Seth Green bought one of the Bored Ape NFTs and planned a TV show around the character. But the ape was stolen from him in a phishing attack, and he apparently loses the rights to use the character along with the NFT representing it. So now the show is in jeopardy, reports Buzzfeed.
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.
It's funny and amazing, but I feel like something is missing from this story. The thief and any subsequent recipient owns it in tulipspace, but asserting rights in the real world is another matter. Let's see the thief haul that bag into court. It's vague what rights are even assigned to buyers of NFTs in the first place; buyers often don't own what they think they own.
Also, just think how desperate anyone roped into in this production might be to get out of that commitment as of about a week ago. A Bored Ape TV show? What a fucking nightmare. Have we learned nothing from our mistakes?
