Moonbirds, Bored Apes, And More NFTs Have 'Misled' Buyers On IP Rights: Report

According to research by Galaxy Digital, Bored Ape Yacht Club, Moonbirds, and many more NFTs have misled their buyers on IP rights.

The research highlighted two significant projects, Bored Ape Yacht Club and Moonbirds, which, the report says, have falsely marketed IP rights to buyers. However, other than these two, the vast majority of NFTs in the market have conveyed zero intellectual property ownership to their owners, according to Galaxy Digital.

The report says that Yuga Labs misled NFT purchasers regarding the intellectual property rights for the content they sell. 

Regarding the Bored Ape Yacht Club, the Yuga Labs' license says that "when you purchase an NFT, you own the underlying Bored Ape, the Art, completely." 

The Galaxy report says that Yuga Labs "implicitly acknowledges that the NFT holder does not own the art."

Last week, Yuga Labs released extensive IP licensing agreements for CryptoPunks and Meebits. These agreements give more clarity on NFT holders' rights. 

Also Read: How A Hacker Stole $360,000 Worth Of NFTs From Bored Ape Yacht Club's Discord Server

About Moonbirds, the NFT collection presents a more striking case of misleading advertising based on discrepancies between its public statements and the Moonbirds license agreement, the report says. 

Moonbirds is the 6th most valuable NFT collection by implied market capitalization. 

Only one NFT collection in the top 25 by market capitalization even attempts to confer intellectual property rights to the purchasers of their NFTs (World of Women).

Galaxy Digital says the Creative Commons license issue is a primary concern area. It removes NFT ownership from a legal perspective as it moves intellectual property into the public domain. It, therefore, becomes impossible for NFT holders to defend their ownership rights in court.

Some other projects, such as Doodles, place barriers on commercialization, which limits the amount of revenue that derivative works can generate plus restricts the ability to modify the original artwork, the report notes.

Photo: Courtesy of opensea.io