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The Courts Businesses Technology

Bored Apes Creator Sues Conceptual Artist For Copying Its NFTs (theverge.com) 69

The company behind Bored Ape Yacht Club has sued conceptual artist Ryder Ripps for selling duplicates of its Bored Ape non-fungible tokens or NFTs. From a report: The lawsuit, filed in a California court this weekend, accuses Ripps of a "calculated, intentional, and willful" scheme to damage BAYC while promoting his own copycat work. Ripps and Yuga Labs have been at odds for months, in part because of Ripps' RR/BAYC NFT series. The series used BAYC images but connected them with a different crypto token and sold them for the equivalent of around $200 apiece, a bargain compared to the real thing, which currently sell for around $100,000 on the low end.

"This is no mere monkey business. It is a deliberate effort to harm Yuga Labs at the expense of consumers by sowing confusion about whether these RR/BAYC NFTs are in some way sponsored, affiliated, or connected to Yuga Labs' official Bored Ape Yacht Club," says the lawsuit. The suit accuses Ripps of false advertising and trademark infringement among other offenses. It asks for financial damages and a court order demanding he cease infringing on BAYC's work, including a ban on using "confusingly similar" domain names like apemarket.com.

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Bored Apes Creator Sues Conceptual Artist For Copying Its NFTs

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  • Well now (Score:5, Insightful)

    by 93 Escort Wagon ( 326346 ) on Tuesday June 28, 2022 @01:52PM (#62657786)

    This seems to expose the fundamental issues with what proponents claim about NFTs in a nutshell.

    • by inicom ( 81356 )

      Exactly!

    • This applies to any copyrighted work. The image data from anything including an NFT could always be copied, and it was already illegal to do so without permission. The fact it's an NFT is only relevant in attempting to assign value.

      • Re:Well now (Score:5, Insightful)

        by KiloByte ( 825081 ) on Tuesday June 28, 2022 @02:05PM (#62657832)

        Except that no copyrighted work has been copied, merely an URL to it. These are not copyrightable. Oh, and copies of an URL are perfectly fungible...

        • There are a few cases (here in Europe) around people/companies linking to publicly available but copyrighted material, and making a profit off that. Most notably Google linking to news articles. In a number of cases, Google was forced to either pay up or remove the link. Regardless of what you and I think of this case, it doesn't seem to be as clear cut as all that, and this case of someone selling alternative NFTs to copyrighted material seems to be similar.
        • by pchasco ( 651819 )
          But it does point to a fundamental problem with these NFTs. Most people who purchase these probably believe the are actually purchasing the the image and all associated rights. BAYC still owns the images pointed to by the NFT. The people who purchased the NFT own nothing but bragging rights.
          • But it does point to a fundamental problem with these NFTs

            It does point to a fundamental problem with NFTs. Period.

            NFTs don't contain art. They contain URLs. URLs are fundamentally fungible. There goes non-fungibility of NFTs.

        • by splutty ( 43475 )

          In the case of BYAC the purchaser of the NFT actually has sole copyright and ownership of the GIF as well.

          This is explicitly pointed out in their contracts.

          So they probably have grounds for this, but the fact it's an NFT is irrelevant for that.

        • Since the bored ape images are themselves algorithmically generated, how copyrightable are they?

        • by Holi ( 250190 )
          Not even sure if Bored Apes images are copyrightable as they are computer generated and the prevailing theory is that they are not afforded copyright protection.
      • Yep, I wasn't logged in or I would have posted essentially the same thing before you :). The valuation of their work is ridiculous, but that's art (and grift)...
    • The irony!
    • by narcc ( 412956 )

      We can hope, anyway. Most people, reporters included, still don't get it. When you buy an NFT, you aren't buying the associated image. You're essentially buying a receipt. Lawsuits like this will eventually highlight this fact.

      I figure this myth about you buying a digital image persists because can't fathom the idea of paying thousands of dollars for the equivalent of putting their name on a ledger.

