A father in Virginia is using a new type of digital asset in an effort to remove footage of his daughter’s murder from the internet.
Andy Parker, the father of Alison Parker, a reporter shot to death on-camera in 2015, has turned the footage of his daughter into a non-fungible token, or NFT, in an attempt to eliminate the footage.
“This is the Hail Mary,” Parker told the Washington Post, describing it as an “act of desperation.”
US COMPANIES ARE COLLUDING IN CHINA’S DOMESTIC OPPRESSION
Parker has worked with multiple social media platforms to remove the footage of his daughter’s death from the platforms. However, he claims that footage of the shooting still lingers on several platforms. Parker has attempted a few other methods, including complaints filed with the Federal Trade Commission.
“We have talked to Google, we’ve talked to Facebook … they are protected by Section 230,” Parker told Fox News‘s Dana Perino. “That gives them complete immunity from any kind of liability, so they do what they do because they can.”
The sole exception to Section 230 protections would be matters involving copyright infringement and intellectual property.
Parker has attempted to approach this problem by seeking copyright claims for the footage, but he has failed to obtain that. Parker has been in a legal standoff with Alison’s former employer, Gray Television. The broadcasting company has not provided the full copyright privileges to Parker, but it has offered a license if it would help.
So, Parker is now trying to claim the footage as an NFT. Alison’s boyfriend “came up with the idea that … what if we create an NFT of this, this might be to enable us to circumvent the copyright issue,” Parker told Perino. “And so, that’s what we did … We were at the point where we’re throwing spaghetti against the wall to see what sticks.”
“We remain committed to removing violent footage filmed by Alison Parker’s murderer, and we rigorously enforce our policies using a combination of machine learning technology and human review,” a spokesperson for YouTube said in a statement.
A spokesperson for Gray Television told the Washington Post that it never permitted Parker to make the NFT.
NFTs do not necessarily establish one as the copyright owner of the token. While an NFT establishes one’s ownership of the token in question, it does not directly mean that the NFT’s record of ownership in the blockchain also applies to the physical or digital artifact in question. It is unclear if the creation of said NFT will improve Parker’s ability to remove clips from the internet.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
Experts claim that copyright case law around NFT ownership is still in early development. However, select copyright cases have arisen outside the United States that are helping set a precedent.
NFTs have been used in unusual ways to transfer legal rights around. One digital real estate company decided to sell the rights to a Tampa Bay home as an NFT.
Parker is running for Congress in Virginia’s 5th Congressional District.
