This paper provides a summary overview of the most important completed lawsuits and pending legal cases involving non-fungible tokens (NFTs) over the past few years. The author's focus is on the copyright and other infringement cases that have arisen in the world of NFTs. It is not the author's purpose to classify the judgments presented, nor to draw any conclusions, whether legal or sociopolitical, from them or to provide a comparative analysis of them, within the limits of the scope of this paper.
The legal cases will be discussed, prior to an examination of the main theoretical and evolutionary milestones of copyright law in the Anglo-Saxon and continental legal systems. This is followed by a discussion of the evolving copyright aspects of NFTs in the EU, the USA and Hungary. The aim of the study is to provide a brief overview and listing of NFT-related law cases and the corresponding theoretical background, and to serve as a reference for legal practitioners in the event of NFT-related issues and lawsuits that may occur in practice.
The aim of this paper is not to provide a complete overview of the historical development of copyright law, therefore in this part, I will limit myself to indicating the main points of the evolution of copyright law. Intellectual property law, as we understand it today, emerged in the late 15th and early 16th centuries.[1] Even before that date in human history, however, neither society nor the legal system[2] was at a stage of development capable of protecting individual works.[3] As a consequence, there was a lack of adequate protection of copyright in the field of intellectual works. The general inconsistent situation in the field of copyright protection was broken by the rise and spread of the book printing industry,[4] which was followed by the emergence of copyright and publishing enforcement groups.[5] Then, under the influence of natural law thinking, the theoretical foundations of copyright protection - by analogy with the legal aspects of property law - were laid down in the 18th century.[6] Subsequently, the era of copyright and patent law began, followed by the
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codification of intellectual property law in Europe and the United States of America.[7]
After the consolidation of copyright, the problem of territoriality became a new challenge. Because of the territoriality of copyright law, it was only applicable in the country of origin, so that cross-border infringements could not be handled.[8] States initially tried to solve this problem by concluding bilateral treaties, but the final solution was the conclusion of international multilateral treaties. The Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property[9] (PUE), established in 1883 to guarantee the protection of industrial property[10] in all its aspects, was one of the most important of these. On the other hand, the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works of 1886[11] (BUE), a multilateral treaty that broke with the territoriality of copyright by establishing the principle of national treatment,[12] is also relevant. On the basis of the principle of national treatment, the contracting states grant each other's nationals the same legal status on their own territory as their own.[13] It is worth mentioning here that the BUE has established a system based on three important principles: 1) national treatment, 2) informality and 3) independence of protection.[14]
The conventions have been revised several times to date, ensuring that their texts are kept up to date.[15] It should be noted that, in order to ensure effective and adequate protection of commercial intellectual property rights, there are still differences between national legal systems and the establishment of minimum standards to combat counterfeiting, as well as other conventions and agreements which aim to ensure the protection of trade mark rights, which are essentially territorial in nature,[16] and which have an international dimension.[17] Then, in 1948, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), adopted by the United Nations (UN), established copyright as a fundamental human right,[18] thus ensuring the highest level of recognition of copyright and at the same time establishing the requirement for all states in the world to respect copyright universally.[19]
Nowadays, copyright regulation is characterized by complexity, both at national and international level.[20] Therefore, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO),[21] as a specialized agency of the United Nations, in cooperation with the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), ensures the proper functioning and coordination of conventions in the international arena.
In this part, the differences in the theoretical approach of copyright and droit d'auteur (author's rights) from the modern legal systems of two large families of law, common law and continental law,[22] which may also be relevant for the copyright aspects of the NFT, will be briefly discussed. Before this, however, the paper will be extend-
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ed with an exemplary indication of the first copyright laws in the United States of America, England and France.