      • by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

        Lots of people pay thousands, millions or occasionally even billions to get their name on a ledger. Usually it's up on a nice wall in a museum or university AND on the Internet though.

        What people haven't grasped is that they're effectively donating money to a guy who algorithmically generates cartoons of apes.

        • To be fair, I can't grasp why you would do that either.
          • by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

            Some people feel it's important to try and improve the society they live in.

            • > Some people feel it's important to try and improve the society they live in.

              Yes, that too, but maybe he means they could just as well have donated the money without the plaque.

              • by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

                Ah, that would be more interesting. There seems to be a human desire for attention. In the past, you could donate some money and somebody would publicize that you'd done so. Now you can donate money, get the publicity, AND fool yourself into thinking you can later sell your philanthropy and make some money on the deal.

          • They don't. Donating millions to the museum doesn't just get your name on a ledger. It causes the new wing of the museum to be built.
            • by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

              The local museum has a big wall with little placards pasted on it. Each one has a name. Each name is the name of a person, family, couple or company who donated more than a certain amount to the museum. None of them have wings.

    • BAH and PISH POSH!

      I remember, not that long ago, scammers were interesting [wikipedia.org]
      monkey ennui boat clan? It's not that's just pathetic, the real sin is that it's BORING.

      Where's zombie John McAfee when we really need him?
      today's scammers need to up their game.
    • Mmm... if only there were some immediate, secure way that the public & potential buyers could verify whether those NFTs were authentic or not. I wonder?
      • Obviously, a cool system like that would solve the whole situation. It wouldn't matter how many unauthorised copies were made, the true ownership would never be in doubt. It is a shame that it is just wishful thinking, somebody should look into it.

    • by jrumney ( 197329 )

      Scammers surprised that other scammers exist.

  • by waspleg ( 316038 ) on Tuesday June 28, 2022 @02:01PM (#62657808) Journal

    copyright claims and whether his parody is different enough.
    It's also funny to watch these apes throw feces at each other as their titanic is mostly underwater at this point anyway.

    Yuga Labs rejects the claim that the work was satirical commentary. It portrays the work as part of a longer-running vendetta against the company â" which Ripps has claimed is trolling its audience with racist references. Ripps has alleged the BAYC series makes frequent mentions of coded white supremacist words and symbols, including the creatorsâ(TM) pseudonyms, the BAYC logo, and the decision to create humanoid apes, something he alleges is part of the broader racist tradition of comparing Black people to apes. While heâ(TM)s not the only person to make these claims, the Anti-Defamation League expressed doubts about his interpretations. Yuga Labs addressed the theory earlier this year, calling it âoedeeply painful,â and co-founder Gordon Goner offered a long rebuttal to Rippsâ(TM) allegations in a blog post on Medium.

    • Except they aren't claiming copyright infringement. That's the amusing bit...

      Ripps’ work — among other copycat NFTs — has raised questions about how copyright law should apply to crypto art. And Ripps references the fact that BAYC copyright terms seem somewhat confusing and contradictory. But this suit doesn’t accuse Ripps of copyright infringement. So, rather than offering an early look at how courts will treat that issue, it will hinge on factors like whether Ripps was legitimately confusing people with his work — or whether people were buying into the project specifically because it wasn’t BAYC.

      • by ceoyoyo ( 59147 ) on Tuesday June 28, 2022 @02:13PM (#62657862)

        The guy is a conceptual artist. This is most likely exactly what he intended. It's basically performance art where the lawsuit is an unwitting part of the performance.

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • Except they aren't claiming copyright infringement. That's the amusing bit...

        That's because there's an uncomfortable truth - the Bored Ape NFTs are mechanically generated things. Basically an artist made a few drawings, then ran those drawings to a computer program that went through each permutation of head/body/legs/arms/decorations to generate the final image used to create the NFT from.

