βFrequently Asked Questions
π Looking for our Quick Start? Find it here!
Where is Your Quick Start?
You can find our quick start for artists here.
What Do I Need To Start?
As a starbeam.one artist, three things are required for you to publish art and receive money from selling them:
Public Authenticator. Public Authenticators have a publicly verifiable URL/username and this is how people can verify it is you selling your works. We currently support:
Twitter (preferred because it is where most of us are ATM and you can take advantage of our announcement bot when your items are listed and sold)
Reddit
DeviantArt
Patreon
Art. :) Make sure that it abides by our content policy.
A PayPal or Coinbase Account - This is how we send money to you when you request a withdrawal
I Signed Up with a Reddit/DeviantArt/Patreon Account but I want to Publish using Twitter
Whatever you do, do not sign out of your current account and sign back in with Twitter. Doing so creates a new account and an administrative headache (we can still help you with this of course, contact us if you need assistance!) We are actively working on making this process better. Instead of signing out, attach your Twitter account to your current account by:
Going to the following page: https://starbeam.one/profile/security
Select Twitter and log in using this method (again, not by logging out)
Finally, visit this page and make sure your Twitter is promoted as a sales identity: https://starbeam.one/profile/marketplace/registrations
What Is Being Sold?
Resalable Digital Licenses (RDLs) are the product being sold to collectors.
How Do I Publish Art?
Visit our quick start to get started.
How Much Does It Cost to Publish?
starbeam.one was made with the starving artist in mind, where any artist can "saddle up to the bar" and publish their art. As it 100% centralized there is no gas and therefore no gas fees, and it is free to publish work. The system is instead guided by a concept known as capacity and allows you to publish to the market as much as you can prove that you can sell.
Do I Maintain the Rights to My Work? Can I Use My Work on Other Platforms?
Please note that we assume a license of works uploaded to starbeam.one for marketing and promotional purposes. For example, we might want to promote a compilation of associated art as a composite on our Twitter feed. This allows us to do that so that we can promote both you and starbeam.one concurrently. Please see our terms of use for more details about this.
Outside of this, this is exclusively your art and you maintain ownership rights to it. You are using our service to create and sell licenses around your property, and these licenses have a few rights ascribed to them that can be enforced at our application level as described here. You can use your property however you see fit outside of starbeam.one. You could even sell the same art on another platform if you wish.
However, that stated, there are considerations around such activity. While you have the freedom to do this, consider what it looks like to those wanting to purchase from you if you have the same art listed in different places and perhaps at even price points. Consider further if you sell your art on an NFT marketplace that does not protect your content while selling the same art on starbeam.one where we protect your content by default. Is this fair to the buyers of your work on starbeam.one? If you bought the work of someone and they participated in this activity, how would it make you feel? Make sure you explore such questions before undertaking such an activity.
Can I Make a Million Billion Arts and List Them on Your Platform Free of Charge?
No. Your account is limited by a concept known as capacity and you can only issue as much as your account allows per market. Capacity grows as you prove you can sell works in a market. You can also regain capacity by purchasing other works from artists in the market you need capacity. More details about this can be found here.
Can I Create a Fan Art Rendering of My Favorite Superhero/Cartoon Series/Musician/Band and Post It on Your Platform?
Unless you have the explicit, written permission of the copyright holder of the brand you are using, no. Every person has a right to publicity which means they have the right to control how their name and likeness are used in a commercial (commerce-based) setting. This usually if not always means getting permission from that person in the form of a contract to use their name and likeness in a business (commercial) capacity.
Keep in mind we are not a basic photo-sharing website here at starbeam.one. Rather, we sell digital products. This is a completely different ballgame than simple image sharing. When you sell a product, money exchanges hands. More importantly, when resold, royalties are paid to the original creator. If money is exchanged on a product featuring the likeness of someone you do not have permission to use, then that is legally problematic and puts parties at legal risk.
To end, here is a good article about using the likeness of presidents and politicians which discusses the right of publicity at length. This is an especially informative article as it discusses a celebrity-turned-president and how their likeness is protected by way of appropriate trademarks and other pertinent intellectual property.
But I Have Seen NFT Marketplaces Sell Fan Art and Trademark/Branded Characters as Products
π€·ββοΈ Your guess is as good as ours on why this is allowed.
How Do I Make a Withdrawal?
Press the Flares in your HUD, and then press the Withdraw
button on the resulting page.
After this, you select your PayPal or Coinbase Account to start this process. Please pay attention to the limits placed on our system during alpha status.
Can I Sell/Print My Art on Other Platforms (NFTs/Printify/etc)
Yes. This is your art. starbeam.one is simply a service that allows you to generate Resalable Digital Licenses (RDLs) around your art and publish them for sale (and resale).
That stated, be mindful of how you sell your art. Like NFTs, RDLs are valued by scarcity. Some artists are OK selling the same works on several blockchains, others are not. More importantly, certain collectors take exception with artists that do this because it ultimately degrades the value.
The recommendation is that if you already have your art published on an NFT platform, do not publish it on starbeam.one, and vice versa. However, in the end, you as an artist establish your brand as you see fit so anything is allowed (as long as it abides by our content policy).
Further, if you want to publish your art for physical print-on-demand, this is considered OK as starbeam.one does not currently allow for print-on-demand services.
What Rights Do Collectors Have to the Licenses Sold on starbeam.one?
Can I Share Source Files on Social Media As I Do with NFTs?
We do not recommend this unless you have the explicit permission of the artist who made your product. RDLs differ from NFTs in that we protect the content by default and only those who purchase artists artworks have access to the source files. This is a different approach from NFTs where everything is public and can be crawled/downloaded without any payment to the original author.
If you share a source file you are sharing the product that someone is paying for to view, thereby reducing its value (i.e. if everyone has the file, why pay anything for it?). Therefore, you should first get the permission of the artist to make sure it's OK to do this. As a general rule, please only share the watermarked (public) image or cover as seen on the product's public storefront from which you purchased the product.
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