Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) creator Yuga Labs has won a trademark lawsuit against conceptual artists Ryder Ripps and Jeremy Cahen after the artists parodied the BAYC non-fungible token (NFT) collection.
A California judge ruled that Yuga Labs had the right to protect its BAYC trademark and that the artists’ NFT project called RR/BAYC was not artistic expression protected by the First Amendment with US District Judge John Walter comparing the sale of RR /BAYC NFTs similar to selling “counterfeit wallet”.
Ripps and Cahen launched the RR/BAYC NFTs last May. The NFT collection contains duplicates of the artwork of the real BAYC collection, and they were sold for much less than super expensive BAYC NFTs.
At its launch last year, Ripps tweeted that their RR/BAYC collection was an “artistic statement about the nature of NFT” as well as a “satire against Yuga Labs’ practices.”
It will be a groundbreaking case in defining the nature of NFT, I am trying to establish how you cannot copy an NFT, every coin is a context shift, in my particular case this is an artistic statement about the nature of NFT, satire against Yuga Labs’ Practices and Objection to Content
— RYDER RIPPS 🔜 (@ryder_ripps) 17 May 2022
The RR/BAYC collection also made public claims that the BAYC collection contains neo-Nazi imagery, a claim that has been denied by Yuga Labs.
Yuga Labs filed suit shortly after Ripps and Cahen launched their “parody” NFT collection in which the dominant NFT player alleged that the artists had misused their BAYC trademarks “in an attempt to trick members of the community into purchasing their NFTs instead of the official BAYC NFTs. “
Yuga Labs also accused the duo of engaging in false advertising that created “confusion” among users.
Ripps and Cahen argued that their RR/BAYC NFT collection was merely artistic expression rather than trademark infringement. However, the district court disagreed that the series was not protected by the First Amendment. The ruling says theirs was just “a collection of NFTs” that pointed to “the same web images as the BAYC collection.” The ruling also states that the defendant NFT market sale together with the Ape market contained “no artistic expression or critical comments”.
The application of copyright and trademark laws to NFTs is still relatively new legal terrain. Ripps and Cahen argued that Yuga Labs no longer owned the trademark rights to the NFTs when they transferred those rights to people who bought the BAYC NFTs. However, the court disagreed, citing Yuga Labs’ terms and conditions stating that Yuga Labs “grants to each BAYC NFT holder a copyright license for both personal and commercial use,” but “not a trademark license to use the BAYC Marks.”
The court also rejected claims that Yuga Labs does not actually own the trademark rights to the BAYC NFTs as the NFTs are intangible. It cited a recent copyright case involving Hermes and MetaBirkins to support the ruling. MetaBirkins NFT’s collection featured images of fake Birkin bags. In that lawsuit, a New York court ruled early this year that goods do not necessarily have to be tangible for trademark laws to apply. MetaBirkins creator Mason Rothschild was ordered to pay Hermes $133,000.
The court said Ripps and Cahen not only infringed Yuga Labs’ marks, but also violated cybersquatting rules. Cybersquatting involves registering domain names that are similar to trademarked names with the hope of making money from them because of the perceived connection. Ripps and Cahen registered the domain names apemarket.com and rrbayc.com containing BAYC branding, and according to the court, the domain names were “confusingly similar” to Yuga Labs branding.
The decision ruled that Yuga Labs was entitled to compensation. The amount the artists are obligated to pay BAYC NFT’s creator will be determined at a later date.
https://virtualrealitytimes.com/2023/05/01/yuga-labs-wins-a-lawsuit-against-a-copycat-nft-collection/https://virtualrealitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Bored-Ape-Yacht-Club-3749.pnghttps://virtualrealitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Bored-Ape-Yacht-Club-3749-150×90.pngBusinessNFTBored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) creator Yuga Labs has won a trademark lawsuit against conceptual artists Ryder Ripps and Jeremy Cahen after the artists parodied the BAYC non-fungible token (NFT) collection. A California judge ruled that Yuga Labs had the right to protect…Rob GrantRob
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