Hermes says the artist, under the pseudonym Mason Rothschild, continues to promote those same NFTs despite a recent court ruling, and receives a 7.5% royalty on sales. Hermes demands that all remaining NFTs be handed over to him, the fashion house.
Rothschild’s lawyer, Rhett Millsaps, insists that the lawsuit is “a serious abuse of power by Hermes and an attempt to punish the artist because they do not like his work.” Rothschild is set to file a counter-petition this week, the lawyer says.
In February, Hermès won a trademark case against MetaBirkin NFT, proving that digital assets created on the blockchain are not considered works of art in their own right if they infringe copyright.
Litigation between Hermès and the artist under the pseudonym Mason Rothschild began back in January 2022, when the fashion house filed a complaint against the artist from Los Angeles for releasing a collection of non-fungible MetaBirkins NFT tokens created using the image of the iconic Birkin bag. Hermès believes that Rothschild violated intellectual property rights and “wrongly used the company’s reputation for personal gain to generate revenue and mislead customers.” For his part, Rothschild claimed that his work was protected by copyright laws and was a unique work of art in its own right.
According to the marketplace, 100 NFTs worth 230 ETH (about $936,000) were sold from the MetaBirkins collection.
Source: Bits
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