Trump Stole Images From Various Online Clothing Websites and Stock Photo Collections For His Poorly-Photoshopped "Brokémon" jpgs
"Trumps NFT trading cards company is linked to an address used by tons of criminals."
Matthew Sheffield of The Young Turks reports that the images used on some of Donald Trump’s $100 jpgs
appear to be assembled randomly and automatically by a computer program from a pre-defined collection of backgrounds, costumes, and heads, according to listings on the OpenSea NFT marketplace. According to the Collect Trump Cards website, the NFT graphics were designed by an illustrator named Clark Mitchell. . . .
Several of the paper doll-style images used in the cards appear to be barely modified copies of widely available photos seen on clothing retailer and stock photo websites.
One image of the ex-president wearing a formal tuxedo appears to have been constructed from an oversized Trump head superimposed onto a body of a model featured on the website of the clothing retailer Men’s Wearhouse.
Another image depicting Trump as a cowboy sheriff seems to be based almost entirely on a photo of a model wearing duster-style jacket made by Scully Leather that is currently available for sale at Walmart and Amazon.
A third Trump NFT showing an imaginary scene of the ex-president as a fighter pilot standing on a globe appears to be derived from an image offered for sale by the stock photo company Shutterstock. On Twitter, several users discovered that the some of the NFTs were using background images that were freely available. . . .
Trump’s campaign operations have attracted controversy in the music business several times for using songs without permission or payment at events.
Despite the low quality of the images, the initial offering of the Trump NFTs sold out . . . even though a number of initial buyers said on Twitter that they were unable to access their assets. The company will not be offering any refunds on initial purchases, according to its website.
Robert Graham decided to “use a Visa gift card and a disposable e-mail address and explore the technical details behind this ‘Trump NFT’”. His 52-tweet thread is here:
If, after throwing away $99.00 on a jpg you could have had for $0.00 by right-clicking, you find another sucker to sell it to, you have to pay Trump 10% of the sale price.
