The first thing you should do if you find yourself in Green's position is not talk about his position on social media.
Green, an actor best known for his portrayal of Dr. Evil in the Austin Powers movies, has become the butt of a bad joke. Earlier this month, Green lost his prized Bored Ape when he fell for a scam and made himself vulnerable to thieves by interacting with a clone of another NFT project's website. Clone sites can be almost indistinguishable from the originals, with only a letter or two missing from their domain names. Green won't be the last to lose an NFT this way. In the magical world of Happy Hippos and Gutter Cats, there is a lot of hacking and good old-fashioned con artistry.
Green is unique because he had more riding on his boat than most Yacht Club members. Bored apes have a license to make personal or commercial use of their primate pal. You can reproduce the image and create derivative works when you purchase an ape. Green was going to do that. For months, he has been developing a series called White Horse Tavern, which combines live action and animation and stars an orangutan as the bartender.
The show can't go on without the star. The right to exploit an ape's image follows the NFT according to the terms and conditions of the Bored Ape Yacht Club. The White Horse Tavern is not dead after all, according to Green, since the art was stolen. A buyer who purchases stolen art and refuses to return it is not entitled to exploitation usage of the underlying intellectual property.
Incorrect. This latest Ape affair shows the limits of the free, frictionless world that was promised.
If Jeff Koons' work of art was stolen, Green's claim would be true. Koons would have the exclusive right to make a romantic dramedy starring the quicksilver critter if a buyer purchased the stolen sculpture with real money. The author holds the copyright regardless of what happens to the artwork. The licensing scheme makes the apes different animals.
It isn't that anyone who goes around stealing simians has carte blanche to open a BAYC restaurant. Green would still be considered the true owner of the intellectual property if the thief still had his wallet. The law protects buyers who inadvertently shell out for stolen property after the Ape was flipped to a user known as DarkWing84. If DarkWing84 wasn't involved in the scheme, they now own the Ape and the right to make him the star of a TV show about life and love in the big city. $200,000 is not a lot of money to put someone on notice that this particular ape had a bad past.
A lawsuit over Green's Ape could set a precedent because there is so little law regarding NFTs and intellectual property rights. It wouldn't be what Green thinks it would be. DarkWing84 would likely prevail if they took Green to court to prevent him from moving forward with White Horse Tavern. Green's only hope is to steer clear of litigation and settle this quietly. It is becoming more and more unlikely that he will go down in legal history after announcing that he has been robbed and crowing about it. If you think you have the trial of the century on your hands, please talk to your attorney.
Green is a target for future scam because of his outspokenness. Last week at the NFT conference, Green said he had found it and how many people had approached him. It's a good chance that many of those concerned souls were fraudsters themselves. If you've been fooled before, you're likely to be besieged by bad actors who will offer to help you recover your NFT for a fee.
tethering rights with off-chain value to on-chain assets continues to be a risky proposition as the possibilities of crypto art continue to inspire artists working in a range of media.
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