Yuga Labs Sued by Troll Bored Ape
At the end of last month, Yuga Labs - the $4 billion company behind the famous NFT Bored Ape Yacht Club collection-tried to silence a loud critic by filing a lawsuit against him in federal court.
Yuga Labs Defends Bored Ape
The aforementioned critic, Internet provocateur and conceptual artist Ryder Ripps hired Louis Tompros from the law firm Wilmer Hale as the lead trial attorney for the Yuga Labs lawsuit against the artist.
Tompros is an experienced intellectual property rights advocate, known for representing Pepe frog creator Matt Fury in several lawsuits against far-right organizations accused of adapting Pepe as a racist and white supremacist meme. Tompros appeared alongside Fury in the 2020 documentary Feels Good, which chronicles Fury's attempts to rehabilitate Pepe's image, in particular through a copyright infringement lawsuit against Infowars, the site of alternative right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones.
The creators of Bored Ape Yacht Club have declared war on criticism. A famous artist claims that the largest NFT brand on Earth is secretly controlled by a conspiracy of Nazi trolls. The artist sold a collection of imitators of the NFT brand, earning about $ 1.8 million.
It's no coincidence that Fury and Ripps now have the same lawyer. Ripps specifically approached Wilmer Hale with a desire to be represented by Tompros, based on the lawyer's experience, including his work successfully representing Fury against Infowars.
For months, Ripps claimed that the Bored Ape Yacht Club was secretly running a conspiracy of Nazi trolls who deliberately added images of NFT Bored Ape with racist symbols. BAYC's owners, Yuga Labs, called it all a crazy troll disinformation campaign.
But when Ripps then sold the imitation collection of NFT Bored Ape - a move that some perceived as an ironic political comment, and others as an outright fundraiser - Yuga Labs sued the artist for trademark infringement.
Despite the fact that Yuga's lawsuit does not address the issue of defamation, legal experts believe that its unspoken goal is to put an end to Ripps' public, incessant smashing of his brand.
Although Tompros has not yet disclosed the details of Ripps' planned defense, he hinted at the fact that this case is likely to be considered as a matter of creative freedom.
"The complaint appears to be an attempt to dismiss Ryder's art criticism of the Bored Ape Yacht Club as racist and problematic for a variety of other reasons," Tompros said, "Our plan is to respond, explain why the lawsuit is unfounded and why the use of trademark law in such a context is inappropriate."".
Yuga hired the renowned Silicon Valley law firm Fenwick & West, a favorite firm of tech giants Facebook, Amazon, Apple, eBay and Oracle, engaged in intellectual property litigation, to represent the company in its lawsuit against Ripps.
When asked if Ripps would be inclined to settle the case or bring the case to court, Tompros replied:
"We are perfectly happy to take the case to court and let the court decide it. I'm involved for that very purpose."
Author: Elvir, analyst Сoin-signal.com Club
https://coin-signal.com/cryptonews/yuga-labs-sued-by-troll-bored-ape/
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