Where is the debate of Seth Green’s stolen BAYC’s and its rights going?

Famous actor Seth Green has announced the theft of his four Nonfungible tokens, including BAYC and MAYC NFTs, and now it is turning towards a legal fight.

Non Fungible tokens are counted under the most secure and fully authorized assets due to their presence and use of cutting-edge blockchain technology. NFTs consist of digital arts, and their ownership and rights are maintained and secured on the blockchain and considered almost indestructible. However, theft of these digital assets in several instances is enough to create skepticism around it and issues like the authority of its rights screwed up. 

Seth Green is losing his NFTs.

The recent case of famous American actor and director Seth Benjamin Green losing his nonfungible tokens in a phishing attack has restarted the debate. On 18th May, Green announced on Twitter that his four non-fungible tokens, including Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) #8398, Mutant Ape Yacht Club (MAYC) #9964, and #19182, and Doodle #2546, were stolen after he visited a phishing site. 

After the theft, there was no sign of the thief and stolen NFTs, but later, Seth Green noted that his NFTs were now under the possession of someone with the pseudonym DarkWing84 who bought them. This brought the emergence of this debate among legal experts and crypto community members who would possess the intellectual property (IP) rights of stolen BAYC and MAYC NFTs, where Green asked himself who should have the authority over the digital assets. 

Regulations of BAYC also do not seem to help.

While thinking that maybe the institution behind BAYC might have some policy regarding this, it might also not help as the license of BAYC does not set off such instances of digital assets theft. It has to say that whenever someone purchases an NFT, he owns the Bored Ape itself and the art entirely. This implies to some that even if the NFTs are bought from any thief, it would also transfer the usage rights to the new owner with the NFT. 

The issue that is going on to entangle

Now here comes the technical and screwed-up scenario; Seth Green has a TV show in development called White Horse Tavern. Interestingly, this show would feature the Bored Ape NFT that owned Green but was stolen from him and now are under the ownership of someone else, DarkWing84, as per Green. So if Green does not have those NFTs, it implies that he does not even have its commercial usage rights. However, there is no disclosure about the show’s release date, whose trailer came out on 21st May. 

So, legal experts and community members are discussing whether the rightful authority of NFTs would belong to the new owner or still under the possession of Seth Green. It becomes crucial because if Green has no rights over the NFTs, he can’t use them to showcase in his TV show as it would violate the law.

Experts believe that no matter if the buyer bought the NFTs unwillingly, even from a thief, the property and its intellectual property (IP) rights belong to him. If either Green still uses the NFTs, he might get sued, or if Green argues and challenges this in court, it might get ruled. Still, Green had put some hints on Wednesday that he would go to court to legally get back his BAYC if DarkWing84 did not rerun them. Also, there were no comments made by DarkWing84 on the matter until writing. 

Steve Anderson is an Australian crypto enthusiast. He is a specialist in management and trading for over 5 years. Steve has worked as a crypto trader, he loves learning about decentralisation, understanding the true potential of the blockchain.

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