Yuga Labs, the creators behind the NFT community responsible for such crypto art hits such as the Bored Ape Yacht Club, recently had to take down the logo for Bored Ape Kennel Club (BAKC) after intellectual property issues were raised.
The issue was first raised by COLOMBO, an NFT artist. After COLOMBO’s disclosure, the owners of the illustration swiftly responded confirming that the figure in question was indeed theirs.
Thanks for bringing this up @Jdotcolombo. @yugalabs doesn’t have a license to the wolf skull drawing. The intellectual property rights for the drawing belong to Easy Drawing Guides as it’s our original drawing and protected by our Terms and Conditions.
— Easy Drawing Guides (@easydrawinguide) February 17, 2023
This prompted Yuga Labs to remove all usage of the image across its platform and social media presence. Easy Drawing Guides is a design firm focused in drawing tutorials for children and beginners. The drawing was first advertised by Easy Drawing Guides as “an easy step-by-step drawing tutorial” for trying to draw a wolf skull.
According to Yuga Labs, they hired a freelance artist to create the drawing. No license or permission was secured from the original artist who was signed with Easy Drawing Guides, even if the firm’s terms and conditions explicitly prohibits its proprietary content from being used for commercial contexts. The BAKC collection saw initial release in June 2021, with a trademark for the logo applied in November of the same year. The wolf skull sketch was first posted in April 2021.
This event is both shocking and ironic in that the core idea behind NFTs is to help resolve the very issue that is now at hand: intellectual property, and the protection of artists from theft. Yuga Labs co-founder Greg Solano has issued a statement on the matter confirming the takedown of all advertorial materials.
Saw the claims today about the BAKC logo. This was news to us and we’re still investigating the situation. Have reached out to the freelancer we hired for that design and Easy Drawing Guides. We’ll be changing the logo and updating it on our site / ask marketplaces to change as… https://t.co/OwtflDXehz
— Garga.eth (Greg Solano) (@CryptoGarga) February 18, 2023
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