Yuga Labs, creator for the highly successful Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs, has taken over management of the popular CryptoPunks and Meebits NFT collections.
CryptoPunks, launched by Larva Labs in 2017, and Meebits, introduced last year, emerged as among the most valuable digital art collections last year as the NFT craze got rolling.
In a significant move, Yuga Labs said it is “giving full commercial rights to the NFT holders,” the company said in a tweet.
CryptoPunks owners have been upset over the way Larva Labs have handled IP rights to the NFTs they bought. The commercial exploitation of NFTs is complicated, because the mere act of tokenization doesn't automatically transfer copyrights or other forms of intellectual property. Hollywood, meanwhile, has taken a keen interest in developing media based on NFTs, which could boost the value of the most popular collections.
Guy Oseary, a talent manager known for representing Madonna and U2, signed Yuga Labs as a client in October, with an eye to helping NFT-owning community members profit from their works.
Yuga Labs said “it’s been amazing to watch” the Bored Ape Yacht Club ecosystem “use their rights to collaborate and build awesome shit we never could have dreamed up. We can’t wait to see the Cryptopunks and Meebits communities do the same.”