The community around the NFT (Non-Fungible Token) collectible project Bored Ape Yacht Club is surprised by a new development. This is the decision made by the American actor Seth Green, who paid a large sum of money, 165 ethers (USD 250,000 at today’s price), to recover the avatar that belonged to him, but was stolen last month.
Previously, Green had paid around $200,000 when he bought the 8,398th “boring monkey.” And with the amount that he disbursed to recover it, means that you have spent almost half a million dollars for the NFT to remain in your possession.
Faced with such a sum of money for an image that can only be used as an avatar, anyone would wonder why so much attachment to a collectible piece? or is it love of art?
However, the answer was given by the actor himself in a recent Twitter Space in which he revealed that the NFT in question was the protagonist of his next project. By this he means an animated series called White House Tavern, as reported BuzzFeedNews.
Recovering an NFT that will be the star of a television series
Green lost his Bored Ape NFT less than a month ago when a scammer stole several pieces from your collection using phishing techniques and subsequently sold them to other buyers.
After the robbery, the television series that mixes NFT-based animated characters with real actors. This is because the actor had lost the image rights of Fred Simian, the character of the television project.
Fred Simian’s image rights are associated with the NFT itself and therefore are the property of its owner, that is, the person who legally bought monkey 8,398 from the scammer on OpenSea.
Green had tried to contact the new owner of the piece to get it back or give him the image rights, but had been unsuccessful.
It was not until now, when the NFT collector known variously as Mr. Cheese and DarkWing84, accepted the deal, as seen in the transaction log from etherscan.
The NFTs, owners of whom?
The event surrounding Green’s story is sparking debate on social media about intellectual property rights linked to NFTs.
The Bored Ape Yacht Club collection states that, although Yuga Labs is the creator of the project and has copyright on the brand, each NFT owner can use the image they ownincluding an unlimited, worldwide license to use, copy, and display purchased art.
However, a project called RRBAYC, which goes against the principles on which the boring monkeys of Yuga Labs are based, is releasing images very similar to the original.
In fact, in a tweet, a user offers to Green that for “much less money” he could have bought an image of his proposal so as not to paralyze his television project.
With this, the question remains What does an NFT user really own? taking into account that your linked image is not necessarily exclusive, nor does it grant property rights?
As reported by CriptoNoticias in November of last year, a developer was offering a free downloadable file of almost 20 TB with the images associated with the NFTs that he could find on the Ethereum and Solana blockchains.