Yuga Labs, the producers of the popular Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) non-fungible tokens (NFTs), are being met with a counterclaim in their ongoing lawsuit against artist Ryder Ripps and the founder of NFT marketplace Not Larva Labs, Jeremy Cahen.
They had accused Ripps and Cahen of replicating their NFT collection and diminishing the value of the original BAYC tokens, but the pair have repudiated the majority of the claims, maintaining that their RR/BAYC version of the collection does not breach Yuga Labs’ copyright and was only intended to be conceptual art to criticise the imagery employed by Yuga Labs.
The U.S. District Court of Central California declined a motion in favor of Yuga Labs in December.
Yuga Labs are also being taken to court by Californian law firm Scott + Scott in a class-action lawsuit that alleges that Yuga Labs were engaged in “a vast scheme” of undisclosed celebrity endorsements to promote products such as BAYC, an accusation that has been denied by a representative from Yuga Labs.
