The image is by Alex Castro.
An unauthorized NFT drop celebrating infosec pioneers has collapsed into a mess of conflicting takedowns and piracy.
The group called ItsBlockchain released a package on Christmas Day called the "Cipher Punks" NFT that included portraits of 46 different figures with ten copies of each token. The full value of the drop was $4,000. The infosec community began to raise objections, including some from the portrait subjects themselves.
NFTs allow you to buy and sell ownership of unique digital items and keep track of who owns them. NFT stands for non-fungible token, and it can contain anything digital, including drawings, animated GIFs, songs, or items in video games. The NFT can be one-of-a-kind, like a real-life painting, or one copy of many, like trading cards, but the blockchain keeps track of who has ownership of the file.
Nyan Cat and the "deal with it" sunglasses are being put up for auction, as NFTs have been making headlines recently. There is a lot of discussion about the massive electricity use and environmental impacts of NFTs. If you still have questions, you can read through our FAQ.
The portrait images were based on a drawing of a copyrighted photograph, and they spelled several names wrong. Some figures who have been ostracized for their personal behavior, including Jacob Appelbaum and Richard Stallman, were included on the list.
York said she didn't approve of the portrait and would like it removed.
It has been more difficult to remove the NFTs. The ItsBlockchain team apologized for not obtaining likeness rights in advance and said it has removed 28 NFTs from the group and burned two others. There is no clear procedure for removing token that have already been sold, and ItsBlockchain is relying on the central Open Sea platform to resolve the issue. It has appealed to the platform for guidance, but so far it has not received any. OpenSea did not reply to the request for comment.
The group said in an email that they wanted to take it down. OpenSea involvement would make the job easy.
There are legal issues around NFTs that can clash with likeness rights and intellectual property law. US laws surrounding publicity rights usually hold that a person's name and identity can't be used for promotion without their consent, but it's unclear how that lawsuit would work in practice when applied to NFTs.
