JRR Token and NFT Fails After Copyright Claim

NFTs are common to us, but it is still not discussed on TV while the morning reporters discuss light news and having their coffee. It will happen, we will see one day NFTs in movies and soap operas, in action packed TV series and becoming the center of attention.

Pexels

Some NFT artists are creating work that will last, but most of the rest are just there to grab some money from a booming market. The right to ownership, though, doesn't represent copyright claim to this work at most occasions. And there is another part in the story that lately appears:

Creating an NFT based on art from somebody else without written permission by the copyright owner is considered a copyright infringement and the risk of heavy fines and even jail-time is clear.

There are NFT artists creating NFT and tokens based on work that is copyrighted. Doesn't matter if you are a fan of Star Trek or Star Wars. You can't just create NFTs and use trademarks or even scenes from these movies.

And this reminds me of that read.cash member that had a very strange idea about all of this, and created a SEP20 token, tried to personally collect value from it by openning sales and did not even understood why this was wrong, but instead went on to justify himself by accusing Bitcoin Cash!

Wasn't funny and I do not agree with the lenient approach by the dev Simon to allow this guy to keep earning tips after all of that. Not to mention that the previous content was mostly trash with limited research and most posts contain invalid information, as the one about Bitcoin Cash mining.

Recently there was this developer Matthew Jensen that surprisingly tried to push an NFT related project with Lord of the Rings universe theme. Besides the NFTs he also created a token called JRR Token, with complete lack of understanding how he was infringing registered trademarks, logos, fonts, and the copyright issues of any private attempt to commercialize the Tolkien world.

When lawyers kicked his door, he deleted websites, social media and everything he could, dissasociated with the project and asked the side representing the lawful owners of Tolkien's world to pay for their legal expenses.

Guys. This was a mess. One person tried to commercially take advantage of the Tolkien name and almost everything from the work of this author. This is not fair use, but commercial theft of work of art.

On one side is the fair use, which is not always understood well how it is supposed to be used, it is like taking a sample of the work of someone else and using it to create something new.

But, this doesn't matter to lawyers. Everything, is just allowed as long as it is not. So, all the videos on YouTube can one day be deleted when the copyright ownership changes hands to another agency that will not be as flexible as the previous owner.

Finally

Those YouTube video creators, not naive enough have worked with their core followers and convinced them to follow them in various platforms except from just YouTube. Odysee and Twitch are two options today but not a lot more. Even with Odysee it seems that nobody yet is looking in it, although it has developed a lot and is now more fast than previously.

Half of the YouTube videos I watch are using copyrighted materials and monetize the channels by just talking about the art or visual work of others. But notice this, when you are using copyrighted material from a top production, the repercussions are severe. YouTube will not just shut down a channel, but will ask for all payments back, and sometimes, depending on each juristriction, there can also be orders to repay for various liabilities and damages.

Even for read.cash when we use an image that is copyrighted, it is not legal to do that. Any time a claim can appear and read.cash will have to take down the content, perhaps even suspend the account. But this will be all, the tips are not any kind of payment, this is all under voluntarily spirit and this is not a work under a contract either. It is just to protect read.cash, and also noise.cash, since I see copyrighted images thrown by anybody there.

Use the images from the websites that offer those with creative commons license, this is free to use anywhere, and depending on the type of licence most are also available even for commercial purposes. Like create a t-shirt with the image on it, use it on mugs, or any other items, or websites and advertisements.