In the common law system of the United States of America (USA), legislation is made at the federal and state level in parallel, with a separate state and federal court system.[23] Within this two-tier regulatory system, copyright laws have also appeared at different times. However, in the period before the creation of the specific legislation, copyright law was already in a dynamic phase of development, which guided later legislation.[24]
Prior to the federal level, the first state law appeared in the state of Connecticut in 1783, under the title "An Act for the Encouragement of Literature and Genius". The relevance of this legislation was basically that it provided authors with the means of receiving income from the sale of their works by copyright, thus increasing the economic interest of authors, which ultimately encouraged them to be active in publishing.[25] At the same time, the hidden aim was to make the author's work available to the "consuming public" and to enrich the intellectual level of the country.[26] In other words, the aim is to encourage the creation of works and to make them easily accessible to society. It is worth noting here that the legislation also established, for example, the principle of reasonable pricing to promote accessibility for the general public.[27] In the following period, several copyright laws were passed in states such as Massachusetts (1783), Maryland (1783), New Jersey (1783), New Hampshire (1783), Rhode Island (1783), Pennsylvania (1784), South Carolina (1784) , Virginia (1785), North Carolina (1785) , Georgia (1786) and New York (1786) , following the example of Connecticut.[28]
At the federal level, the first copyright law was enacted in 1790 under the title "An Act for the encouragement of learning, by securing the copies of maps, charts, and books, to the authors and proprietors of such copies, during the times therein mentioned". The act filled a gap in federal copyright law. The relevance of the law was that it provided authors with a term of protection of 14 years, which could be extended for another 14 years.[29] However, copyright protection did not automatically arise when the original work was created, but was dependent on the author registering the original work in the local court[30] of the author's place of residence, together with payment of a nominal fee.[31] It is also interesting to note that the scope of copyright protection was at first limited to books, maps and other cartographic works, and then, evolved over time, broadening the scope and duration of protection.[32]
The US copyright laws identified above were, in effect, modelled on the first copyright law in Europe, the Statue of Anne, which came into force in 1710 in the common law system of England.[33] The significance of the Statute of Anne is that it essentially created an alienable copyright which protected authors and publishers as heirs.[34] Sub-
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sequently, France, which was integrated into continental law, can be cited as a legal history example. As regards French copyright law, a distinction can be made between the pre-revolutionary and revolutionary periods. The main difference is that, before the Revolution, copyright law was mainly governed by the various royal privileges, which favoured publishers to the disadvantage of authors, sometimes creating a monopolistic situation,[35] whereas in the revolutionary period, privileges were abolished and a specific legal regime began to take shape.[36] Hence, the first strict copyright laws can be considered to be the laws of 1791[37] and 1793.[38] The Decree of 13-19 January 1791, which acknowledgedthe right of performance was essentially concerned with dramatic works and, among other things, recognised the personal rights of authors[39] and granted the author the right to perform dramatic works in public.[40] The right of public performance of a work was, as a general rule, forbidden to third parties during the life of the author and for five years after the author's death, except with the written consent of the author or the author's heirs.[41] The novelty of the Decree of 19-24 July 1793 was that it extended the scope of the author's right to include all authors, including for example writers. It also extended the term of protection from five years to ten years.[42] While it is true that the role of moral rights has increased in the legislation, the dominant role has remained that of the economic rights of the author,[43] leaving the task of confirming moral rights to the courts.[44]
With regard to the families of law described above, apart from the difference in the date of origin of the initial copyright laws, there is a further copyright dichotomy in the relationship between common law and the continental family of law, which is mainly due to the different theoretical approach. The two regimes have in common that both moral and economic rights are involved, but in the continental regime the author's right is focused on the moral rights of the author, whereas in the common-law regime copyright is focused on the economic rights of the author.[45]
In the Anglo-Saxon common-law system, copyright is basically economic in its approach, so in addition to providing copyright protection, this concept is mainly concerned with the distribution of the original work, focusing on its commercialisation, whereas the continental author's right approach aims to give the author as much power and control over the original work as possible.[46]
There is also a further difference in the principles that underlie the distribution of the original work to the public. For example, in the copyright approach, the public is privileged over the author and the aim is to ensure the widest possible use of the original work, with the inevitable side effect of providing the author with an income from the sale of the original work. In the author's right approach, on the
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other hand, the relationship between the author and his work is emphasised, the author still receives revenue from the sale of the work, but the role of the public is marginalized.[47]
There is also a difference in the approach to copyright protection, since in the common-law system, copyright basically provides protection against copying the whole or a substantial part of an original work, or the adoption of essential elements of the original work, whereas in the continental system, protection is aimed at preventing - subject to statutory exceptions - unauthorised uses without the author's consent.[48]
