Nifty News: Yuga Labs scores court battle win, Mandala Metaverse to drop on Polkadot and more…
Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) creators Yuga Labs has scored a key win in its long-running court battle with Ryder Ripps, the co-creator of copycat NFT project RR/BAYC.
Yuga Labs initially filed a complaint against Ryder Ripps and co-founder Jeremy Cahen back in July 2022, alleging that the duo had engaged in trademark infringement, false advertising, and unfair competition, among other things.
In a pre-trial summary judgment ruling on April 21, a U.S. district court in central California found that Ripps and Cahen had infringed Yuga Lab’s trademarks with their RR/BAYC NFT collection.
The Court further ruled that Yuga Labs is entitled to an injunction and damages, the latter of which will be determined at trial.
In a message shared with Cointelegraph, a Yuga Labs spokesperson said:
Ryder Ripps and Jeremy Cahen created the BAYC derivative NFT collection RR/BAYC back in May 2022 as a satire and protest against Yuga Labs. The project essentially uses all of the same imagery from the BAYC NFTs.
Ripps in particular, is behind a conspiracy theory in which he alleges that Yuga Labs purposely designed the BAYC NFT artwork to convey racist caricatures. Additionally, Ripps also asserts that the project’s logo and branding have several nods to certain Nazi symbology and language.
Upcoming cross-chain augmented reality (AR) game Mandala Metaverse has chosen Polkadot parachain Astar Network to host its first major NFT drop on April 28.
Mandala Metaverse is a story-based project that has content spanning across TV, graphic novels, gaming and AR. Its gaming elements have been developed in Epic Game’s Triple-A quality Unreal Engine.
The drop is called the “Cryptonauts” and the NFTs depict different avatars that will serve as playable
Read more on cointelegraph.com
