While the NFT market is now only a shadow of what it used to be, a major new development could finally give it a jolt. In the past few hours, in fact, a Californian judge has finally ruled that the plagiarism of a non-fungible token is a crimecondemning some artists who copied the famous Bored Ape.
Judgment comes at the end of a fight he has seen Yuga Labs, creators of the NFT Bored Ape Yacht Clubs, sue “conceptual artists” Ryder Ripps and Jeremy Cahen for copyright infringement. The two artists, in 2022, had created a collection defined “parodia di Bored Ape Yacht Club”which, however, was simply composed of the “mirrored” Yuga Labs NFTs themselves.
Ripps and Cahen hoped to use the First Amendment to the US Constitution to protect their jobs, but the judge who handled their case took a very different view, concluding his ruling by saying that “the work of the accused and their sale of NFT RR/BAYC [questo il nome della collezione di Ripps e Cahen; ndr] it is no more artistic than the sale of a counterfeit bag on the web“.
Yuga Labs’ position on the case was that the two artists it sued were trying to make profits by deceiving buyers and selling some artwork completely similar to those of Bored Ape Yacht Club at a fraction of the price of the originals, taking advantage of the “confusion” of users about it to make easy money. The company’s position therefore seems to have been accepted by the judge who dealt with the case, while we don’t know if Ripps and Cahen will appeal in other offices against the judgement.
What is certain, however, is that the conclusion of the process alerts all copy-NFTs and other non-fungible token plagiarism attempts on the web. Just Yuga Labs, which holds some of the best-known NFT icons in the world, could in fact take advantage of the judicial success to start a series of other legal disputes with creator who have unduly exploited his works for profit.