NFT Developer Bored Ape Yacht Club Wins Lawsuit, NFT Parody Maker Must Pay IDR 23 Billion

JAKARTA - Yuga Labs, the developer of the popular NFT Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) collection, announced that the court had ruled that two people who violated their brands had to pay compensation and stop their activities.

Yuga Labs stated: The court ruled that Ryder Ripps and Jeremy Cahen were guilty of violating Yuga's intellectual property [Labs]. They had to stop all sales and marketing... They had to pay [$1,575 million] in compensation, attorney Yuga's fees, transfer their fake ape smart contracts, and release related online assets.

Ripps and Cahen created a collection of parody NFTs called RR/BAYC, which mimics images from official collections. One of the pages of the RR/BAYC store even writes 'You can't copy NFT,' while satirizing the concept.

The collection also intends to highlight the influence of the Nazis and the far-right in BAYC, which is another reason Yuga Labs sued them.

As a result of this court ruling, Ripps and Cahen had to pay nearly $1.6 million or around Rp. 23 billion to Yuga Labs. That amount includes part of the initial and return sales profits, as well as smart contracts and business partner fees.

Ripps and Cahen must also transfer their web domains to Yuga Labs and are not allowed to sell products under the Bored Ape brand. However, the RR/BAYC collection still exists, and it is not yet known whether the platform that supports it will remove it from the market.