An unauthorized NFT drop to celebrate infosec pioneers has fallen into chaos with conflicting takedowns, piracy and confusion.

Released on Christmas Day by a group called “ItsBlockchain,” the “Cipher Punks” NFT package included portraits of 46 distinct figures, with ten copies of each token. Taken at their opening price, the full value of the drop was roughly $4,000. However, almost immediately the infosec community raised objections to the drop — some even from portrait subjects.

The portrait images missedpell several names, including Jon Callas, OpenPGP creator and Jillian York, an EFF speech activist. At least one drawing was based on a copyright protected photograph. The list also included some people who were ostracized because of their harmful personal behavior. Jacob Appelbaum , and Richard Stallman .

Responding on Twitter, York tweeted a link to her own portrait and said simply, “I don’t approve of this whatsoever and would like it removed.”

Tuesday morning, the ItsBlockchain team announced in a Medium post that it would be “shutting down” the collection in response to the backlash, offering full refunds to any purchasers and covering any gas fees involved in the transfer.

“We didn’t know about the likeness laws in NFTs because the market isn’t regulated,” the post states. It was our error. We must admit it

OpenSea seems to have taken the central decision to delete the collection, no more visible from the platform.

The incident is a reminder of the potentially thorny legal issues around NFTs, where norms of permissionless innovation often clash with likeness rights and intellectual property law. The US law regarding publicity rights states that an individual’s name or identity cannot be used to promote their products without their consent. However, it is unclear how this lawsuit would work when applied to NFTs.

Update 12/28 11: 07AM ET: Included Cipher Punk’s Medium post shutting down the collection and OpenSea’s decision to remove the tokens.