Bored Ape Yacht Club creator wins lawsuit over copycat NFT collection
A judge has ruled in favor of Bored Ape Yacht Club creator Yuga Labs in a lawsuit against conceptual artists Ryder Ripps and Jeremy Cahen, whom Yuga Labs accused of trademark infringement over a parody of BAYC’s non-fungible token (NFT) collection. On Friday, a California court said that Yuga was entitled to protect the BAYC trademark and that Ripps and Cahen’s project, known as RR/BAYC, isn’t artistic expression protected by the First Amendment. “Defendants’ sale of RR/BAYC NFTs is no more artistic than the sale of a counterfeit handbag,” wrote US District Judge John Walter in a summary judgment.
Ripps and Cahen released a set of RR/BAYC NFTs last May featuring duplicates of BAYC artwork and selling them for less than a high-priced...