Ryder Rips ordered to pay Yuga Labs $1.6M in copyright lawsuit

A US District Court judge has ordered Invincible Token (NFT) artists Ryder Ripps and Jeremy Cahen to pay Bored Up Yacht Club creator Yuga Labs a total of $1.57 million in disgorgement and damages, plus legal fees. Running a “copycat” NFT lawsuit.

The Oct. 25 order follows an April 21 partial summary judgment in favor of Yuga Labs after the firm claimed that Rips and Cahen violated copyright laws by making copies of the Board Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) collection.

District Court Judge John Walter awarded Yuga Labs $1.37 million after concluding that the NFT firm was entitled to a cut of the defendants' profits. An additional $200,000 was awarded in statutory damages related to cybersquatting violations.

Yuga Labs v. Ryder Ripps et al – Notes of the Court's Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law

Yuga was awarded Ds' profits of $1,375,362.92, statutory damages of $200,000, and attorneys' fees and costs (amount TBD). By D.

1/ pic.twitter.com/2dTiuWpZSA

— NeerMcD.eth (@NeerMcD) October 26, 2023

Yuga Labs is also entitled to attorney's fees and costs from the NFT artists after the judge ruled that the trademark infringement was a “special case.”

“Trademark cases are generally considered exceptional for the purpose of awarding attorneys' fees when a party takes a position that is ‘malicious, fraudulent, willful or willful,'” the judge said.

Judge Walter also responded to the defendants' argument that the BAYC copies were “satire” and “parody” – that the defendants intentionally infringed Yuga BAYC's trademarks with the intention of profiting from them.

In addition, the defendants indicated that they continued to market and promote their copies of BAYC after the partial summary judgment was granted in April.

Yuga Labs filed a lawsuit against the two artists in June 2022.

In an Oct. 16 hearing at the U.S. Court of Appeals, attorneys for Rips and Cahen tried to argue that the suit should be dismissed under California's free-speech statute. But the three-judge trial was not convinced by the lawyer's argument.

Related: NFTs aren't dead — they're dying.

BAYC is one of the most important NFT aggregators on the NFT marketplace OpenSea.

As of April 2021, it has accumulated 1.32 million ether (ETH) or $2.38 billion in transaction volume with an average of 27.4 ETH ($49,200), according to OpenSea.

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