> A pair of non-fungible token projects are testing the boundary between plagiarism and parody. Digital marketplace OpenSea has banned the PHAYC and Phunky Ape Yacht Club (or PAYC) collections, both of which are based on the same gimmick: selling NFTs with mirrored but otherwise identical versions of high-priced Bored Ape Yacht Club avatars. Now the dueling projects are selling their apes while dodging bans from other marketplaces, becoming the latest example of how the NFT world handles copied art.
The only thing that determines the real Bored Ape Yacht Club is an off-chain belief that it's the legitimate one.
Hell, they can't even agree on which one is the real fake.
> Somewhat ironically, PAYC and PHAYC have since fought on Twitter over which one is the authentic Bored Ape Yacht Club ripoff, with PAYC’s founder referring to PHAYC as a “cash grab fraud project.” PHAYC charged people to mint its apes, and CoinDesk reports that it took in around 500 ETH (or around $1.8 million) in sales. By contrast, it says PAYC earned around 60 ETH (or roughly $225,000) from its paid sales.
That's an interesting example, but I consider it semantic only. Your example raises the question of authenticity rather than ownership. It it clear as day which wallet the NFT is connected to. The original NFT and the imitating NFT has different places in the blockchain memory. Regarding authenticity, timestamps are visible since the whole blockchain can be audited and see who got there first on all sorts of metrics
Copyright is a matter of “who created it”, not “who slapped it on a blockchain first”. If I send you my new artwork and you put it up on OpenSea before I do, you still aren’t the owner, regardless of the timestamp.
Ownership, no. That's a legal concept.
https://www.theverge.com/2021/12/30/22860010/bored-ape-yacht...
> A pair of non-fungible token projects are testing the boundary between plagiarism and parody. Digital marketplace OpenSea has banned the PHAYC and Phunky Ape Yacht Club (or PAYC) collections, both of which are based on the same gimmick: selling NFTs with mirrored but otherwise identical versions of high-priced Bored Ape Yacht Club avatars. Now the dueling projects are selling their apes while dodging bans from other marketplaces, becoming the latest example of how the NFT world handles copied art.
The only thing that determines the real Bored Ape Yacht Club is an off-chain belief that it's the legitimate one.
Hell, they can't even agree on which one is the real fake.
> Somewhat ironically, PAYC and PHAYC have since fought on Twitter over which one is the authentic Bored Ape Yacht Club ripoff, with PAYC’s founder referring to PHAYC as a “cash grab fraud project.” PHAYC charged people to mint its apes, and CoinDesk reports that it took in around 500 ETH (or around $1.8 million) in sales. By contrast, it says PAYC earned around 60 ETH (or roughly $225,000) from its paid sales.