Someone Stole Seth Green's Bored Ape, Which Was Supposed To Star In His New Show (buzzfeednews.com) 143
An anonymous reader quotes a report from BuzzFeed News: Actor and producer Seth Green was robbed of several NFTs this month after succumbing to a phishing scam that inadvertently threw a monkey wrench into the plan for his new animated series. The forthcoming show was developed from characters in Green's expansive NFT collection, but in light of the recent hack, the project's blatant crypto optimism has become a tragically ironic reminder of the industry's shadier side. On Saturday, Green teased a trailer for White Horse Tavern at the NFT conference VeeCon. A twee comedy, the show seems to be based on the question, "What if your friendly neighborhood bartender was Bored Ape Yacht Club #8398?" In an interview with entrepreneur and crypto hype man Gary Vaynerchuk, Green said he wanted to imagine a universe where "it doesn't matter what you look like, what only matters is your attitude."
Unfortunately for Green, what also matters is copyright law. And when the actor's NFT collection was pilfered by a scammer in early May, he lost the commercial rights to his show's cartoon protagonist, a scruffy Bored Ape named Fred Simian, whose likeness and usage rights now belong to someone else. "I bought that ape in July 2021, and have spent the last several months developing and exploiting the IP to make it into the star of this show," Green told Vaynerchuk. "Then days before -- his name is Fred by the way -- days before he's set to make his world debut, he's literally kidnapped." Green did not respond to a tweet from BuzzFeed News regarding the show.
On May 8, an anonymous scammer swiped four of Green's NFTs in a phishing scheme. Green mourned his "stolen" assets on Twitter, where he announced the losses of a Bored Ape, two Mutant Apes, and a Doodle, which were transferred out of Green's wallet after he unknowingly interacted with a phishing site. One of the Mutant Apes was flipped for $42,000, Motherboard reported. Transaction ledgers show the Bored Ape was also sold by the scammer to a pseudonymous collector known as "DarkWing84," who purchased it for more than $200,000. The NFT was then swiftly transferred to a collection called "GBE_Vault," which is where it currently sits. If the current owner "wanted to cause trouble for Seth Green they probably could, because that person becomes the holder" of the commercial usage rights, said Daniel Dubin, an intellectual property attorney at Alston & Bird LLP. [...] Seemingly aware of the problems his ape's new owner could cause, Green has spent the last several days tweeting at DarkWing84 in an attempt to reclaim the Bored Ape [...]. The NFT marketplace OpenSea said it has frozen the tokens and marked all four NFTs taken from Green with "suspicious activity" warnings.
"We do not have the power to freeze or delist NFTs that exist on decentralized blockchains; however, we do disable the ability to use OpenSea to buy or sell stolen items," said OpenSea spokesperson Allie Mack.
Unfortunately for Green, what also matters is copyright law. And when the actor's NFT collection was pilfered by a scammer in early May, he lost the commercial rights to his show's cartoon protagonist, a scruffy Bored Ape named Fred Simian, whose likeness and usage rights now belong to someone else. "I bought that ape in July 2021, and have spent the last several months developing and exploiting the IP to make it into the star of this show," Green told Vaynerchuk. "Then days before -- his name is Fred by the way -- days before he's set to make his world debut, he's literally kidnapped." Green did not respond to a tweet from BuzzFeed News regarding the show.
On May 8, an anonymous scammer swiped four of Green's NFTs in a phishing scheme. Green mourned his "stolen" assets on Twitter, where he announced the losses of a Bored Ape, two Mutant Apes, and a Doodle, which were transferred out of Green's wallet after he unknowingly interacted with a phishing site. One of the Mutant Apes was flipped for $42,000, Motherboard reported. Transaction ledgers show the Bored Ape was also sold by the scammer to a pseudonymous collector known as "DarkWing84," who purchased it for more than $200,000. The NFT was then swiftly transferred to a collection called "GBE_Vault," which is where it currently sits. If the current owner "wanted to cause trouble for Seth Green they probably could, because that person becomes the holder" of the commercial usage rights, said Daniel Dubin, an intellectual property attorney at Alston & Bird LLP. [...] Seemingly aware of the problems his ape's new owner could cause, Green has spent the last several days tweeting at DarkWing84 in an attempt to reclaim the Bored Ape [...]. The NFT marketplace OpenSea said it has frozen the tokens and marked all four NFTs taken from Green with "suspicious activity" warnings.
"We do not have the power to freeze or delist NFTs that exist on decentralized blockchains; however, we do disable the ability to use OpenSea to buy or sell stolen items," said OpenSea spokesperson Allie Mack.
