The legal team says it's an intimidation attempt to silence Ripps
The parent business of the NFT projects Bored Ape Yacht Club and Crypto Punks, Yuga Labs, filed a lawsuit against artist Ryder Ripps in late June of last year after the latter's NFT collection used some of the same artwork as the former. On Monday, Ripps' legal team retaliated, asserting that the action was an attempt to intimidate Ripps into silence. Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation, or SLAPP, is the name of legal action with such a goal. An anti-SLAPP motion is an attempt to have a case dismissed on the grounds that it includes "speech on an issue of public importance," according to the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. A multi-billion dollar enterprise "based on racist and neo-Nazi dog whistles," according to Ripps' legal team, was called out by the artist using his craft.
They're campaigning against supposed racists in BAYC
Ripps, his collaborator Jeremy Cahen, and 10 John Does have been running a viral campaign since the beginning of 2022 that alleges the creators of Yuga Labs included alt-right imagery into their wildly popular NFT project Bored Ape Yacht Club. On the website gordongoner.com, Ripps presented the research he and his team had amassed on the subject. He has talked extensively about the problem on social media and in interviews with the media and online personalities.
Ripps' claims of racism have already been refuted
Ripps' claims of racism have previously been refuted by Yuga Labs. However, Yuga Labs did not initiate a lawsuit until Ripps released RR/BAYC, an NFT collection in which he re-minted Bored Apes from the Yuga Labs collection and sold 9,500 of these NFTs for them for a total of almost $1.6 million.
Ripps allegedly committed a type of trademark infringement
According to Yuga Labs, doing so constituted a type of trademark infringement that put potential buyers at risk of being misled. Defamation claims were noticeably omitted from the case, despite the fact that Ripps's "harassment campaign based on false accusations of racism" was frequently mentioned. The legal counsel for Ripps and Cahen contends that the use of BAYC iconography constitutes appropriation and that Ripps had no intention of deceiving potential BAYC consumers into purchasing his own NFTs. According to the RR/BAYC team's website, RR/BAYC was created with the intention of using "satire and appropriation to protest against and inform people about The Bored Ape Yacht Club and the structure of NFTs."
The use of appropriate artwork is intended to achieve specific goals
In their motion to dismiss the case, Ripps and Cahen state that their use of appropriated artwork was done specifically to accomplish the following goals: "
- to draw attention to Yuga's use of racist and neo-Nazi messages and imagery,
- to expose Yuga's use of unwitting celebrities and well-known brands to disseminate offensive material,
- to create social pressure demanding that Yuga take responsibility for its actions, and
- to educate the public about the technical nature
Ripps and Cahen's attorney, Louis Tompros of WilmerHale, stated in an email that they will be requesting costs and attorney's fees.
Jean Dubreil