Two identical imitations of the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) collection emerged yesterday, with their developers mirroring the original BAYC versions. A report unveiled this news on December 30, noting that the collections are titled PHAYC and Phunky Ape Yacht Club (PAYC). Reportedly, leading non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace OpenSea has already banned these parodies.
According to the report, OpenSea banned both projects because they flouted its copyright infringement rules. Allegedly, Yuga Labs, the developer of the BAYC collection, owns the copyright on its ape images. However, the NFT space has little legal presence, which means focusing on copyright implications is more complicated.
Additionally, even if Yuga Labs were to file a formal legal complaint, both projects could easily defend their work as transformative fair use. Building on this confidence, the projects have moved on to compete over which fake version of BAYC is real on other marketplaces. An example is Rarible, which banned PAYC but continues to list PHAYC.
PAYC detailed that Yuga Labs has not reached out, let alone issue legal threats. However, the project pointed out that some people were trolling it on Discord. Additionally, PAYC bashed OpenSea and Rarible for delisting it. According to the project, such moves ultimately undermine the decentralized nature of web3.
Fake NFT art continues proving a problem for the industry
Claiming it is the original parody, PAYC tweeted,
I have just been informed that there is a copy cat #PHAYC that launched after us. Anybody else hear of this blasphemy?
Notably, the project launched before PHAYC, seeing as it went live as a free mint for the first 8,500 collectors on December 29. The project then got 60 ETH (approximately $223,080) for the remaining 1,496 pieces.
On the other hand, PHAYC launched a few hours after PAYC and secured 500 ETH (around $1,859,000) without offering any free mints.
Commenting on this contention, a Twitter user going by @rootslashbin said,
I think the project is a satirical take on the current state of NFTs and members of the NFT community who might be taking the NFT market a little too seriously.
@rootslashbin’s sentiments are similar to those of experts who believe people should get into NFTs because they like the art or the community associated with the token. With many people joining the space to make profits, experts warn that there is a risk of gaining everything or losing everything.
