The debate over who owns the “real” batch of fake NFT monkeys

The debate over who owns the “real” batch of fake NFT monkeys

PAYC and BAYC version of the monkey avatar, respectively

2021 was the year when “everyone” should own NFT, or the art of cryptography. Among other things, celebrities have spent millions of kroner on digital avatars, such as the monkey avatar of Norwegian Kygo, which he uses as a profile picture on Twitter.

The Kygo avatar was purchased from Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC), a set of NFT avatars created by Yuga Labs, which makes a good profit selling monkey avatars. In addition to the popular customer base, they can boast that the cheapest NFT was It sold for $217,000.

In December, two more NFT projects were launched, PAYC (Phunky Ape Yacht Club) and PHAYC. These are unlike parodies on BAYC, selling faithful copies of BAYC’s monkey avatars, but they are reversed.

And now they are arguing about who he is The “real” fake NFT copy.

When PAYC (or Phunky Ape Yacht Club) launched in early December, they stated that they had demonstrated how the NFT Bored Ape Yacht Club group had become, a market product of “rich assholes”, while at the same time declaring that they had dozens of “inverted” BAYC avatars, i.e. Mirrored avatars of the BAYC monkey, for sale.

Shortly thereafter, PHAYC followed up, too, with a byline on Twitter that read “Phayk it until you make it” (pretend to make it), as well as associated BAYC “reversed” avatars.

“I think the project is a satire on the current state of NFTs and members of the NFT community, which might take the NFT market a bit too seriously,” Twitter user writes. the roots about the situation.

The feud on Twitter between PAYC and PHAYC has been ongoing since its launch, and the PAYC founder has criticized PHAYC for being a “cash grab” project. The Verge states that PHAYC received 500 ETH (about $1.8 million or NOK 15.8 million) for the sale. For PAYC he earned about 60 ETH (about $225,000 or NOK 1.9 million) from the sale.

Since their launch, both PAYC and PHAYC have been pushed out of the largest marketplace for selling NFTs, OpenSea. This is due to copyright infringement.

The Verge writes that Yuga Labs, which owns BAYC, has not yet taken to court to prevent further distribution of copies of PAYC and PHAYC, but that in principle the same rules would apply to digital businesses, as non-digital, says Veronica Lundqvist, legal counsel at BONO ( Copyright Visual Arts Norway).

– The author has the exclusive right to the created work, regardless of whether the NFT was also created. She told Tek that all copies/other copies of this work, which were not made clear with the copyright holder in advance, would in principle be copyright infringement.

Of course, the copyright dispute will be filed in the United States and thus compliance with the law of the United States. The United States has a “fair use” doctrine that is unique to the United States, but there are some obvious similarities between the rules of our two countries. Such as the fact that copyright can only be commuted if the work is adapted to such an extent that it can be considered a “new independent work”.

– My understanding of this particular case is that the reversal that PAYC and PHAYC are doing is not enough to consider it a new stand-alone work. In that case, this would constitute copyright infringement under Norwegian law, Lundqvist says.

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Dalila Awolowo

Dalila Awolowo

"Explorer. Unapologetic entrepreneur. Alcohol fanatic. Certified writer. Wannabe tv evangelist. Twitter fanatic. Student. Web scholar. Travel buff."

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