The iconic wolf skull logo of the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC), the most popular NFT collection in the world, has been stolen from the Easy Drawing Guides company, according to @jdotcolombo. This company published a step-by-step drawing tutorial to draw a wolf skull in May 2021. In June 2021, Yuga Labs launched the Bored Ape Kennel Club with that exact wolf skull as its logo.
‘You have some explaining to do’
The most unusual thing is that Yuga Labs tried to register the logo with the authorities, claiming it to be theirs entirely. “What a joke hahaha, you have some explaining to do. On May 4, 2021 Easy Drawing Guides published this image and in June 2021 you registered that exact skull with the authorities. Are you ok or did you bump your head?” said a frustrated Colombo.
Easy Drawing Guides did not comment on Yuga Labs’ behaviors soon after the discovery. They confirm that Yuga Labs is not licensed to use the wolf skull. The intellectual property right for the drawing belongs to Easy Drawing Guides because it is an original drawing of ours, which is protected by our terms of use.
For personal use only
Indeed, it is stated in the terms of use of Easy Drawing Guides that it is not allowed to use the images commercially. The wolf skull is available for personal use only. Some supporters of the BAYC do not believe there is an infringement of intellectual property rights, but most people agree that Easy Drawing Guides deserves a hefty compensation.
Incidentally, this is not the first time that Yuga Labs has run into problems in this way. According to Jeremy Cahen, Yuga Labs sold “all rights” to the digital images with the NFTs. Which means that people are in principle allowed to pick them up to make their own collections. That is exactly what Cahen did with the RR/BAYC collection.