Well... the ape was bored. (Score:3)
Maybe he simple left.
A perfect example (Score:5, Insightful)
of the inanity of NFTs. Unfortunately, nobody will learn anything here. As Dylan said, "Nothing was revealed."
Re: A perfect example (Score:2)
Nothing was stolen either
Re: A perfect example (Score:5, Interesting)
In this case something really was stolen.
Bored Apes license says that the exploitation rights to the image go to the owner of the NFT, and Seth Green intended to use it that way, he can't do that anymore.
It is a weird situation. Copyright law protecting stolen property? It is like saying that the owner of a house is the one who posesses the keys. And if the keys are stolen, only the thief has the right to enter the house. As the article say, the idea of tying copyright to NFTs has not really been tested in court.
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All this tells me is that Seth Green is so drunk on cryto-sauce he can't even find a quality IP lawyer that isn't.
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They NFTs have already been sold on, and it would be difficult to prove that the buyers didn't purchase them in good faith.
How does buying stolen property work in the US? In the UK you have to give it back. Then again I'm not sure that would apply to IP which can be freely duplicated (right click, save image) or which is governed by a contract.
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On second thoughts, wouldn't it be down to the creators of the Bored Ape Yacht Club to sue? Their entire business model relies on the copyright and exploitation rights having legal standing, otherwise their JPEGs are worthless.
Sounds like they would need to sue Green if he goes ahead with his cartoon.
Re: A perfect example (Score:2)
The court could very well decide the owner of the NFT is Seth Green. I'd be interested how that license is really worded.
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Apparently, the contract is an ambiguous mess [twitter.com].
From that thread: "[B]ecause Yuga Labs doesn't make it clear how exactly the art is owned and doesn't make it clear where copyright lies, they're sort of trying to have it both ways. This is a crappy license."
In addition: "BAYC's terms are horribly drafted, don't make it clear that the copyright is retained by Yuga Labs and not assigned
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But he lost his imaginary imaginary property! Think of the imaginary monkey children!
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But he bought the rights to it, so he can still show it on his show. Any complaints by the new owners would end up in court and any judge would realize what was going on.
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What if some good-faith party buys the ape from the thief and then discovers that his new property is being illegally exploited by its former owner? What will the judge decide then?
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There is a bored ape (Score:2)
But it's not on the side of the screen that people think it is.
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So he was scammed twice? (Score:5, Insightful)
First when he bought the NFTs. Second when someone "stole" them.
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Woah wait, didn't you read in the summary that a tax lawyer said the intellectual property was transferred with the NFT?
Re: So he was scammed twice? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Well, you'd have to write the license so the right to use was tied to control of the token rather than ownership of the token. I know crypto enthusiasts tend to confuse those two, but a court *can* order you to turn over control of crypto assets. Sure you can refuse to comply, but the court can put you in jail.
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If it was "stolen", then how do rights transfer?
Ie, let's say there's identity theft, and some guy shows up claiming to own your house; the solution is to take it to court. Similarly, if there's a forged document, you take it to court. As long as you did not sign over your rights you should retain them. Of course, if a judge does follow common sense and rules that the image belongs to the buyer it was stolen from, and it could be enforced, then the NFT market might collapse ("omg the government still exi
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You don't need to be tricked to lose out to identity theft.
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There's no winning here.
Suppose the creator decided that the copyright should go to Seth Green. Could the current owner of the NFT sue? That would require them to appear in court and reveal their identity. So they probably would not do it.
However!
If they didn't show, and the court found in favor of the creator, and the creator issued a new NFT to Seth Green, we have a huge problem. That opens up a great scam where the copyright holder "claims" the tokens were stolen and shares the profits with the scamm
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If they didn't show, and the court found in favor of the creator, and the creator issued a new NFT to Seth Green, we have a huge problem. That opens up a great scam where the copyright holder "claims" the tokens were stolen and shares the profits with the scammer. That would undermine the entire purpose of the system.
This might actually prove to be a huge winning, depending on whom you ask.
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Dunno what that has to do with my comment - my comment was only that Train was inferring that Green didn't have the rights to create a TV show with the NFT characters he owned. That flies in the face of numerous other commercial projects created without legal opposition based on the bored ape NFTs those project creators owned (including a record label signed band "fronted" by bored ape characters) and the assumption that a guy who's been making TV shows for decades now wouldn't verify that he was on solid l
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It wasn't, sorry for the confusion. It was just to say that the license includes those rights - because Train was saying he didn't even have them in the first place - not that those rights were lost when he was scammed out of his NFT. I suspect this would be something courts would have to decide if it came to that because these are all pretty new mechanisms.
