Ryder Ripps, a contemporary artist known for his satire, stunts and design work for Millennial brands, has begun minting a set of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) mocking the highly influential Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC).
About 265 tokens have been minted "by hand" by Ripps since Monday, he said. Each coin features a unique Siminan character who has appeared before in the fictional world of the Bored Apes. In other words, Ripps is imitating the apes.
Foundation, an NFT marketplace, had suspended trading in some of the images earlier this week after receiving a Digital Millennium Copyright Act request. According to a letter shared by Ripps, his work had infringed on the intellectual property of the company that manages the Bored Apes brand, Yuga Labs. Although Ripps had intended to fight the DMCA - as he has done previously to defend other artistic plagiarism - the images are now live again, causing controversy in the NFT industry.
"i havent (sic) slept," Ripps said in a private message yesterday around 11:00 UTC.
"Minting
"by hand
"hehe".
Buyers of the so-called "RR/BAYC" tokens, an abbreviation of Ripps' name, see the act as a "performance art piece." Ripps takes Yuga Labs' copyrighted material and puts it in a new context by attaching a different, non-counterfeitable blockchain signature. The images may be the same, but the meaning is different, he said.
NFTs are a type of blockchain-based technology used to attach a tradable asset to another piece of digital data, such as a PDF, GIF or MP3. Proponents believe they can improve the provenance of data and give unlimited reproducible files a kind of unique identity.
NFTs are also increasingly being used for fundraising - sometimes in ways that seem to conflict with current securities laws. The sector, considered a hotbed of innovation and artistic production, also raises questions about copyright and the meaning of owning a digital file.
The Bored Ape Yacht Club allows its token holders to monetize their NFTs and associated characters in what could be called decentralized brand growth. Ape holders have opened themed restaurants, sold Ape merchandise, and expanded the club's history through fan art.
It's unclear why or how Ripps' images were first removed - a process that could have been automated - or reposted on Foundation, which Ripps believes must have been a direct act by Yuga Labs.
"It's a strong signal if they went to the trouble of deleting the request," Ripps said in a phone conversation. A representative for Yuga Labs did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
Ripps has mostly sold his fake monkeys for 0.1 ETH, which is currently worth about $200. A Twitter user named @VardCrypto received an RR/BAYC token after telling Ripps he liked the prank but couldn't afford the price.
"Conceptual art is not something you see in the NFT space every day," Vard told CoinDesk. "I like the fact that [Ripps] uses the base URI [Uniform Resource Identifier, used to address online data] to prove that you can't copy an NFT."
This is not the first time Ripps has made artistic comments about NFTs or criticized successful "profile pic" projects. Also known as PFPs, these projects refer to an NFT sector featuring mostly cartoonish animal characters such as lazy lions, chubby penguins and MiLadies that buyers use as online avatars.
Last July, Ripps "scored" CryptoPunks, an early NFT art series with highly valuable collectibles, by copying a punk file, minting his own token and using it as his profile picture on social media platforms like Twitter. Ripps' version of Punk 3100 was identical to the CryptoPunk NFT first minted by Larva Labs in 2017, except for the token attached to it.
"By connecting their so-called art to the Ethereum network, they should believe in the self-governing ideals of cryptocurrency. I question Larva Labs' motives, their understanding of art, their understanding of 'punk' and their understanding of cryptocurrency/NFT," Ripps told CoinDesk at the time.
In the past year, Ripps has also sought to draw attention to alleged racist tropes at the Bored Ape Yacht Club. He runs a website called Gordon Goner, which refers to one of the onetime pseudonymous founders of Yuga Labs, and details what he calls "dog whistles" and "Nazi symbolism" in the series.
"If you've been on 4chan, this is just classic trolling," Ripps said, referring to some of the more obscure references or "inside jokes" he found. "It's surprising how far they took it".
Yuga Labs has denied Ripps' allegations, and other outside observers have called some of his claims superficial, specious or coincidental.
"I bought [an RR/BAYC] because I've followed his work for years, and while he's known for his design, his satire is my favorite and his most accurate. I would never consider buying Yuga Labs," an NFT collector claiming to be krystall.eth told CoinDesk.
Although others are participating in a boycott, the bored brand is growing. Celebrities such as Justin Beiber, Jimmy Fallon and Snoop Dogg have joined the "yacht club." A recent sale of virtual land associated with the BAYC "metaverse" topped $285 million and contributed to a spike in Ethereum transaction fees (which rise according to demand), with the network experiencing its fourth-highest trading week coinciding with the sale. Yuga Labs recently closed a $450 million funding round led by leading venture firm Andreessen Horowitz.
A film series is planned, an APE token and blockchain "business development teams" are courting Yuga away from Ethereum.
Ripps' current BAYC project was launched after a dispute with prominent NFT influencer j1mmy.eth. Ripps coined a version of j1mmy's Bored Ape profile picture to push back against the claim that owning a token gives someone a unique claim to an image.
"If an Ape attacks you for rocking his PFP, he might say, 'It doesn't matter, it's not the same NFT!' to which you should say, 'Exactly, you can't copy an NFT, so it's an original work with new context/meaning,' just like the Phunks," Ripps said.
While Ripps' early experiment with fake CryptoPunks was allowed to continue to be traded on OpenSea after a failed copyright lawsuit by Larva Labs, some legal experts believe the funny prankster could run into legal trouble this time around.
"The BAYC images are a different story. There's no question that they are copyrighted and RR's use prima facie violates copyright law," Brian Frye, a lawyer and concept artist known for his own statements on plagiarism, told CoinDesk.
"The problem is that he's selling NFTs associated with the images in the 'same' market as [Yuga Labs]," he said.
Ripps said what he was doing fell under the "fair use" of images, a legal exception to copyright intended for educational purposes - like a news organization using a Bored Ape image in a story to show what they look like, Frye said.
"However, using a BAYC image to illustrate an NFT that is available for purchase is the same thing the copyright holder is doing to monetize the work, so it's unlikely the courts will see that as fair use," he said.
Ripps has argued that creating and selling NFTs is itself an artistic act and that a broader understanding of fair use would apply in light of his work. Frye also doubted that Yuga would press charges because it could "draw attention to Ripps' racist criticisms or make them look like tools.
On Twitter, Ripps' project has shown mixed results. An Egirl Capital partner, @DegenSpartan, asked, "What's going on with [the] foundation?" referring to it as "free for all" and commenting on the recent uproar.
Although Ripps has a First Amendment right to criticize and comment on an influential project, his work could be said to diminish the Bored Ape brand and potentially cause confusion in the NFT markets, though in the eyes of the law, that doesn't matter.
"Copyright law doesn't care about consumers. In fact, the point of copyright law is to get consumers to pay more so that copyright holders can profit," Frye said.