With its NFT prank, GameStop has once again proven that there is an unregulated market built on top of planet-destroying technology.Thoroughly report from ArstecnicaOh, here’s the fun part. These games will probably live forever on the blockchain!
GameStop has number of struggles of recent years Because we’ve been trying to stay competitive and relevant. Its most recent experiment was to try to make waves in NFT space. Launch a market for digital assets still terribleThe market is not without controversy. person falling to death During the attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. However, the latest round of nonsense to come out of the store includes a dude named Nathan Ello and his NiFTy Arcade NFT, which aims to bring interactive fun to NFTs. …but he wouldn’t stop and ask if he had permission to use games developed by others for this project, much less the right to make money from them. did.
talk KotakuNathan Elo declined to comment for this story.
Kotaku We reached out to GameStop for comment.
NFTs have been the subject of theft and questionable ownership for some time.if not NFTs previously owned by celebrities stolenthus throwing intellectual property into a huge gray area. People casting NFTs with art that is not their ownNFT security allegations also Phishing scam When clever hackerThe secure and traceable future of commerce via blockchain has been very insecure and it has been very difficult to identify bad actors. Just another example of confusion. on the other hand, industry claim sale, UseWhen Praise NFT apart from Overwhelming negative reaction When humiliating failure.
As Arstecnica As first reported today, Ello’s “NiFTy Arcade” NFT was intended to be “fully playable from the owner’s crypto wallet” or usable on the GameStop Marketplace itself. This seems to make at least a little more sense than plain JPEG. Instead of buying a “link” to an image that looks like you “own” part of it, at least you can play a fun little HTML 5 game while burning the earth.
However, that fun comes with the added bonus that NiFTy Arcade featured games developed entirely by other people who didn’t give their work permission to use or profit from in this way. In fact, many of these games worm nominal You can find it on Itchi.io with a very clear Creative Commons license that does not allow commercial use.
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The backlash was fierce, with several developers stating that they felt ripped off by NiFTy Arcade. Krystian Majewski, developer of Breakout Hero, said in a statement to Ars Technica, that his work was “sold for profit without my consent.”
Ello has stated on Twitter that in some cases, inconsistencies with licensing language for other titles surely meant that he did no wrong in just taking them.
As Ars Technica detailed in their report, Ello has had his minting privileges suspended on GameStop’s marketplace and the NFTs in question have been taken down from the platform.
On top of that, through the wonderful magic of NFTs and the mighty blockchain, these minted games might just live on forever, where they can be bought and sold on other crypto marketplaces. GameStop’s NFTs use an “Interplanetary File System,” (IPFS) which would sound cool if that tech wasn’t enabling others to continue to buy and sell NFTs with no apparatus to check and verify the content or any legal issues surrounding them. It’s not entirely clear how GameStop verifies or spot checks the NFTs that arrive on its marketplace, though Terms of Service State that the purchaser, and not GameStop, is responsible for verifying the authenticity of the NFT.
You are solely responsible for conducting research on NFTs and understanding the Seller’s terms and conditions with respect to any potential purchase or sale of NFTs prior to any purchase or sale. Such investigations include verification of the credibility and veracity of the seller’s claims and his NFT descriptions, including ownership, uniqueness, intellectual property, licensing, rarity, rarity, value, and functionality. Including but not limited to: None of the GameStop Entities (defined below) endorse the NFT or otherwise disclaim its authenticity, ownership, uniqueness, intellectual property, license, rarity, rarity, value, functionality, and/or other We make no claims regarding property or rights.
But even with a thorough vetting process on the part of GameStop, IPFS file hashes are still accessible from active nodes across multiple servers via the blockchain. It’s a Pandora’s box of art theft.
That may be the nature of the NFT beast, but GameStop isn’t completely off the hook here.As Arstecnica It turns out that GameStop’s servers still allow access to unlicensed NiFTy Arcade games. All you need is the correct link and you can continue to access these NFTs anyway. Joseph White, creator of his PICO-8 game engine, which powers the pixel games Ello has assigned to his NiFTy Arcade game, said in opposition to GameStop: Arstecnica Video game retailer offers no clear way to remove NFTs that infringe others’ copyrights.
Kotaku We reached out to Joseph White for comment.
I think you’d have to be a little richer for the DMCA takedown request to have any effect. What a fair system! If you make a Metallica song, Lars Ulrich joins the fight To stop all this nonsense.