The well-known streamer “Ludwig” is fed up with his face and those of other well-known streamers being used for NFTs. On Twitter, he now threatened consequences – with success.
The NFT hype became too much for YouTube streamer and content creator Ludwig “Ludwig” Ahgren: A project called “MetaDeckz” offered hand-painted NFT trading cards depicting well-known streamers such as xQc or Amouranth without their consent. Ludwig himself was also one of them. A discussion then broke out between the two parties on Twitter.
Ludwig accused the creator of the project on Twitter of exploiting the popularity of the streaming personalities and trying to make money without permission. The minimum value of the cards is said to have been 200 US dollars. To put an end to it all, he threatened legal consequences and exposed what he said was the artist’s hypocritical behaviour.
The artist himself explained in a video on Twitter that he loved gaming and streaming and wanted to do something “cool for the community”. Since he was an artist and wanted to get attention for his artwork, he took the risk. However, he had asked all the streamers beforehand whether they were in agreement.
In a statement in response to this video, Ludwig wrote that the artist had asked Ludwig for permission only 24 hours before publishing the NFT artwork and that he had not even followed him on Twitter beforehand. He sees this as proof that the project would only be about quick money.
@slime_machine @LudwigAhgren pic.twitter.com/zPbGpjr7yA
– MetaDeckz (@MetaDeckz) February 17, 2022
The artist behind the project then spoke out again, defending himself by saying that he originally thought he would do the streaming community some good with “something cool and relatable” and be able to change their critical opinion of NFTs. He does not want to be portrayed as a fraud, as he was only following his passion.
Nevertheless, he could understand the objections of Ludwig and the community. The NFT project should now be dissolved despite the “thousands of hours put into it”. However, the trading cards will continue to be produced, just not as NFTs and without compensation.
@LudwigAhgren pic.twitter.com/I3BqusYyyI
– MetaDeckz (@MetaDeckz) February 17, 2022
For the streamer, it could not only be about the unauthorised use of his likeness and the violation of his personal rights, but also about his image and that of the other streamers. Since many NFT scams have been uncovered recently and some of the streamers involved, such as MontanaBlack, have received shitstorms for it, it is not entirely unlikely that he is also worried about what could happen if his face is depicted on such an NFT scam. In addition, Ludwig also mentioned in his Twitter statement that his community already had something against NFT projects anyway, as they were often shady.
Ludwig broke his streaming colleague Ninja’s record for the most active subscriptions on Twitch in April 2021 by hosting a subathon in which each subscription extended his stream by ten seconds. Just six months later, he signed an exclusive deal with YouTube Gaming and moved his content to that platform.
