Settlement of 133 thousand dollars
He sold replica Hermes Birkin bags with NFT and was ordered by a New York court to pay $133,000 in damages to the French home. The counterfeiter is a digital artist, Mason Rothschild, who minted 100 Nfts denominated MetaBirkin on Ethereum. According to the artist, it was supposed to be an “artistic” homage to the well-known luxury bag. Tribute that still earned him $ 70,000 in royalties. Hermes obviously didn’t like it and appealed to the court stating “the NFTs violate the intellectual property and trademark rights of Hermes, creating confusion with its products”.
The case is significant for the NFT (non-fungible token) world, built around decentralized platforms that allow anyone to sell digital objects. An NFT is in fact a blockchain token that can act as a title deed for various objects, including digital assets such as artwork and collectibles. As a result, well-known brands now have to contend with this type of digital counterfeiting as well as real-world counterfeiting. However, a move due to Hermes given that the NFT market has grown to generate 25 billion dollars of trade in the last two years.
In the hands of the founder’s family
French luxury company Hermes is the only such brand that is still in the hands of the founder’s family, it’s not alone in battling against unauthorized NFT duplications of its real-world assets. Nike, for example, last year filed a lawsuit against sneaker retailer StockX for creating unauthorized NFTs under its brand.. That is, digital tickets that buyers could redeem for physical shoes. It should be noted that the leading NFT platform, OpenSea, had to enhance its counterfeiting tools to automatically block the sale of allegedly infringing activities. Even so, however, one must be careful of fakes because NFTs remain permanently on the blockchain and are potentially accessible through other markets. Hermes has specified that it intends to enter the NFT space, as other luxury brands have already done, including Louis Vuitton and Dolce & Gabbana.