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

October 27, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Ryder Ripps ordered to pay Yuga Labs .6M in copyright lawsuit

The NFT artists were also ordered to cover Yuga Labs’ legal fees after determining the trademark infringement constituted an “exceptional case.”

A United States district court judge has ordered nonfungible token (NFT) artists Ryder Ripps and Jeremy Cahen to pay Bored Ape Yacht Club creator Yuga Labs a total of $1.57 million in disgorgement and damages, along with legal fees, bringing an end to the long-running “copycat” NFT lawsuit.

The Oct. 25 order follows an April 21 partial summary judgement granted in favor of Yuga Labs after the firm claimed that Ripps and Cahen, the defendants, violated copyright laws by making copycat versions of its Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) collectibles.

District court Judge John Walter awarded Yuga Labs $1.37 million after concluding the NFT firm was entitled to a disgorgement of the defendants’ profits. An additional $200,000 was awarded in statutory damages relating to cybersquatting violations.

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

Yuga is awarded $1,375,362.92 in Ds profits, $200,000 in statutory damages, and attorneys' fees and costs (amount TBD). A permanent injunction is also issued against Ds.

1/ pic.twitter.com/2dTiuWpZSA
— NeerMcD.eth (@NeerMcD) October 26, 2023

Yuga Labs has also been entitled to recover attorney fees and costs from the NFT artists after the judge determined the trademark infringement constituted an “exceptional case.”

“A trademark case is generally considered exceptional for purposes of awarding of attorneys’ fees when a party has taken positions that can be characterized as “malicious, fraudulent, deliberate or willful,” the judge noted.

Judge Walter also knocked back the defendants’ argument that the copycat BAYC versions were “satire” and “parody” — ruling that the defendants intentionally infringed Yuga’s BAYC trademarks with a bad faith intent to profit from them.

He also noted the defendants continued to market and promote their copycat BAYC versions after the partial summary judgement was delivered against them in April.

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

In an Oct. 16 hearing in a United States appeals court, Ripps and Cahen’s lawyers tried to argue the lawsuit should be thrown out on the grounds of free speech under California’s anti-SLAPP statute. However, the three-judge panel didn’t appear persuaded by the lawyer’s arguments.

BAYC is one of the most valuable NFT collectibles on NFT marketplace OpenSea.

*BAYC collectibles currently listed on OpenSea. Source: OpenSea*

Since April 2021, it has amassed 1.32 million Ether (ETH) or $2.38 billion in trading volume with an average floor price of 27.4 ETH ($49,200), according to OpenSea.

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‘I Wanted to Punch Kanye’ — Free Speech Waffler Elon Musk’s Nonsensical Take on Bitcoin, CBDCs, and Censorship

December 5, 2022 Bitcoin.com

LBRY alleges Apple forced it to censor certain terms during COVID-19

November 29, 2022 Coin Telegraph

Apple

After Elon Musk lamented the winding back of Apple's Twitter advertising, crypto company LBRY replied about its own troubles with Apple and censorship.

Blockchain-based file-sharing and payment network LBRY has alleged that tech giant Apple forced it to filter out certain search terms during the COVID-19 crisis in an apparent rejection of free speech.

In a Nov. 28 post on Twitter, LBRY alleges it was asked to censor anything related to COVID-19, especially vaccines and the human origins of the virus, or face having its apps removed from the Apple store.

"We had to build a list of over 20 terms to not show results for, only on Apple devices. If we did not filter the terms, our apps would not be allowed in the store," the crypto company alleged.

LBRY is a decentralized content-sharing platform that allows artists, filmmakers, writers and other content creators to retain full artistic and financial control over their work. Its Odysee video-sharing website is one of its best-known apps, but it's unclear if this app was involved in the alleged censorship.

The blockchain firm made the revelation in a response to a post from Elon Musk, who said that Apple has "mostly stopped" advertising on Twitter due to concerns about the social media platforms' content, prompting LBRY to share its experience with Apple during the COVID-19 pandemic.

During Covid, Apple demanded our apps filter some search terms from being returned. If we did not filter the terms, our apps would not be allowed in the store.

Apple may make good products, but they have been opposed to free speech for some time.
— LBRY (@LBRYcom) November 28, 2022

LBRY also alleges when some of its users included images of "Pepe the Frog" in videos, Apple "Rejected" them.

Pepe the Frog is an Internet meme of a green anthropomorphic frog originating in 2005, which has since been adopted by protest groups in Hong Kong and used in political-based ideology.

The crypto company said that "Apple may make good products, but they have been opposed to free speech for some time.”

Cointelegraph reached out to Apple for comment but has not received a reply by the time of publication.

Meanwhile, discussions around censorship on Twitter have continued to rage on.

Musk took over Twitter on Oct. 28 and has been teasing the release of the "Twitter Files", supposed proof of a concentrated effort by the previous Twitter administration to stifle free speech on the platform.

The Twitter Files on free speech suppression soon to be published on Twitter itself. The public deserves to know what really happened …
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 28, 2022

Musk's takeover of Twitter and subsequent plans for the platform have seen some users seek out decentralized social networks as an alternative.

Twitter co-founder and former CEO Jack Dorsey recently unveiled a new Bitcoin-powered Bluesky Social app as part of a decentralized answer to Twitter.

The Oct. 18 announcement came roughly three years after the initiative was announced by Dorsey, with the goal of allowing users should to have control over their data and be able to move it from platform to platform without permission.

