Seth Green pays $ 300,000 to recover his stolen Bored Ape Ethereum NFT

by James · July 6, 2022

Actor Seth Green has been reunited with Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT he lost in a phishing attack last month, according to a BuzzFeed News report. Green allegedly paid 165 Ether (more than $ 295,000 at current prices) for NFT, after it was resold to a collector.

A total of four of Green’s NFTs worth more than $ 300,000 was stolen last month, including Bored Ape NFT # 8398, which not only cost him around $ 200,000 to buy, but was also meant to be the star of Green’s upcoming TV show “White Horse Tavern.”

On Thursday, during a performance of one Twitter Spaces chat, Green confirmed that NFT “is home.” Transaction records indicate that the funds were sent from a wallet controlled by Green to an NFT collector known as “Mr. Cheese” and “DarkWing84,” through the crypto deposit platform NFT Trader. The collector claimed to have purchased the NFT “in good faith” after Green was scammed while trying to create an NFT on a fake website; in late May, Green threatened legal action against DarkWing84, before confirms that he had contacted the collector.

Currently, the NFT marketplace OpenSea has left a flag reporting Bored Ape # 8398 for “suspicious activity” active, meaning that the NFT is frozen and cannot be bought or sold on the marketplace; therefore, Green approached NFT Trader to complete the transaction with DarkWing84.

Bored Ape NFT and IP

Although it is not immediately clear what convinced DarkWing84 to return NFT to its original owner – money aside – the events surrounding the story raised intellectual property rights (IP) issues raised by NFT ownership.

The license rules applicable to the Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT series state that while Yuga Labs, the creators of the collection, own the copyright to the mark, the company grants the owner of the individual NFTs a broad license to use the image they own, including an unlimited, worldwide license to use, copy and display the purchased art. Owners of the NFTs have already used these licensing rights to create Bored Ape branded content and businesses, ranging from restaurants to bands.

However, these rules do not take into account NFTs that were stolen and later resold, leading to speculation that Green would no longer be able to continue with his planned TV show.

The actor himself was confident that since his NFT would be considered stolen art, the person who purchased it would not be “legally entitled to exploit the underlying IP.”