September 11, 2001, could be considered one of the darkest days in the U.S.' history.

On that day, it was Tuesday.

In the day that was later known as 9/11, or the September 11 attacks, a series of four consecutive coordinated suicide terrorist attacks were carried out by the militant Islamic extremist network al-Qaeda against the United States.

A total of nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercial airliners mid-flight while traveling from the northeastern U.S. to California. The attackers that were organized into three different groups, had one goal in mind: crash the planes into prominent American buildings, inflicting mass casualties and major structural damage.

Two of the planes successfully crashed into the North and South Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, while the third plane into the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia. The fourth plane however crashed at a field outside Shanksville, missing its intended target, which was a federal government building in Washington, D.C..

Among the almost 3,000 people who were killed that day, one was considered among the most famous.

And that person, whose identity is still unknown, has been memorialized as "The Falling Man."

The Falling Man is a Photo taken by Richard Drew, a photographer at Associated Press.

Drew managed to photograph a man while falling from the World Trade Center during the September 11 attacks.

The man, who was trapped on the upper floors of the North Tower, either fell while searching for safety, or purposefully jumped as a desperate attempt to escape the blazing heat caused by the fire and smoke.

While the photograph was widely criticized after publication in international media, with many readers labeling the image as "disturbing, cold-blooded, ghoulish, and sadistic," the photo has also gained acclamation for being a "touching work of art" and a "masterpiece in photojournalism".

And this time, that very photo, has been an inspiration by someone to create an non-fungible token, to sell it at GameStop.

What this means, someone is taking advantage of the memorable 9/11 photo, by trivializing the falling man’s fate, reducing his final moments into something to be sold for a profit..

After all, The Falling Man is indeed one of the most poignant images from the tragedy.

But unlike The Falling Man photo from Richard Drew, the NFT is actually a new image.

The artwork is a new work, depicting an astronaut silhouetted against a series of alternating vertical lines.

When the public sees the listing, there is no denying that people will share different opinions.

Less than two weeks into the photo's soft launch, GameStop’s NFT marketplace started facing controversies.

First and foremost, this happened because The Falling Man is one of the most iconic photos of the early 21st century, and some people think that the photo shouldn't be sold to someone else, since it's copyrighted.

Second, the reason is because GameStop is a curated NFT marketplace.

Before selling anything, artists must apply and pass a vetting process before they can list their tokens. If they pass, and manage to sell something, the company takes a 2.25% cut of sales.

Artistic theft is a major issue in the NFT space.

But still, the two NFTs being sold aren't the original photo taken by Richard Drew. While it was inspired by it, they are not the same.

"This one probably fell from the MIR station," said the NFT’s description, referencing to the 1997 crash of Spektr, a Russian decommissioned space station.

The artwork’s creator is selling two different versions of The Falling Man, with the cheapest being listed at 0.65 Ethereum or about $990.