Yuga Labs files suit against creator of ‘fake’ BAYC tokens

The creators of the NFT collection Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) filed a lawsuit against artist Ryder Ripps. Yuga Labs accuses him of issuing and selling “fake” tokens that devalue the original works.

(2/2) … us and the BAYC community, we have filed a lawsuit against the responsible parties. We will continue exploring and pursuing all legal options at our disposal.

— Yuga Labs (@yugalabs) June 25, 2022

“To put an end to ongoing violations and other unlawful attempts to harm us and the BAYC community, we have filed suit against the responsible parties. We will continue to explore and use all the legal options at our disposal,” the company said.

The Twitter account The Bored Ape Gazette published the full version of the document. According to the lawsuit, in an attempt to “devalue” the NFT collection Ripps flooded the market with imitation tokens, using the original Bored Ape Yacht Club images and labeling them RR/BAYC.

FULL DOCUMENT » @yugalabs Announced That It Filed A Lawsuit Today.

Here’s The full 43 Page Suit: pic.twitter.com/ZtSrY0zlhh

— The Bored Ape Gazette🍌 (@BoredApeGazette) June 25, 2022

Yuga Labs seeks a ruling that would prohibit Ripps and his partners from further interfering with its prospective economic relations. The company also seeks damages and legal costs.

In January 2022, Ripps published an article, in which he called the BAYC collection “racist” and accused its creators of using Nazi symbolism. For example, he noted that the logo of the line resembles the Death’s Head emblem.

In June, shared a similar view by YouTuber Philion. According to him, Yuga Labs’ NFTs contain racist caricatures of Black people and Asians, and the symbolism and language of the collection resemble what the Nazis used.

On June 24, the founders of Yuga Labs responded to Ripps’ and Philion’s accusations. In the published statement, the team called these claims baseless.

“We have become the subject of a surreal misinformation campaign, accusing us — a group of Jewish, Turkish, Pakistani and Cuban friends — of being super-secret Nazis. […] Trolls continue to spread ridiculous conspiracy theories online and use this to sell counterfeit NFTs,” the developers wrote.

Earlier, Eminem and Snoop Dogg released a clip in collaboration with the BAYC collection. In the From The D 2 The LBC video, the artists appeared as animated apes.

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