Yuga Labs, the company behind the popular Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) non-fungible token collection (NFT), has won a legal battle against Jeremy Cahen and Ryder Ripps. The latter were accused of creating a collection of NFTs called Ryder Ripps Bored Ape Yacht Club (RR/BAYC), which copied the distinctive features of the original BAYCs.
Yuga Labs receives favourable court ruling
A little less than a year after Yuga Labs began legal proceedings against Jeremy Cahen and Ryder Ripps, the courts have finally ruled in favour of the company behind the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) non-fungible token collection (NFT).
In June 2022, Yuga Labs decided to take legal action against the two individuals for their collection of Ryder Ripps Bored Ape Yacht Club (RR/BAYC) NFTs, which were modelled on the original BAYCs.
In his defence, Ryder Ripps claimed a few months later that his collection was merely a satire of the BAYC collection, which he had previously accused of containing Nazi symbols and racially motivated cartoons.
As a result, the U.S. District Court finally granted Yuga Labs full ownership of its flagship collection. The judge ruled that the RR/BAYC collection “was created for the purpose of misleading” and was not a form of artistic expression. At the same time, the domain names relating to the collection were also found to be cybersquatting.
The place of the Bored Ape Yacht Club
Launched in April 2021, the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) collection is arguably the most iconic in the NFT ecosystem. Comprising 10,000 pieces, it has been a runaway success and has seen its famous monkeys adopted by celebrities such as Eminem, Snoop Dogg, Stephen Curry, Madonna, Post Malone and Travis Barker.
Initially sold for $200 when the collection was officially launched, these NFTs are now trading for hundreds of thousands of dollars and have been the highest daily volume collection alongside its parallel collections (Mutant Ape Yacht Club, Otherdeed for Otherside, Bored Ape Kennel Club) since its launch.
The floor price of BAYC, after having reached an ATH of 153 ETH in early May 2022, is now around 50 ETH. This is a clear drop, but it should be seen in the context of a global fatigue in the NFT market.
BAYC floor price evolution
The reasons for this success are to be found in the “club” mechanism that the collection has popularised, with purchasers of an NFT subsequently unlocking a number of parallel benefits depending on the roadmap for a particular project.
