Yuga Labs files suit against parody artist

By Scoop
July 1, 2022 · less than 3 min read

Ryder Ripps has been creating “Bored Ape Yacht Club” copycat NFTs, and the original creators are not happy.

Yuga-tta be kidding me

Yuga Labs is the name behind the Bored Ape NFT collection. If you’ve even briefly engaged with non-fungibles online, you’ve probably seen one of these apes. Maybe even in the extensively memed-on clip of Jimmy Fallon and Paris Hilton discussing their respective “apes” on late-night TV. It’s a weird world.

Bored Ape pieces have sold for millions but tumbled in value recently, experiencing a steep month-to-month drop of about $300,000. Yuga Labs blame this decline on an artist named Ryder Ripps, who has been making and selling a collection of copycat NFTs under the collection name “RR/BAYC.” BAY-see the problem? Now, they’re suing Ripps in federal court for “trolling” and “scamming.”

Dodgy duplicate Apes

According to Yuga Labs attorneys, Ripps’s actions were deliberately intended to “harm Yuga Labs at the expense of consumers by sowing confusion about whether these RR/BAYC NFTs [were] in some way sponsored, affiliated, or connected to Yuga Labs’ official Bored Ape Yacht Club.”

Ripps sees it differently and feels the suit is totally mischaracterizing him. In his eyes, it’s a protest against Bored Ape and a “parody” of Yuga Labs’ popular NFT collection.

As he said in an emailed statement, “No one was under the impression that the RR/BAYC NFTs were substitutes for BAYC NFTs or would grant them access to Yuga’s club.” Legal experts say Ripps’ argument will probably fail in court, but only time will tell.

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