'Code is not law': Bored Apes, not rights, stolen from Seth Green, experts say

After "Austin Powers" (Austin Powers) actor Seth Green's Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT was stolen and sold to another party, it sparked a debate about who owns the commercial use rights of the Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT.

On May 18th, Green tweeted that four of his non-fungible tokens (NFTs), including BAYC #8398, Mutant Ape Yacht Club (MAYC) #9964 and MAYC #19182, and Doodle #7546 were in It was stolen after he visited a phishing website.

Green, the director of “Robot Chicken” and co-voice actor of “Family Guy,” noted that a person who goes by the pseudonym DarkWing84 has purchased his BAYC NFT. Now, legal experts and community members are weighing the impact of the theft on BAYC's intellectual property.

BAYC's license doesn't specify theft, saying only: "When you purchase an NFT, you own the underlying Bored Ape and this work of art outright." Once purchased, the right to use is also transferred to the new owner.

Green is moving forward with a TV show called White Horse Tavern that has elements of Bored Ape, so if that interpretation is correct, he may not be able to move forward with that show because he's already lost commercial use rights. A trailer for the show was first released on May 21 at the VeeCon NFT conference in Minneapolis, but an air date is unknown.

Eric Goldman, a professor of intellectual property and technology law at Santa Clara University, told Buzzfeed News on May 25 that buyers who purchase stolen items without their knowledge are often protected by law, while Coin Center communications director Neeraj K . Agrawal said Green could be sued if he still used BAYC on the show.

But Jake Chervinsky, head of policy at the Blockchain Association, said that interpretation is incorrect and that courts may uphold Green retaining legal rights to BAYC, adding: “In other words, code is not law.”

Green already hinted on Wednesday that if DarkWing84 does not return his BAYC, he will go to court to get his BAYC back.

Preston Byrne, a technology attorney at Anderson Kill LLP, agrees that Green likely had good reasons to retain title to the artwork. In a May 25 tweet, Byrne said it was "a typical case of 'unclean hands' because BAYC was bought from the person who stole it, and whoever was stolen knew it.

DarkWing84 has yet to make public comments on what to do with this BAYC.

The owner of BAYC has been the target of a phishing scam for some time. On April 25, a hacker took control of BAYC’s Instagram account, posted a link to a phishing website, and extracted approximately $2.4 million in BAYC.

The same thing happened a year ago in April 2021, when another hacker hijacked BAYC's Instagram account, launched a phishing site, and stole about 100 BAYC.

According to data from CoinGecko, BAYC has a floor price of 91 ETH on OpenSea as of this writing, worth about $183,000.

Cointelegraph Chinese is a blockchain news information platform, and the information provided only represents the author's personal opinion, has nothing to do with the position of the Cointelegraph Chinese platform, and does not constitute any investment and financial advice. Readers are requested to establish correct currency concepts and investment concepts, and earnestly raise risk awareness.