José Delgo, a former DC and Marvel comic book artist, was best known for its run-penciling Wonder Woman back in the 70s and early 80s. Now he is probably best known for making $ 1.85 million dollars by selling NFTs – or non-replaceable tokens– of his drawings online, many of which were on display Wonder Woman and other licensed characters. DC Comics is apparently not happy with this development.
The real problem, of course, is that DC doesn’t have any limited the sale of art with its intellectual property and is concerned that other artists – working for DC or otherwise – will try the same. So the publisher, by the way from Senior Vice President of Legal Affairs Jay Kogan, sent a letter to the creative teams and freelancers employed by DC, informing them in clear terms NFTs its 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 inside. The letter, that previously leaked online today (io9 reached out to DC for more information, but the company declined to comment), it reads in part: “As DC examines the complexities of the NFT market, we are working on a reasonable and fair solution for all parties involved, fans and collectors, please note that offering for sale digital images containing DC’s intellectual property with or without NFTs, whether displayed for DC publications or displayed outside the scope of one’s contractual involvement with DC, is not Allowed. If you are approached by someone interested in incorporating your DC art into an NFT program, please let Lawrence Ganem, DC’s VP, Talent Services know. “
There’s a lot to see here, and of course DC Comics absolutely owns Wonder Woman, Batman, and all of its characters, and it has every right to want to have dominion over that intellectual property in the NFT industry. The company would likely do the same with physical fan art of DC Comics characters, if it does could think of every possible way to manage that on an ongoing basis.
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On the other hand, what do you think the odds are that the company will give these artists and writers a fair share for the work they’ve already completed, especially if it’s basically just getting someone to certify a digital image like the picture they took? where, official version? And can DC actually control this? Or, hoping to make a lot of money with little effort, will too many people upload so many DC Comics images (scanned or hand drawn) to make the NFT market unmanageable?
Non-replaceable tokens are too new – and too unpredictable – to know right now. They are also new enough that they need explanation. To put it succinctly, it’s a system where people can “ own ” digital assets such as images, gifs, tweets, NBA plays and more, although that doesn’t stop anyone from having their own copies. say, on their computer, or uploaded to YouTube, or whatever. For example, I could take a screen cap with one of Delbo’s pieces, and then I would have a copy of it. However, the person who owns an NFT associated with a piece of digital content becomes the “official” owner of a unique token that cannot be duplicated.
I’d really like to rant about the absurdity of NFTs, which would take a long time and contain nothing that people haven’t said before that would ultimately boil down to this image, which someone may now own:
However, the value of NFTs is the same as paper money. They are both agreed upon lies; that having a non-duplicable digital asset in a closed system makes it valuable, even though it is readily available outside of that system, or that pieces of printed paper are valuable to themselves and can be traded for goods and services, but if you do that paper to another country, it does not buy you anything.
If enough people accept the idea that NFTs have value (figuratively, not literally … but I think literally too), then they will have value. At the moment, their popularity is increasing, as evidenced by the number big companies signing up to sell their wares certainly indicates that the NFT market is heading in that direction.
And DC Comics is going to take the hell out of it gets his parts.
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