Concerning Reuploads of My Works

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"There is no greater evil than anarchy." - Sophocles

As of writing this post, many people have adopted a new style of selling digital art, called "non-fungible tokens", or NFTs. These NFTs are essentially receipts for an item on something called the "blockchain". When a user sells an NFT, the buyer is given a link to access this NFT, as a sort of one-of-a-kind trading card. This guarantees ownership of the item in a digital sense, and prevents anyone else from using this item.

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This "blockchain" uses a cryptocurrency system to generate the link used to access the NFT, using digital currency such as Bitcoin to use in these trades. Most often than not, these links use up a lot of power to generate the link, which in turn generate more carbon emissions than a normal house uses per day. In fact, one study from Digiconomist shows that the amount of carbon emissions generated from NFTs totalled around "134 TWh (terawatts/hour) in total, which is comparable to the electrical energy consumed by a country like Argentina." (Source: https://twitter.com/DigiEconomist/status/1477420461122375683 )

This is a problem because, as Josh Collinsworth points out, "Bitcoin singlehandedly undid ALL the environmental good of electric vehicles in 2021, and consumed almost 2X as much energy as in 2020." (Source: https://twitter.com/jjcollinsworth/status/1477460188739297285 ) And, to top it all off, people were freezing in New York "because NFTs used so much power that they raised the energy bills, and some people aren’t able to afford them". (Source: https://twitter.com/Antre___/status/1482051923033440256 )

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Another large problem with NFTs is that they are often used to steal artwork from artists without their permission, and the takedown forms that artists have to fill out will leave artists vulnerable to doxxing, by filling out their real name, email, phone number, signature, and most importantly, their address. (Source: https://twitter.com/CirenSong/status/1472502128467972102 ). And a number of artists have to submit multiple takedown requests due to multiple pieces of artwork being reuploaded without their permission. (Source: https://twitter.com/vashperado/status/1475665812245602304 )

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NFTs are not just limited to art theft. Entire YouTube channels are being put on this blockchain system, where even though it has no direct effect on the YouTube channel itself, is still a massive breach of privacy. (Source: https://twitter.com/Saberspark/status/1482157033944231938 ) Even links to Twitch channels are being sold for a monetary value. (Source: https://twitter.com/LichVtuber/status/1482629807846404096 ). NFTs of a person's voice can also be used to avoid paying voice actors for their work, and what's worse is that the service used to run these Voice NFTs are stealing from another website itself. (Sources https://twitter.com/SimplyAllegra/status/1482034706564595714 and https://twitter.com/VoiceverseNFT/status/1482067251704434688 ). And full scale videos are being ripped from creators without any credit given to them whatsoever. (Source: https://twitter.com/NFTtheft/status/1482409009801928704 )

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Even the creator of NFTs, Anil Dash, agreed that it was a horrible idea, stating that "By devising the technology specifically for artistic use, McCoy and I hoped we might prevent it from becoming yet another method of exploiting creative professionals. But nothing went the way it was supposed to." Today, Dash runs a platform for people to create applications, and the most popular one is a Twitter app that allows people to block a large amount of people, "because artists were using it to block NFT spammers from hijacking their works and monetizing them as NFTs without permission." (Source: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/04/nfts-werent-supposed-end-like/618488/ )

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Artificial intelligence is also rising up in the ranks, as programs such as DALL-E, Midjourney, StableDiffusion, and other programs have slowly begun replacing talented artists with soulless works of art. As put by Jason Allen, a Colorado State Fair Fine Art Show winner of digital art with a piece created in Midjourney, "Art is dead, dude. It’s over. A.I. won. Humans lost." This can come as a blow to artists that now have a fear of being completely wiped out thanks to artificial intelligence, with one person stating "If creative jobs aren’t safe from machines, then even high-skilled jobs are in danger of becoming obsolete. What will we have then? (Sources: https://news.artnet.com/art-world/ai-generated-art-debate-2175570 & https://news.artnet.com/art-world/colorado-artists-mad-ai-art-competition-2168495 )

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A journalist who had used a picture generated by Midjourney eventually had their career ruined because they had used the picture for an article. After being called out on it, the journalist had attempted to clarify and apologize, but the damage had already set in. The journalist had then decided to interview cartoonist Matt Bors, who stated that artificially created images, "to developers and technically minded people, it’s this cool thing, but to illustrators it’s very upsetting because it feels like you’ve eliminated the need to hire the illustrator." (Source: https://newsletters.theatlantic.com/galaxy-brain/62fc502abcbd490021afea1e/twitter-viral-outrage-ai-art/)

concerning my works

Because of the potential for my works to be stolen without my permission through this blockchain method, I have decided to be extremely strict when it comes to reuploads of my works. In the past, I have previously given people a set timeframe to remove the infringing content before I would file a DMCA claim or a takedown request. However, with this new blockchain system being mostly used for theft, all reuploaded content will be taken down immediately, if proper authorization has not been met beforehand.

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To obtain authorization to reupload my works, you MUST send me an email first at tristan.gaylord7@gmail.com with the proper format. This format may be found in the Copyright Policy page.

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Failure to obtain permission to reupload my works beforehand will result in the following, depending on the platform:

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For YouTube, the infringing video will be taken down immediately, and you will receive a Copyright Claim and/or strike.

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For Twitter, a DMCA claim will be filed, and you must remove the post before Twitter will. Otherwise, your account may be subject to being suspended for a period of time that I am not able to control.

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For NFT websites, the website in question will receive a DMCA notice if a reuploaded work is found on that site. Repeated uploads of my content without permission will result in legal action, with fines of at minimum $10,000 and possible termination of the website.

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For artificial intelligence programs, if it is found that my works were inspired to create a product of similar likeness, it is still using my works without permission, and will result in legal action, a fine of at minimum $10,000, and possible termination of the website.

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