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It is far from the most bizarre or unlikely conspiracy theory
uh yes it is, that's an asinine theory. Disney or any other backers would be doing this due diligence up front instead of discovering "down the road" that the guy they gave money too isn't on solid legal footing. (Just for shits and giggles, imagine the stupid theory that they didn't - then doesn't that make them equally stupid and naïve too in the details of a business they've been operating in for over a century?)
Can you lose a copyright through theft? (Score:5, Insightful)
Green was the owner. He has proof of purchase. Someone stole it - certainly that person can't claim copyright, right? It appears that they sold it, and the person who bought it has no more rights to it than anyone else who purchases stolen property? Actually, it appears as though the person who now holds (I hesitate to use the word "owns") it might have been somehow involved in the theft - doesn't that also change this dynamic? There's an intellectual property attorney quoted as saying the new owner just owns it, seemingly regardless of how he obtained it. IANAL, and I realize the law often makes zero common sense, but anyone with more info care to explain to me how this is different than anything else that is stolen?
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I have a better question: How does the NFT demonstrate copyright? Copyright is an intangible thing. NFTs are supposed to point to ownership of a specific virtual thing, not an intangible thing.
Car analogy: Me stealing your Ford doesn't give me the right to produce Fords or prevent Ford from producing Fords. It just puts me in possession of your specific car.
Re: Can you lose a copyright through theft? (Score:2)
The actual copyright holder grants the NFT holder a license. Those terms can basicaly be anything the want to define and defend in civil court.
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Couldn't license terms like those be challenged to the effect that the license rights transfer provision should not apply in the event of a non-contractual (i.e. theft-based) transfer of the effective (though not legal) ownership of the private key?
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BAYC terms [boredapeyachtclub.com] defines ownership in the context of their license terms as follows (emphasis mine):
i. You Own the NFT. Each Bored Ape is an NFT on the Ethereum blockchain. When you purchase an NFT, you own the underlying Bored Ape, the Art, completely. Ownership of the NFT is mediated entirely by the Smart Contract and the Ethereum Network: at no point may we seize, freeze, or otherwise modify the ownership of any Bored Ape
If BAYC is willing to honor an illegal transaction, then that's aiding and abetting. Seth Green could fight this with lawyers. That probably won't happen unless he has investors and producers that are unwilling to accept a loss of significant capital. One option is to proceed as if the terms we not violated, probably not a good idea because it could backfire. Another is to ask for a second license from BAYC for a s
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The problem is that Greens only proof he bought it is on the blockchain, and that same blockchain records him transferring it to someone else. So he needs to prove that his original purchase was legitimate but the later transfer wasn't. It's potentially possible, but it's not an open-and-shut case.
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But if you say that, then all I have to do is claim that my NFT was stolen, share the profits with the "hacker" and still get to keep the rights. After that happens a few times, nobody would use the NFT system at all because the token then would confer no meaning any longer.
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Did you read your own link??
Re:Can you lose a copyright through theft? (Score:4, Interesting)
It's not clear (in legal terms, to me at least) that that grant automatically transfers to whoever stole the private key of the NFT. Or to whoever else bought the stolen key.
If someone steals the key (fob, whatever) to my car and uses that to steal the car, do they, or whoever they sell the key (fob) to, get legal ownership of the car, its roaming data service subscription, its warrantee, its insurance policy etc.?
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I suppose you could read that license as granting rights to the holder of the NFT, and "continued compliance" as respecting that. It sounds like quite a stretch to me though. I would also think that Green's producers would insist on something more explicit from Yugo labs before they started pouring money into something, and there's no reason that would have anything at all to do with an NFT.
If I'd spent a bunch of money on an NFT, planned a cartoon around it, and then gotten phished I'd probably make up an
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At least the part of the license you quoted doesn't say that the rights are transferred by Yuga again to the next obtainer of some token.
Since you now have the rights, it would be up to you to transfer them to another party, should Yuga allow you, in some other clause, to do so.
But that transfer would have to be a willful and knowing act on yo
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To be clear, I was replying to the OPs assertion that
which is false since the clause I quoted clearly grants a license to make derivative works.
Regarding whether you *retain* that right, also not a lawyer, but I think this is a little different than, say, buying and selling a car. Yuga is granting a license to use their copyrighted material, and they can revoke that license based on their own criteria. If you buy a subsc
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A huge issue with this case is that your tokens don't just disappear from your wallet. Your kind of have to go through a process where you actively sign a transaction to transfer something out of your wallet. That's why they're saying it's a phishing attack, and that really leaves you wondering what exactly he thought he was doing when he cryptographically signed aw
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One of the many reasons why you'd be nuts to start a serious project based on that license.
