If it's all about Apes, you've come to the right place [45]
Seth Green got his Ape back and that's
Good afternoon, friends!
I’d like to introduce myself; I’ll be writing these openings while Doctor Bitcoin is preparing for and attending NFT.NYC. I am the Count of Monte Crypto.
I’m sure everyone reading might be watching the NFT markets and crypto with an eye for what’s going on (and that’s included in the news), but that’s not what I’m here to talk about. Instead, I want to speak to a curiosity in the news cycle that happened during the week involving an actor and an ape.
Actor Seth Green has recovered Bored Ape Yacht Club #8398 for approximately $300,000 – and you can read the details of the story in the paid portion of the Ask Doctor Bitcoin newsletter – but what I’d like to talk about is why this is interesting news.
Artwork-related NFTs are normally tokenized receipts showing ownership of an image held on IPFS or another decentralized storage media. In most cases, the NFT is a speculative asset that provides bragging rights of owning the NFT and allows the person to display that they have it and people use it as their profile picture or put it up in a showcase, but not much else.
What I’m getting at here is that most NFTs do not transfer copyright, nor allow people to create derivative artwork with the NFT that they own, those rights remain with the artist. BAYC NFTs, however, are slightly different and provide Ape owners with certain commercial intellectual property licenses.
This is outlined (somewhat pedantically) in the terms on the BAYC website that users can use their owned Apes a “worldwide license to use, copy, and display the purchased Art” and create derivative works.
In Green’s case, he intended to create a TV show that would include his Ape, which he named Fred, who would be the star of White Horse Tavern. The erstwhile “kidnapping” of Fred meant that the show could not go forward because suddenly Green had lost his showrunner and his right to use him in the production. A very weird situation to be in indeed.
It also speaks to a strange new world involving the nature of NFTs and the potential intellectual property attached to them. It also means that perhaps such important property should have been better handled by Green and in the future, he might put make sure that Fred, aka BYAC #8398, remains safely ensconced in a cold-storage hardware wallet.
For further reading on the subject, economist on Medium wrote an in-depth survey of how other people used their Apes for commercial purposes. The results were somewhat revealing about the brave world of NFTs, even with the volatile markets.
As usual, the full story is beneath the fold, subscribe to get the long-form news! See you next week when there’ll be more discussion and analysis. Adieu!
~ The Count of Monte Crypto / @CounteCrypto
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Blockchain Bulletin
Seth Green recovers his stolen BYAC NFT for $300,000. Actor Seth Green has recovered one of his Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs that was stolen from him in May for $300,000 from the individual that pilfered it from him, reported BuzzFeed News.
Celsius Network pauses withdrawals, transfers and swaps amid ‘extreme conditions.’ The crypto lending outfit Celsius Network suddenly paused withdrawals citing “extreme conditions” triggering a market crash across crypto, reported CoinDesk.
Jack Dorsey’s TBD ramps up marketing hype with Web5 Bitcoin-centric project. Block’s subsidiary TBD announced a new Bitcoin-centric project that will use the blockchain to provide a decentralized web application for self-sovereign identity called “Web5,” reported CoinTelegraph.
Blockchain Behind the Scenes
PayPal rolls out the ability to transfer crypto to external wallets. Two years after allowing its users to buy and sell crypto on its platform, PayPal will now permit its users to transfer their currency to and from external wallets in a move that opens up economic freedom.
Yuga Labs seeks to build its own blockchain; community votes to stay on Ethereum. After Yuga Labs launched its Otherside metaverse land sale that nearly brought the Ethereum network to its knees the company has sought to build and scale its own blockchain for ApeCoin, however, its own users voted to stay on Ethereum.
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