So I really wanted to share this case with you Hermes sued Meta Perkins for their NFT Digital Collection have you seen it ? what do you think? is it trademark infringement? Should Hermes win shoulder mares lose because they are trademark infringing?
This case is really new it’s really reason I really wanted to jump on here and talk about it for one reason alone and that is that NFTs are relatively new and we haven’t had much case law there hasn’t been that many cases involving NFTs.
This case was especially unique because this collection of meta Birkins was found to be infringing on Hermes’s trademarks so if you know what the Hermes Handbag looks like you know that it has a very signature classic look these bags are extremely expensive they can be valued anywhere from five thousand dollars and up there are collectors that look for Hermes bags Ben to German’s bags and Hermes bags are not really going anywhere anytime soon.
Now I do think that the biggest purchasers of Hermes bags tend to be celebrities but hey your neighbor might have one and I’ve seen lots of knockoffs of these Hermes bags but in this case somebody created a whole lot of tea collection around what they thought was their own creative expression well their own creative expression turned out to be too similar to Hermes bags and so Hermes suit them.
If you haven’t watched my other videos on trademark infringement then make sure you catch it right there, that video right there provides a great understanding of trademark infringement how you can trademark infringe on somebody’s products and sometimes you don’t even know it but in this situation the artist said that this was purely creative expression he came up with the ideas on his own so what happens typically when there’s trademark infringement if you’ve watched some of my other videos or read my posts then you probably know that infringing products that are imported from outside of the United States will more than likely be held by Customs and Border Protection and then you will more than likely receive a letter a law firm informing you that you have been importing infringing products and you have committed trademark infringement.
So what is the case with NFTs? How do we handle NFTs? it isn’t really something that we can say okay we’re no longer going to sell it if you know a little bit about how blockchain Works, Once that digital art is created it can’t really be deleted it’s not really going anywhere so it’s not like a file even on your computer that you can just delete so the decision in this case was actually very polarizing with lots of artists saying that this creates a huge setback for them and people on the other side of the aisle saying that no way if you want to be protected make sure you don’t copy somebody else’s existing work.
In this case, don’t go and copy their MS brand and then write Birkin on your digital art and say that it is yours and so knowing what I know about trademark law and I’ve been doing this for quite a few years I can tell you that this does seem like trademark infringement especially because they did write the word Birkin on the NFTs collection and you already know that a Birkin bag exists and it belongs to Hermes then why would you go and do that something that I really discuss in detail in this trademark infringement video right here which would be really great for you to watch if you want to understand more about trademark infringement so the message to drive home to you as an artist is to make sure that your work truly is original if you’re an NFTs Creator don’t go and borrow somebody else’s trademark thinking that you can call it your own because as this case shows us you might likely find yourself in the same shoes paying damages for trademark infringement by using somebody else’s trademarks but what is an NFT?
An NFT is a non-fungible token NFTs can be found on a blockchain and each token represents a unique asset like a piece of art digital content or media each NFT contains a unique identification code and metadata that distinguishes it from other tokens this means that one NFT cannot be exchanged for another NFT and considered equivalent NFTs have made their way into areas like photography, Sports and art even me music so for example if you’re a photographer you would be able to create an NFT collection around your photography meaning that each photograph would be assigned unique metadata and each piece would be unique and available for sale so if someone wanted to buy artwork from you for example whether it’s a photograph or a painting in an NFT format they would have to have cryptocurrency and then purchase an NFT from an online NFT Marketplace like Opensea, Rarible or super rare now all of this might sound like a mouthful for somebody who is new to NFTs but you can think of an NFT as proof of ownership over a digital asset so if this video was helpful make sure you give me a thumbs up down below and tell me in the comments below what you think was this a case of trademark infringement or not are you an NFT Creator do you have second thoughts about using somebody else’s trademark work in your art.
Thank you