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Possession is 100% of the code-is-law. But, of course, code is not actually law, and an entry on the blockchain doesn't legally settle anything.
NFTs don't mean anything regarding copyright (Score:3)
when the actor's NFT collection was pilfered by a scammer in early May, he lost the commercial rights to his show's cartoon protagonist, a scruffy Bored Ape named Fred Simian, whose likeness and usage rights now belong to someone else
... is complete nonsense. That "someone else" has not legally bought the rights to anything, and will certainly not even attempt to go to court regarding this.
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Here's a picture of the stolen ape in case you want to see it [rarity.tools]. You can also "steal" it and put it on your desktop wallpaper or something.
Re:NFTs don't mean anything regarding copyright (Score:5, Informative)
I generally agree with this interpretation, but I can see how it can be an issue.
The NFT was "stolen", so it and the usage rights are now stolen property - however, if the original owner continues to use the usage rights they owned, as they are still the legitimate owner of them, they might run into legal issues of proof of ownership. The contract, being the NFT blockchain entry, says one thing - the original owner now has to establish with anyone else the fact that the NFT blockchain entry is no longer the single source of truth.
Hence, it becomes a legal nightmare to use the rights that the original owner legitimately still holds.
Same thing happens in the real world where several overlapping contracts or transfers of ownership come into play - its a legal mess that many investors wont touch.
There is a real world example which is similar here - in several common law countries, as a home owner your house can be sold out from under you without your knowledge, and while that is a crime, because that sale is now registered with the legitimate body, it can be irreversible and thus the new owner has all the legal rights to the property. The crime is separate to the legal ownership, and the legal ownership stands.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-en... [bbc.com]
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The solicitors (thats a type of lawyer, to any Americans reading) involved on the buyers part only have to establish current ownership - if convincing identity fraud is involved, then it will pass the buyers due diligence and the sale will go on.
The fraud fund is set up by the UK Land Registry, and the fraud fund payments are not automatic - its of no consolation if you have to prove your case, and risk rejection, and it does not necessarily cover the value of goods in the house when it is sold (again, how
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Then you could enter computer forensic evidence (I would get that blockchain-timestamped for good measure) of the computer break-in and illegal transfer of the ownership, including the timing of when that happened. That could be used to get a legal decision by a judge that all subsequent block chain transactions involving the NFT token are invalid.
Bit of a nightmare, because first time this sort of stra
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Could someone explain why that's a problem? (Score:4, Interesting)
So... he is the rightful owner of the IP, but he isn't because with NFTs it's now possible to actually steal IP.
Care to explain why NFTs are a good thing to use for IP management?
This whole Bored Ape Yacht Club grift (Score:3)
It just keeps getting funnier and funnier!
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every single time... [youtube.com]
the real reason (Score:2)
This is a lame excuse to get out of the show. No, I bet he wanted to use the show to increase the value of his NFT and then sell it to some sucker.
primetime crypto (Score:2)
I think crypto speaks for itself. Trust in the computer, trust in the software, keep it all virtual. What could go wrong?
This is primetime crypto, where you can inadvertently connect things to your 'hot wallet' only to have that wallet drained. Smart contracts for the win! Connecting your wallet to your web browser and using it for verification all over the place for the win!
I mean, when I'm walking around skid row I always have my wallet out in my hand and show the contents as proof of identity to anyone t
This is NOT how copyright works! (Score:3, Informative)
You can't "steal" copyright by stealing their NFT.
Copyright, trademark, likeness, and patent rights are legal constructs, not digital ones. IP rights can be conveyed by contract, including digital transactions. But for any contract to be held valid **legally*, there must be a "meeting of the minds" and "consideration." Neither is the case here with theft, which would be fairly easy to prove.
Also, the thief would have to *reveal their identity* to file a civil claim of copyright infringement, which would open them up to a criminal charge of Grand Larceny.
This whole idea is as idiotic as saying that someone who steals the Mona Lisa from The Louvre can then sue the museum for selling prints in their gift shop. Possession is *not* 9/10ths of the law.
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Also, the thief would have to *reveal their identity* to file a civil claim of copyright infringement, which would open them up to a criminal charge of Grand Larceny.
This was exactly my thought. He should go forward with the show, and let the new "owner" bring forth a suit -- and then hammer them in court.
