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The Bored Ape Yacht Club's deal for CryptoPunks is all about IP rights

Yuga Labs is taking over management of the NFT collections from Larva Labs, as its Hollywood connections give it an edge.

CryptoPunk #7804

Yuga Labs, creator of Bored Ape Yacht Club, is acquiring CryptoPunks and Meebits.

One More Thing

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.”

 Benjamin Pimentel

Benjamin Pimentel ( @benpimentel) covers crypto and fintech from San Francisco. He has reported on many of the biggest tech stories over the past 20 years for the San Francisco Chronicle, Dow Jones MarketWatch and Business Insider, from the dot-com crash, the rise of cloud computing, social networking and AI to the impact of the Great Recession and the COVID crisis on Silicon Valley and beyond. He can be reached at bpimentel@protocol.com or via Google Voice at (925) 307-9342.

cryptopunks cryptocurrency bored ape yacht club nfts
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