Further difference can be detected in the limits of copyright, namely the exceptions relating to certain forms of use. In the continental system, copyright law generally provides an exhaustive list of cases of free use (e.g. quotation, adoption, private copying, etc.),[49] whereas the common law system is known as fair use,[50] which allows for the use of copyrighted material without a prior authorisation in certain cases,[51] and in the case of a conflict of interest, it allows for the examination of the contested uses in the individual case by the fair use test.[52]
On the basis of the theoretical differences between the two legal families, as described above, we can formulate the fundamental difference between the two systems in a nutshell as follows: the author's right (droit d'auteur) favours the author while copyright favours the right of utilization linked to the work itself.[53]
The above outlined differences in the theoretical approach to copyright are, in my view, not unreasonably brief in the case of 21st century technological solutions such as NFT. On the one hand, the differences in the theoretical basis behind the concepts are timeless. On the other hand, the relationship between copyright and author's right is repeatedly under analysis in the contemporary literature, in the sense that copyright is a part of the broader concept of author's right.[54]
In my opinion, the emergence of BTC blockchain technology is relevant, because it marked the birth of the first generation of blockchain technology. Then the second generation of block-chain technology, in the form of Ethereum (ETH), appeared in 2014.[55] One of the major advantages of this 2nd generation technology was that it allowed users to create different applications (dApps), programs on a global distributed system.[56]
There is no doubt that Ethereum has opened new doors for the crypto sector. The next milestone was the creation of the so-called ERC-20 technical standard for smart contracts in 2015.[57] Tokens issued on the Ethereum blockchain are based on the ERC-20 technical standard. The ERC-20 technical standard plays an unquestionable role in the tokenisation process and in building and consolidating the token economy[58] and dApps.[59] Its importance was first demonstrated in 2017 during the golden age of token-based com-
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munity financing, also known as initial coin offerings (ICOs).[60]
Another characteristic feature of the ERC-20 technical standard is, that it's a so called fungible token. The fungibility is not only present in the crypto sector[61] but also in the traditional financial sector.[62] For example, our domestic currency, the Hungarian Forint (HUF), is also a fungible fiat currency, because for a banknote with a denomination of HUF 5,000 we can get a banknote with the same denomination, or a banknote with several smaller denominations, for example 10 banknotes with a denomination of HUF 500. Consequently, neither the Hungarian domestic currency nor any other fiat money is unique in the way the ERC-20 based tokens are. There is no problem with this as long as tokens are used for transactions and other services in the crypto ecosystem.
Over time, however, there was a market demand for tokens containing unique data. As a result, the so-called ERC-721 technical standard was appeared in 2018, which allowed the creation of non-fungible tokens (NFT).[63] I think, that the emergence of the ERC-721 technical standard marked the beginning of the 'crypto renaissance'. This era is characterised by the trading of various crypto collectibles on NFT marketplaces and the spread of NFT objects in the metaverse. This is where the trading of different crypto collectibles on NFT marketplaces and the spread of NFT objects in the metaverse is typical.
In this paper, I will focus on the functioning of NFTs and NFT marketplaces, the copyright aspects of NFTs, and the legal aspects of NFTs as new alternative investment crypto-assets, without discussing the technical standards. Regarding the technical standards, I would like to note that although ERC-721 based NFTs have conquered the crypto sector, at the same time market needs have required further technical development. The common feature of the enhanced technical standards is that they always offer some additional functionality that can combine the features of both ERC-721 and the traditional ERC-20 technical standards. An example of a practical manifestation of this evolution is the Enjin Marketplace, or the team behind Enjin, which developed the ERC-1155 technical standard.[64] The ERC-1155 enables the bulk transmission of multiple fungible tokens and non-fungible tokens (NFT) faster than ERC-721.[65]
Despite the fact that historically the first NFT called "Quantum" was created in 2014[66] by digital artist Kevin McCoy and tech entrepreneur Anil Dash,[67] the NFT sector is still in a grey area, in other words at the crossroads of self-regulation and non-regulation. Hence, there is no universal legal definition of non-fungible tokens at present. Due to the lack of an ex lege definition of NFTs, I will operate in the following with a definition developed by my own experience in the NFT market. In my approach, the non-fungible token (NFT) is a unique set of data that is recorded on the blockchain network, so the NFT
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as a digital asset can represent either physical or digital objects or artworks.[68] In addition, we can make a distinction between on-chain and off-chain NFTs depending on the location of the data. In the case of on-chain NFTs, all data, such as metadata and the image, video or other media file that visually represents the NFT, are located on the blockchain. In contrast, in off-chain NFTs, all or part of the data is not located on the blockchain, but for example on a centralized (web) storage or on a decentralized server such as IPFS (Inter Planetary File System). In practice, in off-chain NFTs, metadata is typically hyperlinked to the file that visually displays the NFT, which is stored on external storage.[69]
With the market capitalisation of the non fungible tokens exceeding US$16 billion in 2021,[70] it is understandable that legislative interest has been awakened. Therefore, this section briefly reviews ongoing efforts in the EU and the US, focusing on the copyright implications of NFTs. Finally, the main provisions of the applicable Hungarian copyright legislation regarding the use of the original work, which is relevant to NFTs, will be presented. However, the national regulations have been included without the aim of being exhaustive, but in order to raise some ideas on the copyright aspects of NFTs.