        The copyright office has declared that mechanically generated things are not copyrightable - you can't copyright the output.

        If a copyright claim was made, this would expose this fraud and many others like it - either the item was uncopyrightable, and that maybe owning the NFT isn't actual, well, ownership.

        Cryptobros want to keep the illusion going, revealing things like the fact people spent billions on something that couldn't be copyrighted and such would collapse the market instantly.

        I also have a deep suspicion that the artist knows the scam that is NFTs and is creatively trying to show it to the world, meaning a lawsuit would shine an uncomfortable spotlight on the truth that a bunch of people are idiots and have been scammed.

        • If a car body design is optimised using a genetic algorithm, what is the position?
        • The copyright office has declared that mechanically generated things are not copyrightable - you can't copyright the output.

          That's not even the core issue here. The core issue is that nothing is actually being copied. An NFT is just a link to an image, someone just happened to make another link. Links aren't copyrightable.

  • You wouldn't download and ape...
  • Smart contracts (Score:4, Insightful)

    by JonnyCalcutta ( 524825 ) on Tuesday June 28, 2022 @02:06PM (#62657836)

    Hold on. Why do they need government mandated courts? I thought it would all be handled by smart contracts and blockchain.

    My 16 year old kid has an nft profile picture. Or more specifically,what he has is the ability to use print screen and Photoshop. That about summed it up for me.

    • Or more specifically,what he has is the ability to use print screen and Photoshop.

      Ironically he owns more than the person who purchased the NFT. God knows if the original image went down the NFT would point to a 404 error while your kid still has his profile picture.

  • First you have to let the judge understand what an NFT holds and if there are any rules of equality. Since this is not a copyright violation I don't know what they will be looking at next, patterns of similar bits and bytes?
    • Has there been a precedent that a purchased NFT has any legally protections at all?

      Other than that, this looks like a 'we did it first so no one else can' legal argument.
  • Logan: You know, you're fungible.
    Rhea: I am not fungible.
    Logan: Oh, yes you are. You're as fungible as fuck.
    Rhea: Fine. Then funge me. Go ahead. Try.

  • by jenningsthecat ( 1525947 ) on Tuesday June 28, 2022 @02:59PM (#62657940)

    why anybody worth caring about or paying attention to would give a flying fsck about any of this NFT nonsense.

    • by neilo_1701D ( 2765337 ) on Tuesday June 28, 2022 @04:24PM (#62658086)

      why anybody worth caring about or paying attention to would give a flying fsck about any of this NFT nonsense.

      Because it's as entertaining as fuck, compared to what else is happening in the news right now.

      Feeling bad about SCOTUS? Check the current price of Bitcoin for a laugh. Depressed about the J6 committee findings? The latest NFT nonsense is feel-good entertainment. And if you're really depressed, web3isgoinggreat.com [web3isgoinggreat.com] will lighten the mood!

      • by laxguy ( 1179231 )

        or idk maybe play some video games? read a book? go outside? pick up a new hobby? there is plenty to do without sitting in front of the news all the time.

  • We have here a fiat court system, that issues fiats and works on fiat currency for all fees, compensation and awards. It is funded by tax payers who paid it in a fiat currency. Its purpose is to serve the government that issues that fiat currency. It is a non-violent dispute resolution mechanism for the exclusive use of fiat currency users.

    Crypto guys, take your shit elsewhere and don't clog up our court system.

  • Imagine the tax dollars that are / will be spent litigating about NFTs that will be worth $0 in 5 years.

  • The public court system should not support this nonsense. There's no reason for state resources to be wasted on deciding who owns non-existent objects. "de minimis non curat lex".
  • A fool and his money are soon parted!

  • I see what you did there.
  • by argStyopa ( 232550 ) on Tuesday June 28, 2022 @05:38PM (#62658266) Journal

    ...when someone calls the cops because they got screwed by their drug dealer.

  • I choose not to support either. I think they're both scum.

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