Yuga Labs, the publisher of the popular Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs, has recently been the target of several lawsuits. For example, the company would have seduced celebrities to buy the NFTs. But it doesn’t shy away from defending itself. Yuga Labs has sued another artist for plagiarism.
BAYC lawsuit over NFT plagiarism
The company behind the wildly popular NFT collection already started the lawsuit in July. Then it turned out that the Californian artist Ryder Ripps used the monkeys from Bored Ape Yacht Club for a collection that looks eerily similar to the original. The lawsuit had yet to officially get off the ground, but that has now happened.
Specifically, Yuga Labs has sued Ryder Ripps and the founder of the NFT trading platform Not Larva Labs, Jeremy Cahen, in a District Court in California, United States. The defending party had asked the judge last October whether the case could be refused, but in a new motion is that the court does not agree with this.
asked in a second motion Ripps and Cahen the judge for no’Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation’ to allow. This type of lawsuit is particularly difficult to defend. It often leads to censoring the problem, in this case the NFTs.
Ripps describes in the motion that the case is an attack on his freedom of speech. That’s why he’s asking for a payout of at least $100 billion to shut down the business, and ostensibly to take the NFTs out of circulation. On The Block Ripps stated:
RR/BAYC is conceptual art that shines a light on Yuga Labs, stating that you can’t copy an NFT. Nothing left [de beslissing van de rechter] can change those objective facts.
Multiple lawsuits for Yuga Labs
Meanwhile, Yuga Labs also finds itself in another lawsuit. Yuga Labs is said to have been guilty of generating hype, for which it has even rewarded celebrities to buy the NFTs.
The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is also investigating Yuga Labs. The popular works of art would have been offered as unregistered securities. Ironically, the name of the trading platform on which the ‘plagiarised NFTs’ were offered is ‘Not Larva Labs’. Larva Labs is the company behind the CryptoPunk NFTs.