José Delgo, a former comic book artist from DC and Marvel, used to be best known for his pencil execution Wonder Woman back in the 70s and early 80s. Now, he’s probably more famous for doing $ 1.85 million dollars selling NFTs – or non-fungible tokens—From his online drawings, many of which featured Wonder Woman and other licensed characters. DC Comics apparently he is not satisfied with this development.
Of course, the real problem is that DC didn’t get a cutting art sales with its intellectual property and is concerned that other artists – who work for DC or not – might try the same thing. So, the publisher, by the way Senior Vice President of Legal Affairs Jay Kogan, sent a letter to the creative teams and freelancers employed by DC, informing them unequivocally NFTs they are a no-no.
After stating that the company had big plans for the digital property market, Kogan presented a velvet glove with an iron fist tucked inside. The letter, which leaked online before today (io9 contacted DC for more information, but the company declined to comment), read in part: “As DC examines the complexities of the NFT market, we work on a reasonable and fair solution for all parties involved, including fans and collectors, please note that the offer to sell any digital images with DC intellectual property with or without NFTs, whether rendered for DC publications or rendered outside the scope of a contractual commitment to DC, is not permitted. If you are approached by someone interested in including any of your DC arts in an NFT program, inform Lawrence Ganem, DC’s vice president of Talent Services. “
There is a lot to learn here and, of course, DC Comics owns Wonder Woman, Batman and all of its characters, and has every right to want to master this intellectual property in the NFT industry. The company would probably do the same with physical fan art of DC Comics characters, if could think of any possible way to manage this on an ongoing basis.
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On the other hand, what do you think the chances are for the company to give these artists and writers their fair share for the work they have already completed, especially when they are effectively just getting someone to certify a digital image like that? true, official version? And can DC really control that? Or will many people, hoping to earn a lot of money with very little effort, upload so many images from DC Comics (scanned or hand-drawn) to make the NFT market unmanageable?
Non-fungible tokens they are too young – and too unpredictable – to know right now. They are also new enough to demand an explanation. To put it very succinctly, it’s a system where people can “own” digital assets like images, gifs, tweets, NBA games and more – although that doesn’t stop anyone from having their own copies, say, on your computer, or uploaded to YouTube, or whatever. For example, I could take a screencap with one of Delbo’s pieces and then get a copy of it. But the person who has an NFT linked to digital content becomes the “official” owner of a single token that cannot be duplicated.
I really want to make a speech about the absurdity of NFTs, which would be long and would contain nothing that people have not said before and would end up resulting in this image, which someone potentially now has:
However, the value of NFTs is the same as that of paper money. Both are combined lies; that having a non-duplicable digital asset in a closed system makes it valuable, even if it is readily available outside that system, or that pieces of printed paper are valuable in their own right and can be exchanged for goods and services, but when you take that paper to a different country, don’t buy anything from you.
If enough people believe that NFTs have value (figuratively, not literally … but I think literally too), then they will have value. At the moment, its growing popularity, evidenced by the number of big companies signing up to sell your products certainly indicates that the NFT market is going in that direction.
And DC Comics will make sure that take your share.
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