GameStop ‘Falling Man’ NFT saga shows people power at its best

by · August 15, 2022

A recent nonfungible token (NFT) listing on GameStop’s marketplace became the center of controversy in the NFT world. The listing received strong community backlash, prompting the marketplace to take action within a day, showing how a community can come together to reverse the mistake.

The NFT in question, entitled “Falling Man”, showed a man in a space suit falling down. The NFT in question bore quite a resemblance to the infamous 9/11 image of a man falling to his death, which has since become a defining moment of the deadly attacks. Many believed that the NFT impersonated the 9/11 victim and also infringed the copyright of the image taken by the original photojournalist Richard Drew.

In another discussion on the meme share subreddit GME_Meltdown, a user pointed out that the figure in NFT is a rendering of an existing 3D model of a Russian flight suit made by an independent artist, which was used without permission from the original artist.

The GameStop team eventually took down NFT and even banned the creator behind the art from embossing on the platform.

The crypto community demanded that GameStop do better due diligence before approving any art form to the marketplace. One user wrote:

“It’s still not enough how do you allow this, it’s disgusting that there has to be a review team looking at every NFT for crap like this or stolen art.”

GameStop did not respond to Cointelegraph’s request for comment at press time.

While GameStop faced community backlash, the incident opened a Pandora’s box of evidence highlighting how for many NFTs became a medium to make a quick buck at the expense of common human decency.

Related: Scams in GameFi: How to Identify Toxic NFT Gaming Projects

OpenSea, currently one of the most popular NFT marketplaces, has “Falling Man” as an NFT for sale for almost two months.

Another revelation came earlier in January this year when a doctor tried to sell an X-ray of the victim of the 2015 Paris terror attack as an NFT. The doctor is currently facing legal and disciplinary action.

The NFT craze began at the height of the bull run in March 2021 after digital artist Beeple’s NFT art fetched a whopping $69.3 million. Since then, NFT has become a buzzword, and every other brand and celebrity has gotten involved in the phenomenon.

With its rise in popularity, the ecosystem also became a target for fraudsters, leading to an increase in copyright infringement and fake NFT sales. However, the crypto community has always come together to show the power of the people. One such case took place in May of this year when the Solana community (SOL) came together to “fraud” a scammer to get back some stolen NFTs.