Yuga Labs IP theft probe for the BAYC wolf skull logo
Yuga Labs is under fire for alleged IP theft for trademarking the BAYC wolf skull logo without the proper license. Initially, the image was from a company specializing in helping little children draw using tutorials.
Yuga Labs controversy over BAYC wolf skull logo
A Twitter post by @Jdotcolombo, a Crypto Twitter and NFT artist, revealed that he came across a 2021 post on Easy Drawing Guides as “an easy step-by-step drawing tutorial” for a wolf skull.
The art by the company was found to be closely similar to the BAYC official logo on its launch on June 17, 2021, whereas it had posted the tutorial on May 2, 2021.
East Drawing Guides released a statement that they still needed to give Yuga Labs the license to use the wolf skill drawing. In addition, it stated that the intellectual rights for the drawing belonged to them as their original piece, protected by its Terms and Conditions. These terms offer a revocable, non-exclusive, non-transferable, revocable, limited license to use and access the website for only personal and non-commercial use.
BAYC supporters are adamant that using the logo was no intellectual property breach. However, others are for the idea of compensation from Yuga Labs.
It wasn’t an isolated case
The recent case was not the only one in which Yuga has been involved since the year began. A BAYC copycat NFT collection RR/BAYC founder, Jeremy Cahen, brought up charges against Yuga Labs on February 9. The charges were against ten of their trademark applications.
Yuga Labs’ spokesperson later released a statement whereby he said that Cahen was trying to cause trouble, explaining that it was not a big deal. The company filed most of its trademark applications in the last half of 2021 with various artwork, BAYC logos, and branding across digital products.
Cahen, however, mentioned a list of “grounds for opposition” against Yuga Labs’s filings, saying the company did not heed any rights regarding certain logo and artwork designs. The reason was BAYC NFT sales had granted “all rights” of the digital images it produced to its owners.
