Seth Green: What’s Next for the NFT Show?
Seth Green, the American actor and producer had his Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT stolen, after he fell foul to a phishing scam, similar to many other NFT scams. The setup misdirected users to a site that drained NFTs from the linked wallet, and Green lost four NFTs, including Bored Ape #8398, three other Mutant Apes, #9964 and #19182, plus Doodle #7546.
Green took to Twitter to express his frustration and explain the details of the phishing attack — using a false page disguised as the mint site for a GutterCat Clone NFT, fooled Green and numerous others.
This hack could not have come at a worse time for Green, who was in the process of creating an NFT based TV series, planned around Green’s NFTs to demonstrate ownership of digital tokens. Because of the licensing rules implemented by Yuga Labs and inbuilt into the BAYC terms & conditions, only the owner of the NFT can utilise the image: Yuga Labs grants BAYC holders an “unlimited, worldwide licence to use, copy, and display the purchased art”. This licence allows the owners, and only the owners, to create all derivative works based upon the Bored Ape IP.
In theory, the new owner could pursue legal action against Green, should he use the IP on his show, regardless of how it came into his possession. This case has highlighted a slight fracture in the meticulous BAYC terms: the licence gives the “purchaser” fair use of the IP and doesn’t exclude criminal/bad faith buyers. The issue arises as Green’s NFT has since been sold on legitimately via the secondary market: the new user may well have purchased the NFT in good faith not knowing about Green’s situation at all and Green can therefore no longer make “White Horse Tavern”.
Unfortunately Green had only unveiled the show’s trailer at last week’s Veecon and speculation as to whether the Ape’s new owner, the anonymous “DarkWing84” could take legal action if the show were made: takes from both sides are contradictory, and news from Green has been sparse, since the phishing attack.