Yaz
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its not about copyrights (Score:3)
Algorithms: I want to solve a problem
Data Science: I want to understand a problem
AI: I want to solve a problem and not understand the solution
Bolckchain: I want to be a problem
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The technology of blockchain is somewhat irrelevant here. If a judge declares it stolen then it's stolen. If you can't fix it by appending more to the blockchain, then the blockchain gets ignored. Ie, the judge decides that Seth Green retains the copyright he paid for no matter what the blockchain actually says, because the law is going to trump whatever handwavy things the thief claims. And if that DOES happen, it might mean blockchain items suddenly lose lots of value as the naivete of the buyers drift
Re: its not about copyrights (Score:2)
it might mean blockchain items suddenly lose lots of value as the naivete of the buyers drifts away.
Except we've been saying pretty much that same thing for quite a while now.
It unfortunately looks like we have not yet begun to dumb.
Conspiracy potential: (Score:3)
Wanting to divest himself of worthless NFTs, he arranged to have them "stolen" to give reason to cancel the animates series project and pocket the (real) money instead.
If he just sold them that would raise too many eyebrows.
=Smidge=
/adjusts beryllium foil hat
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Imagination Meets Reality. (Score:2)
Green said he wanted to imagine a universe where "it doesn't matter what you look like, what only matters is your attitude."
Well I'd say a devoted fan with an doesn't matter attitude about the law, fulfilled that dream for him.
And of course as an anonymous scammer, no one knows what you look like.
Fucking nailed it.
#toobad (Score:2)
fake publicity stunt. (Score:2)
You can't break into Disney's vaults and steal Mickey. You don't lose intellectual property rights when somebody steals an NFT. The first person to stand up and "claim" to own Seth's copyright over this NFT gets to go jail and the NFT will returned to it's rightful owner, like ALL stolen property. This is a publicity stunt for the show, nothing more.
It's already a comedy show! (Score:2)
An animation series can't outdo the Bored Ape NFT satire show!
who? (Score:2)
oh that obnoxious time capsule from 1998 from Austin Powers, sucks to be him, oh and the "theft" of imaginary nonsense
Re: who? (Score:2)
Ancient "Critic" reference. (Score:2)
IT'S A F$@&ING ANIMATED PICTURE (Score:2)
Just tweak it, change the colours, boom - you still have a shitty tv show.
jfc.
The plan (Score:2)
This is bullshit (Score:2)
Green never bought any of those NFTs. Everybody in the industry knows how it works. Moonpay Concierge Service gives those things out to celebrities in return for PR.
There's no indication whoever stole them can claim commercial rights either - that's a function of the agreement between whoever supposedly actually "bought" the NFT and who sold them. There's no obligation for anybody to respect or transfer IP rights to an unauthorized third party.
It's sad that apparently nobody in media has even bothered t
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So now... (Score:2)
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A pox on all of this monkey business! (Score:2)
Haha (Score:2)
Haha
Congratulations, Seth Green (Score:3)
Now you know what its like to start a business in India or China.
This is the Stupidest Post in Ages (Score:2)
So, "finders, keepers" becomes "steal it, keepers," becomes the law? I'm trying to understand how you lose copyright to something that was "stolen." What a ridiculous article. A stolen bicycle is a still a stolen bicycle, stolen money is still stolen money, and stolen bitcoin is still stolen bitcoin. I hate myself for reading the summary and taking the time to post a comment.
You do not lose copyright when you get stolen (Score:2)
If your docuemnt / contract get stolen and resold, the buyer do not get the copyright , this is still stolen goods. I have no idea what the issue is here, because legally, the copyright is still in the hand of who bought it NOT the one who took control of the NFT illegally.
Re:So how do copyright and NFT's interact? (Score:4, Informative)
It isn't a valid contract if there's no exchange of value. This is basic common law. So if someone "tricked" you into giving away something, if they didn't give you anything in return, then the contract of sale is null and void. That's why in many common law jurisdictions if you want to give your kid the old car, he has to give you a dollar or something of similar value, otherwise the sale hasn't deemed to be valid.
What's not clear to me from any of this is what exactly it is that Seth Green owned. If I buy a print of someone's painting, I own the print, and if it is a limited edition print, I may actually own a print of some value. What I don't own is the actual image itself. I can't go out and use it in a cartoon or ad campaign without getting permission from the actual artist, or I'm violating the artist's copyright.
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Then, if some new owner of the stolen property identifies their self in order to sue you for copyright, have them charged with possession of stolen property, supplying computer forensics (+ blockchain record) of the theft as evidence.
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No. End of story.
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