Yuga Labs tweeted that the IP license and commercial rights have caused them some confusion. They contacted Jeremy Goldman, a copyright and IP lawyer, to clarify the situation.
We’ve seen some confusion around the IP license and commercial rights we grant to our NFT holders, so we asked copyright and IP lawyer @jeremyg2k to help clear things up. https://t.co/V2nF9svWmW
— Yuga Labs (@yugalabs) February 1, 2023
Yuga Labs became one of the first NFT initiatives to encourage the issuing of an IP license that grants NFT holders economic rights, beginning with Bored Ape Yacht Club and continuing with CryptoPunks and Meebits. BAYC holders have utilized Yuga’s rights to establish restaurants, virtual comics, food trucks, computer games, hot sauce businesses, record labels, and a wide variety of entertainment companies.
About giving IP licenses to holders
Recent claims about a patent infringement case that Yuga filed have made people worried about the ownership rights that BAYC owners have. Some people have even said that Yuga’s decision to give IP licenses to holders is against the law because Yuga does not own the rights to the BAYC artwork. Jeremy told them that they were wrong.
Yuga controls the intellectual property rights to their artwork, and the amount of imagination required is quite minimal. Copyright needs authorship. True, the BAYC artwork was created using a script designed specifically for Yuga to combine and match attributes. In the case of BAYC, however, humans did the “lion’s share” of the work and kindled the “creative spark” of the project.
The BAYC artwork was made by Yuga’s designers and artists with the assistance of digital tools. Humans planned and created the whole collection, designing each unique base layer, attribute, and accessory, assembling those components to make the characters, and iterating until they were pleased with the completed product.
Cover Image Source: todaynftnews.com