Some of Trump’s new NFTs look like Photoshops of Google search results

After hyping a big announcement, Donald Trump revealed his next big project: NFTs. As they were revealed, reverse image searches of some of the “digital trading cards” revealed them to be edits of clothes that are easily found in Google searches.

Most expected a major political announcement from the 45th president of the United States, but Trump instead revealed a series of digital collectibles, or non-fungible tokens (NFTs), featuring himself in a variety of cosplays, from a cowboy and a astronaut to someone resembling Superman, if Superman used his real name as his hero persona.

The whole affair is rather bizarre, especially considering that the whole project is completely devoid of politics.

“These digital trading cards are not political and have nothing to do with any political campaign. NFT INT LLC is not owned, operated or controlled by Donald J. Trump, The Trump Organization, CIC Digital LLC or any of their respective principals or affiliates” , writes NFT INT LLC, the company hosting the auctions. “NFT INT LLC uses Donald J. Trump’s name, likeness and likeness under a paid license from CIC Digital LLC, which license may be terminated or revoked in accordance with the terms.”

Stranger still, while some of the Trump NFTs look like they were made from images licensed from Shutterstock — such as the Space Force astronaut image — some appear to have been taken from clothing brands and Google Image Search.

For example, Trump’s cowboy persona was likely created using a top search result for “cowboy duster” leading to a product produced by Scully:

Gizmodo noticed that his hunting cosplay appears to be taken from the outdoor clothing brand Banded.

While these images are not what most people would consider the height of photographic art, they are still images presumably owned by a producer and using images – even e-commerce images – without permission in this way raises copyright issues: is maybe not legal, not to mention unethical, to just take photos from online stores, turn them into “art” and then sell them for $99 each.

Gizmodo say they reached out to the manufacturer of both garments to ask if either gave the former US president permission to use their images, but neither immediately responded.

The situation continues to be strange the more it is investigated. NFT INT LLC lists its address in a Utah shopping center that contains a few restaurants, a dry cleaner and a UPS store. Salt Lake Tribune dug into this strange situation in a detailed feature, for those interested in seeing how deep this rabbit hole goes.

Header image: On the left, Scully Leather. Right, NFT INT LLC