- Yuga Labs is under fire by the crypto community for allegedly breaching intellectual property.
- The BAKC logo is being criticised to be of likeness with Easy Drawing Guides’ drawing of a wolf skull.
- Greg Solano announces the removal of the BAKC logo from the website and asks that all NFT marketplaces do the same.
Yuga Labs has been hit with severe allegations claiming that the logo of its NFT (non-fungible token) collection, “Bored Ape Kennel Club” or “BAKC,” was illegally trademarked.
On February 17, an NFT artist brought the illegal trademark to the limelight by accusing Yuga Labs of profiting off the logo made by Easy Drawing Guides.
According to the NFT artist, he stumbled upon a post by ‘Easy Drawing Guides’ dated April 5, 2021, educating beginners on how to draw a wolf skull.
The wolf skull in question belonged to the drawing tutorial. However, Jdotcolombo alleged that the BAYC kennel club’s logo looked similar to the wolf skull. Hence Yuga Labs must have trademarked it and falsely gained credits for it since the date of the wolf skull drawing advert predated when BAKC was launched.
The evidence proved that Easy Drawing Guides published the drawing of the wolf skull on April 5, 2021, while BAYC Kennel Club (BAKC) was launched in June 2021.
Upon the accusations thrown at Yuga Labs on Twitter, Easy Drawing Guides responded to the NFT artist’s tweet, affirming the allegations by stating that Yuga Labs had no right to use the logo for any commercial use.
“@Yugalabs doesn’t have a license to the wolf skull drawing,” Easy Drawing Guides commented on the tweet.
There have been mixed reactions from the crypto community. However, the majority have claimed that Yuga Labs is expected to compensate Easy Drawing Guides for using its logo.
Amidst the scandal on Twitter, Greg Solano—the co-founder of Yuga Labs—announced the necessary actions to be taken since the accusation made by Jdotcolombo.
The co-founder explained that the firm has reached out to the freelancer who allegedly designed their logo for further inquiries about the likeness of both logos.
Solano said that the wolf skull would be removed from the BAKC NFT collection’s website, and all affiliated NFT marketplaces have been alerted to change the logo into the new one, which Yuga Labs would create.
What Comes Next?
Since the allegations made by Easy Drawing Guides and Jodotcolombo, Greg Solano has started that Yuga Labs was in talks with the freelancer who allegedly designed the logo and Easy Drawing Guides to find the root of the violation of intellectual property.
According to Solano, Bored Ape Kennel Club (BAKC) was intended to be a non-profit NFT collection released freely to owners of BAYC, excluding gas fees.
However, the BAYC website stated that the BAKC collection has a 2.5% royalty fee in connection with secondary sales on OpenSea, as all royalties made over the first six weeks since the launch of BAKC were donated to animal charities. The accumulated royalties donated to animal charities were over $1 million.
Therefore, BAKC has successfully gained from its launch of BAKC since using Easy Drawing Guides’ logo despite the latter’s Terms and Conditions stating that its property was not permitted to be for commercial use.
Conclusion
Yuga Labs has since removed the wolf skull logo due to the allegation made against it by an NFT artist on Twitter. All eyes are on the freelancer who allegedly designed the logo of BAKC with a resemblance to Easy Drawing Guides’ wolf skull.
