I'll keep posting this until someone says that this makes a whole lotta sense.

I don’t even know what a NFT is?

"People have greater freedom and ownership over digital items".
Greater than right click?

@BloodNinja Apologies, i seriously thought they misspelled "chad"

@Lord I think you've been under a rock 😢

why not call it what it is same as steam cards its a money laundering scheme. sell something that dosent exist for 25k now you have made 25k in clean money

@nessisonett Quit spinning this whole thing as if women are mainly affected by it, it's happening to everyone. If there are certain people that are easy on the eyes, then yeah, they're going to get that type of attention. Seems obvious.

All this happening is yet another reason why a law needs to be set in place to ban NFTs permanently just like crypto farming.

Good grief. The day cannot be complete without at least one story related to effing NFTs.

@russell-marlow Except nobody else here has had their NFT linked to NSFW material. It’s not ‘spin’, it’s blatantly provable that female personalities on Twitch and YouTube get a lot more creepy stuff than men. Being ‘easy on the eyes’ is absolutely not an excuse, get your head out from deep up your own rectum.

@InkIdols The only good I can see in this is that the YouTubers will raise a stink about this and we can kick out NFTs. People have tried explaning them to me and I just can't see the practical use of them.

@nessisonett I guess because a male audience is larger then a female one?

I'm sure if you did some searching you can find some NSFW NFTs that aren't explicitly linked to real people and or real male NSFW NFTs. Either way, NFTs and stuff like this happening are cancer.

@MysteryCupofJoe I hope most of them sue for using their likeness without consent, whether it be drawn or real life.

@debo626 You're free to disagree with Sterling's acerbic approach to the video game industry, but your transphobia is showing and it's not a good look.

@NEStalgia,

Yes that nuance is lost on many, why on earth would anybody buy buy these YouTubers images in the first place.

Weird, normally when you buy an NFT you are literally buying nothing. Somehow this seems less than that. It's like counterfeit nothing.

It's real terrible...not just likenesses, people are having their art stolen. I don't know if it's the same company or not, but they're making it harder and harder to fight back...you have to file a complaint with each and every image, and after a while, they just start ignoring you.

@aznable https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/369760037071093763/925587011472064603/unknown.png

Who could have seen this coming?(most of us, actually). There are some who wonder why there's so much hate directed at NFTs since people don't have to buy them, and that's a fair point. The problem with NFTs is they're little more than a profit-extraction tool for the unscrupulous to take advantage of speculators and the weak willed, many of whom probably can't afford it and have a problem. I'd prefer people not be targeted by these rip-off artists, even if they bear some responsibility for buying in. It reminds me of gambling addiction. But worse than that is that NFTs, if they keep catching on for the time being, are going to find their way into many things. Games are a prime target because, as microtransactions have shown, developers are happy to make games worse with terrible game design in order to drive people to fix the game by spending more money. This will likely continue as they start pushing play-to-earn NFT mechanics. I have little doubt there's plenty of market manipulation going on to make it seem like the NFT market is bigger than it is to spark a further gold rush as people think they will(as opposed to might) get rich on digital things that have no actual value and are essentially infinite, in the sense that NFTs can seemingly be created without limit for the sake of selling and nothing else.

@Asaki Thank you! I feel validated.

@MysteryCupofJoe exactly. they are the worst thing humanity has created this century

@Debo626 Agreed lol

@Edwirichuu You didn't do anything wrong, I'm just trying to help you not get moderated by saying something that could accidentally get you in trouble lol

@Xiovanni Thanks for reminding me of that kid that made those bad Wii U games 😂

I mean, someone made those Floydies NFTs, the bottom of the barrel has already been broken.

@johnvboy generally it's less for selling the youtuber image I feel and more to profit from personalities googling up opensea/et lc to see if their personal image was used without authorization.

Since the like of google algorithms used for visibility of sites doesn't differentiate intent when people make searches and the like.

Basically it's literally using the philosophy of "no such thing as bad publicity" and targeting such personalities specifically to help drive such websites and NFTs in general in search or social media algorithms.

It isn't even the first time they do it. Previously the furry community was targeted and a ton of furry digital art was minted as NFT without authorization. This was never done with the intent of sales but rather to rile up the furry community(which many 4chan-originated crypto folks were traditionally opposed to) so that the outrage would drive up NFTs and crypto in the social media algorithms since it was well known to some NFT folks how opposed to NFT the furry community was(in no small part not just because of how many artists the community has who had seen the potential for art theft coming since the beginning but also many very left leaning people working in literal internet infrastructure which is no surprise because we're talking about one of the online communities that's about as old as the internet itself)

The real problem with all this is that it just shows how worthless these are. If any old rando can make these, there could be a million of them all uploaded by different people, making this seemingly one-of-a-kind thing worth nothing. The Mona Lisa is only worth a fortune because there aren't a million of them. Even if just one company made these, if one of them sold really good, they could just say let's make more, and with each one made, they're all worth less. This is as dumb as replacing dollars with Schrute bucks.

I don't understand NFT at all... I don't get the point of it whatsoever, and I don't get why would anyone would want to spend thousands of money online on some digital art.

@Ludovsky,

Very true.

All digital variations of the old pyramid scheme.

@Debo626 You forgot about XXY and intersex people.

I don't know what your removed comments were about, but from what I can infer, it seems you are deliberating courting controversy here. I didn't read any comments above denying the existence of males or females - did you? As for "going woke", there are plenty of users on this site, myself included, who criticize that political tendency, among others. I'm still here and still making comments, so I don't think this criticism is quite warranted.

If this is about Sterling, then I hope your comments will focus on the person's message and not their identity. I dislike fanatics who deny the existence of biological sex, but I dislike attacks on trans people just as passionately.

@Debo626 you're having a mare here.

Even if you think you're doing good by challenging 'wokeness', do you really think the comments section of Nintendo Life is the place to do this?

It's funny you talk about becoming 'Trumpy' and 'right wing' as somewhat derogatory, whilst simultaneously condemning more progressive attitudes to gender identity as 'going woke' (straight from the conservative playbook).

Biology and gender aren't the same thing. It's 2022 and self-determination is now acceptable.

Get with the times or find your antiquated views rightfully shunned by the gaming community, generally one of the 'wokest' you'll find. The fact that you don't already know this shows the depth of your ignorance.

If you said something racially or sexually offensive you'd expect to be censored here. Your comments are likely to cause offence. They were deleted. Take the L and move on.

If you want to continue your crusade, stick to 9gag. I'm sure you'll find support amongst the Trumpy trolls.

they made an NFT of Kitty0706, disgusting and extremely disrespectful

@HaroGenkide same here.

Negative topics such as these can just bring out the worst in people at times(especially when they are at their lowest and are exposed to enough it).