In response to the recent proposal from OpenSea that they will no longer offer artists royalty fees, teen superstar artist, FEWOCiOUS responded to the marketplace company with an emotional letter, detailing stories about his career as a young transgender artist, and how artist royalties have affected his, and other young people like him.
Quick Take:
- OpenSea recently shared the proposal that they would no longer offer artists royalty fees on their work, following in the footsteps of marketplace competitors.
- This caused one of the top NFT artists, FEWOCiOUS, to compose an emotional letter to the company.
- Now, they have slightly altered their plans, saying they are reconsidering the decision in a recent statement.
The Initial OpenSea Decision and How it’s Changed
On Saturday, OpenSea, which is still the biggest Ethereum NFT marketplace, announced its plans to remove creator fees (a.k.a royalties) from December 8th for current collections, and November 8th for new collections.
Now, new collections will have to consider creating their artwork through OpenSea’s new on-chain royalty fees enforcement tool. But for those without it, creator fees will not be added automatically.
For current collections, OpenSea is still considering – due to the difficulty of altering fees on-chain for existing NFTs. Each current collection is safe until at least December 8th, whilst the New York City company considers their final choice.
FEWOCiOUS’ Letter to OpenSea
Yesterday afternoon, Victor, or FEWOCiOUS, as he’s known to his fans, composed a letter to OpenSea, publishing it on his 135,000 followers strong Twitter account, detailing why he feels OpenSea have to maintain the creator royalties.
FEWOCiOUS shared emotional details about his struggles as a transgender teen. As well as this, how many other artists in the NFT space rely on royalties to pay the bills. Victor noted that it was the reason why the art community “flocked” to NFTs initially – it was their ‘unique selling point’, so to say.
OpenSea Tweeted, also yesterday, to say: “We’ve been listening to you in Spaces, 1:1 conversations, and in the comments. We really appreciate you sharing your perspectives, making time for conversations, and showing your passionate support for creators.” They then continued to talk about their December 8th deadline. Mentioning how that remains the same and no changes will be made until then.
