Hermès wins case against NFT artist

by James · February 9, 2023

A federal jury in Manhattan has ruled in favor of French fashion house Hermès in its case against an artist who used images of the company’s Birkin bags to create NFT artwork. It was ruled that Mason Rothschild’s non-fungible token versions of the fashion house’s famous Birkin bags infringed its trademark rights.

This is one of the first times that trademark issues have been tried in court in relation to NFTs. The digital symbols, which can be bought and sold even if the artwork they represent only exists in digital form, are seen as an exciting new outlet for creativity, but it now looks like artists need to be more careful about intellectual property issues. raise.

The jury in this case found that artist Mason Rothschild’s unauthorized “MetaBirkins” were likely to confuse consumers, and awarded Hermès $133,000 in damages for trademark infringement, dilution and cybersquatting in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York.

Birkins

Hermès’ prized leather Birkin handbags typically sell for tens of thousands of dollars, and the company has sold more than $1 billion worth of Birkins in the United States alone, including more than $100 million worth in the past ten years, according to court filings. But Mason Rothschild’s attorney Rhett Millsaps called the result a “terrible day for artists and the First Amendment.” Rothschild, whose real name is Sonny Estival, created 100 ‘MetaBirkins’, depicting the bags covered in colorful furs, in what he said was “an absurdist statement about luxury goods”, and covered by First Amendment protections for art. He cited Andy Warhol’s famous soup cans and Coke cans, to which the informed observer might comment “You’re no Andy Warhol”.

In the lawsuit, Hermès called Rothschild a “digital speculator” and the NFTs a “get-rich-quick” scheme, claiming that Rothschild began offering the NFTs at the Art Basel art fair in Miami in December 2021, and that early next month over $1. m value of them had been traded. This, the luxury house claimed, disrupted its own plans for NFTs.

Rothschild responded by calling Hermès “a multi-billion dollar luxury fashion house that says it ‘cares’ about art and artists, but feels it has the right to choose what art IS and who IS an artist”.

“This is far from over,” he added.

The case is Hermes International v. Rothschild, US District Court for the Southern District of New York, No. 1:22-cv-00384.