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action or later. Please see Debugging in WordPress for more information. (This message was added in version 6.7.0.) in /home4/scienrds/scienceandnerds/wp-includes/functions.php on line 6114Source: https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/2022\/6\/28\/23184747\/bored-apes-yuga-labs-ryder-ripps-lawsuit-trademark-infringement<\/a> 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. The lawsuit<\/a>, filed in a California court this weekend, accuses Ripps of a \u201ccalculated, intentional, and willful\u201d scheme to damage BAYC while promoting his own copycat work.<\/p>\n Ripps and Yuga Labs have been at odds for months, in part because of Ripps\u2019 RR\/BAYC NFT series<\/a>. 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. \u201cThis 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\u2019 official Bored Ape Yacht Club,\u201d says the lawsuit.<\/p>\n 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\u2019s work, including a ban on using \u201cconfusingly similar\u201d domain names like apemarket.com.<\/p>\n Ripps (who has also sold original NFTs<\/a>) described his work<\/a> as a twist on appropriation art, exploring \u201cthe power of NFTs to change meaning, establish provenance, and evade censorship.\u201d He\u2019s run similar projects before, including selling a slightly modified version<\/a> of a CryptoPunk designed to poke fun at the series. \u201cThe lawsuit grossly mischaracterizes the RR\/BAYC project,\u201d he said in a statement on Twitter<\/a>, asserting that buyers were explicitly informed they weren\u2019t buying an official Bored Ape.<\/p>\n 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 \u2014 which Ripps has claimed is trolling its audience with racist references<\/a>. Ripps has alleged the BAYC series makes frequent mentions of coded white supremacist words and symbols, including the creators\u2019 pseudonyms, the BAYC logo, and the decision to create humanoid apes, something he alleges is part of the broader racist tradition<\/a> of comparing Black people to apes. While he\u2019s not the only person to make these claims, the Anti-Defamation League expressed doubts about his interpretations<\/a>. Yuga Labs addressed the theory earlier this year, calling it \u201cdeeply painful,\u201d and co-founder Gordon Goner offered a long rebuttal to Ripps\u2019 allegations<\/a> in a blog post on Medium.<\/p>\n Ripps is far from Yuga\u2019s only concern. BAYC has spawned an ancillary \u201cmetaverse\u201d project that\u2019s hit road bumps<\/a> on its path<\/a> to launch<\/a>, and it\u2019s also affected by a bigger slide<\/a> in the cryptocurrency market. However, it\u2019s reached a level of fame most other NFT lineups haven\u2019t thanks to things like a recent Eminem and Snoop Dogg music video<\/a> promoting the artists\u2019 Bored Apes.<\/p>\n Ripps\u2019 work \u2014 among other copycat NFTs<\/a> \u2014 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<\/a>. But this suit doesn\u2019t 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 \u2014 or whether people were buying into the project specifically because<\/em> it wasn\u2019t BAYC.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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