NFT Review #8: NFT Movies and OpenSea Takedowns

New NFT movie franchise, Larva Labs issue DMCA against CryptoPhunks, Axie Infinity generates $1m in 24hrs, and Messari release Q2 2021 NFT report.

NFT Review is a weekly newsletter covering NFTs in the Web3 ecosystem on Polkadot’s side of the woods. The newsletter is put together by Bruno Škvorc and gbaci.

For a more general overview of the Web3 ecosystem, consider subscribing to Dot Leap.

Looking for a primer on NFTs? This should be the last introduction you’ll ever need.

---

Dear NFT enthusiast,

It was another exciting week in NFT land. NFT sales volume crossed $2.5 billion year-to-date. But this isn’t what got our imaginations whirring.

Larva Labs, the creators of CryptoPunks, issued a Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) takedown notice to OpenSea to delist CryptoPhunks.

Nate Chastain (natec.eth) @natechastain

We've received a DMCA from Larva Labs about infringing material in the "CryptoPhunks" collection and are complying with that notice by delisting the collection from OpenSea. I wanted to publicly note this to make sure that we exposed the reason for its delisting to that community

To date, OpenSea has listed and delisted CryptoPhunks on three occasions. This raises questions about copyright protection, artistic authenticity, and the technological limits of NFTs. It’s a conversation the Crypto community needs to have before moving forward. If not, we are bound to see more of this in the future.

Every week or so, a new derivative NFT collection is released. What happens in a world of derivative NFTs and (un)enforced IP rights?

This crosses over to the rest of Crypto. Permissionless breeds abuse. If the code is available for everyone to see, it is inevitable that entire projects will be ‘copied’ and rebranded with a new name and logo. This prompted Uniswap to insert a “business source license” into their V3 Whitepaper that acts as a time delay against would-be copycats.

It’s interesting to see how the relationship between the CryptoPunks-CryptoPhunks-OpenSea threesome will unfold.

Until then, we keep building. Read on for more interesting news, like the first decentralized NFT franchise; a Hollywood movie starring Anthony Hopkins to premiere on an NFT movie platform; the Walking Dead making their metaverse debut.

Thank you for reading and have a great week.

— NFT Review

---

👨🏼‍🎨  RMRK Artist Spotlight: 😟

*in Arnold Swazneggar’s voice*

We will be back….next week.

---

📬 NFT News from Kusama & Polkadot

• Check out the replay of @AleksandaMitro1's interview with @YungShow

• Parity and Friends hosted a crowdcast around NFTs, with talks by Web3’s Qinwen Wang and Eliott Teissonniere of Ternoa.

• RMRK has been invited to speak at the fourth Ethereum Community Conference holding 20-22 July 2021.

EthCC - Ethereum Community Conference @EthCC

🤩 #EthCC Speakers 🤩 @bitfalls from @RmrkApp 20-22 July 2021 Developer Tools

• Bruno Škvorc, the founder of RMRK, hosted a webinar on Tuesday 13th July to explain NFTs for beginners. Watch the recording of the event here to level-up your knowledge of NFTs.

  RMRK.app Official @RmrkApp

  Confused about NFTs? In this 30min webinar RMRK founder @bitfalls will explain what NFTs are and show you hands-on how to mint and sell them on Singular.rmrk.app. There'll be plenty of time for questions too, don't be shy! Seats limited!

  

  crowdcast.ioIntroduction to RMRK’s NFTs and the Singular platform - CrowdcastRegister now for RMRK.app Team’s event on Crowdcast, scheduled to go live on Tuesday July 13, 2021 at 4:00 pm CEST.

• RMRK 2.0 tools checklist is nearing completion. This is exciting as it means we are only a short time away from the launch of the most advanced NFT standard in crypto.

---

🗞 NFT News from Ethereum and Beyond

• Artist Micah Johnson is auctioning a new character in “Hi My Name is…” — the 1st decentralized movie NFT franchise — via Async Art and Christie’s.

• The Institute of Contemporary Art Miami received CryptoPunk #5293 as a donation from one of its trustees. This makes the institution the first major museum collection to own a Punk.

Resnicow and Associates @ResnicowCulture

@icamiami is the first major art museum to acquire a #CryptoPunk #NFT, through a major gift from museum Trustee Eduardo Burrillo!

newsroom.resnicow.comInstitute of Contemporary Art, Miami Acquires CryptoPunks NFT Through Major Gift from Trustee Eduardo BurilloThe Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami (ICA Miami) today announced the acquisition of the non-fungible token (NFT) CryptoPunk 5293, marking the first NFT to enter a major art museum collection. Gifted by ICA Miami Trustee Eduardo Burillo, CryptoPunk 5293 will be on view at ICA Miami this summer, r…

• Mattereum announced the acquisition of three rare cultural artefacts that will be vaulted, passported, and tokenized using the Mattereum Protocol.

• NFT game Axie Infinity facilitated over $22 million worth of trading volume on Wednesday, July 7th, leading to +$1M in revenues on the day.

Philippe Castonguay @PhABCD

With $22m daily volume, @AxieInfinity made more than $1 million in *revenue* yesterday. Annualized, this competes with some of the biggest AAA games out there like Dota, Fortnite, etc. At this rate, it could soon become the game with the most revenue in the world.

• Talented developer, vasa, unveiled Genie Swap, a production-ready update of his cross-asset-swap NFT trading system.

• Messari released Q2 2021 Web3 + NFT report. The report highlights that contrary to reports of NFTs being in decline, NFTs are rising.

• In October, Ethereum generative art platform Art Blocks is launching its official gallery in Marfa, Texas.

  Art Blocks @artblocks_io

  We are thrilled to share that the Art Blocks official gallery is (soft) opening in Marfa, TX, during @ChinatiFndn Weekend from October 8-10. We'll host our first open house that Friday from 10 am-8 pm. You can expect an art exhibit, exclusive merch, and great company!

  

• Vuele, a new NFT platform dedicated to movies to distribute Zero Contact, a pandemic film starring Anthony Hopkins and produced by Enderby Entertainment.

• The Sandbox teamed up with Skybound Entertainment to bring The Walking Dead to their virtual world — Plus standalone characters and assets players can be used to create original The Walking Dead adventures.

• nftommo.eth built a beta site that tracks floor prices across popular NFT marketplace OpenSea.

---

That’s all for this week, see you in the next edition! Got some links to share with us, artists to feature, NFTs to sell, jobs to promote, or events to popularize? Get in touch with Bruno or gbaci!