Twitter monetization and free speech drove Binance’s $500M injection: CZ

November 1, 2022 Coin Telegraph

<div>Twitter monetization and free speech drove Binance's 0M injection: CZ</div>

Censorship

Binance will also assist Twitter’s integration into Web3 by implementing crypto payments and deploying a dedicated team of on-chain specialists to stop spam bot accounts.

Binance CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao has explained the reasoning behind its $500 million co-investment into Elon Musk’s Twitter, citing monetization potential, crypto community free speech, and the opportunity to eventually “help bring Twitter into Web3.”

CZ’s comments came from an Oct. 31 CNBC Squawk Box segment, where he explained what drove his co-investment with Elon Musk to acquire the social media platform noting:

"I believe Twitter has not been monetized well, it has not grown well, there's many tactical problems like bots that spam my comments, there's scammer accounts on there, it's not been run well."

“But I think the platform has huge value in itself, and especially now with Elon at the helm, we’re very confident,” he added.

Binance has not wavered in its support for Musk's acquisition of Twitter since it first announced its support in May 2022. Other co-investors include Sequoia Capital Fund, Fidelity Management and Research Company.

The Binance CEO said Twitter’s difficult price valuation didn’t impact its investment decision as they considered the long term prospects to be strong, while giving crypto a “seat at the table” when it comes to free speech:

"We're long-term investors, we believe in strong entrepreneurs, we believe in strong platforms, we believe in free speech [...] we look at this from a 10, 20, 50, 100-year basis, so a little price fluctuation on a monthly basis doesn't bother us."

However, decisions as to what Twitter accounts are re-activated won’t lie in the hands of Musk, who said that a new “content moderation council” will bear the duty to determine what banned user accounts are restored.

However, the billionaire entrepreneur confirmed in a tweet that the council will exercise its discretion with “widely diverse viewpoints.”

CZ says it invested as it also hopes to play a part in Twitter’s eventual transition to Web3, such as adding cryptocurrency-based payments on to the social media platform.

“We want to help solve those immediate problems like charging for memberships [....] that can be done very easily by using cryptocurrencies as a means of payment.”

According to a Reuters report on Oct. 28, the crypto exchange plans to create a dedicated team to work on potential crypto and blockchain-based solutions for Twitter.

The new team will explore how to build on-chain solutions to address issues such as spam bot accounts.

Binance’s $500 million investment into Twitter makes them the fourth-largest shareholder in the social media platform amongst 19 investors.

Twitter is also no longer a publicly-traded company, having been delisted from the New York Stock Exchange (NSYE) on Oct. 28, following Musk’s decision to take the company private.

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October 8, 2022 Bitcoin.com

Coin Center takes aim at ‘unconstitutional’ SEC redefinition of an ‘exchange’

April 15, 2022 Coin Telegraph

Coin Telegraph

The DC-based non profit believes the SEC is making a gross overreach with its new proposed definition of exchange as it would include the means of communication and not just trade.

Nonprofit blockchain advocacy group Coin Center has called the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) proposed redefinition of an “exchange” an “unconstitutional overreach.”

The lobby group made the comments in a written response to the SEC’s March 18 Amendments Regarding the Definition of “Exchange”, which details changing the meaning of “exchange” from a “system that brings together the orders” of a security to one that “brings together buyers and sellers.”

The SEC's proposed rule to change the definition of "exchange."

Bringing together orders, which are things, is very different to bringing together people and Coin Center says the latter is tantamount to coercion.

The rule change suggests that Communication Protocol Systems are also exchanges which may bring in programmers who merely share code for a crypto trade. If the proposal becomes an SEC rule, decentralized exchanges (DEX) such as UniSwap (UNI) and PancakeSwap (CAKE) would all be on notice that the commission wants them to register as exchanges.

A new SEC proposal has a serious change hidden within its complex language.
Bottom line: The proposal violates the First Amendment by requiring a license to speak—even of open source developers. It’s unconstitutional and they should change it.
Coin Center is pushing back 1/
— ɥƃɹnquǝʞןɐΛ ⚖ (@valkenburgh) April 14, 2022

Coin Center argues that this shift “to a speech-based definition” would impact “countless developers, publishers, and republishers” who may trade code but not tokens. This is particularly the case for DEX developers.

Comments from Coin Center on the SEC's rule proposal regarding exchanges.

The nonprofit reacted to the proposed change in lengthy comments on April 14 by calling it unconstitutional and citing Supreme Court (SC) precedent that it believes could compel the SEC to retract its proposal:

“The way it [expands the definition of 'exchange'] would create an inappropriately broad standard for registration that would impose an unconstitutional prior restraint on the protected speech activities of countless software developers and technologists.”

By the SEC’s account, including considerations of Communication Protocol Systems to the definition of “exchange” acknowledges the benefit individual buyers and sellers extract from communicating within a marketplace. It said that adding those users in the definition can “reduce regulatory disparities among like markets.”

However, Coin Center argues the new definition is an attempt to abridge freedom of speech in contravention of the First Amendment. The SEC was accused of doing this in the landmark 1985 Lowe v SEC case. In that case, the SEC attempted to force Lowe to stop stop acting as an Investment Advisor by publishing a financial newsletter. The SC stated that Lowe’s newsletter was protected free speech and he won the case.

Regarding Lowe v SEC, Coin Center wrote the commission “jeopardized the speech rights of Americans with an overbroad interpretation of its statutory authority.”

The SEC will be accepting comments from U.S. citizens regarding the rule proposal until April 18.

Last November, the Infrastructure Bill passed which required software developers, transaction validators and node operators to file taxes as crypto brokers, an overly-broad definition by the account of many in the crypto industry.

Free Speech