Yuga Labs filed a lawsuit over copyright infringement of the Bored Ape series of non-fungible tokens and disruption of economic activity, as a result of which developers may incur losses.
Bored Ape, founder of the NFT Yacht Club, tweeted that the application was filed on June 24 in the District Court of Central California. The studio suspects artist Rider Ripps and his partners of infringement, who, the plaintiffs insist, created and sold “fake copies of the Bored Ape NFT.”
The lawsuit alleges that the artist sought to “devalue the Bored Ape NFT by flooding the market with his own collection of NFT knockoffs using original images of the Bored Ape Yacht Club and calling them RR/BAYC.”
Yuga Labs notes that Bored Ape NFTs “often sell for hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars; the proud owners of the NFT Bored Ape are prominent celebrities.” There are only 10,000 Bored Ape NFTs, and that each one is unique.
Yuga Labs is seeking an injunction against Ripps and his associates from “further interfering with the economic activities of Yuga Labs”, damages, and attorney fees for law firm Fenwick & West.
So far, the artist has not commented on the allegations. Yuga Labs PR specialist Strange Brew Strategies has announced that NFT RR/BAYC has already been removed from the OpenSea trading platform. On the site, several images are marked as “possibly fake.”
This is not the first conflict between Yuga Labs and Ripps. In 2022, the artist stated that his research showed that the NFTs released by the studio Bored Ape promote nationalist ideas.
In March, a new developer project, Bored Ape Yacht Club, was heavily criticized by the community. The creator of Bored Ape Yacht Club Yuga Labs announced the launch of the project in partnership with the gaming company Animoca Brands. However, users were dissatisfied with the fact that they need to go through the authorization procedure (KYC).
However, the Ethereum co-founder recently called the hype around the Bored Ape Yacht Club and other collectible tokens, calling NFTs meaningless and comparable to gambling.