In the EU, there is currently no specific legislation governing[71] the copyright status of NFTs. For this reason, in the following, I briefly outline the findings of a study commissioned by the European Parliament's Policy Department for Citizens' Rights and Constitutional Affairs, at the request of the JURI Committee, on the copyright aspects of NFTs and related legal challenges. The study is divided into three major chapters, the first two of which provide a general conceptual and terminological clarification, while the third deals with the current copyright aspects of NFTs.
The authors, within the general conceptual framework, make a functional distinction between off-chain and on-chain NFTs, and also a differentiation between NFTs according to their application in the art sector, whether the NFT represents exclusively digital content, or whether it represents an existing offline (traditional) work digitally, or whether the NFT constitutes a right in relation to a traditional work.[72]
The authors focused on the copyright aspects of NFTs, mainly copyright infringements against the NFT as an original work of art to the disadvantage of the creator. In this approach, the original nature of the NFT is presumed, since copyright protection is conferred on the basis of the original individual character of the work resulting from the intellectual activity of the author. This protection does not depend on any quantitative, qualitative, aesthetic characteristics or value judgments con-
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cerning the quality of the work, but the authors point out that in the case of NFT works produced by an algorithm (generative art), the originality and individual character of the work must be tested.[73]
According to the authors' interpretation, copyright infringements may occur in different ways according to the life cycle of NFTs ("minting-first transaction"), and further abuses may arise when NFTs are traded in the secondary market. The authors identify three life-cycle phases of NFTs, such as minting, the first transaction and the exercise of the rights acquired by the purchase of an NFT.[74] In the first stage, which covers the process of creating the NFT, the authors identify the occurrence of an infringement in a different way between off-chain and on-chain NFTs, due to the different location of the data represented by the NFT. In the case of off-chain NFT creation, copyright infringement occurs when the data displayed by an NFT is placed on a repository by a third party who is not the rightful owner of the original work or does not have permission from the author. In the case of on-chain NFT creation, the lack of consent from the author also results in an infringement situation, regardless of whether the content displayed by the NFT is then stored on the blockchain.[75]
The second stage involves the first sale of the NFT on the secondary market, where the right of reproduction and of communication to the public of the NFT may be infringed if the author's permission is not available and the NFT displays only digital content. If in the secondary market the content displayed by the NFT, for instance as an image, is only a visual representation of an underlying traditional work, it should then be examined,[76] whether the Member State in which the concerned NFT is located has implemented an exception allowing for the use for the purpose of advertising the publie exhibition or sale of artistic works, to the extent necessary to promote the event, excluding any other commercial use.[77]
In the third stage, regarding the exercise of the rights acquired by the purchase of the NFT, the authors state that the purchaser of the NFT will not become a copyright holder, but will merely be placed in a position of uncertain quasi-ownership, entitling the purchaser to keep the NFT in its wallet and to sell it. For further types of use, the purchaser of the NFT becomes entitled if it is laid down in the licence agreement with the author or in the NFT Marketplace's terms of use or in the content of the smart contract or in the individual NFT project's licence and other related legal documentation..[78]
In addition to this secondary market, in other words the NFT marketplace, authors also identify other copyright dissonances, such as the existence and the amount of the droit de suite (royalty) that the creator is entitled to in the context of the resale of NFTs. Lastly, the study also identifies as a copyright infringement the reproduction of an existing NFT work, with minor modifications, and its publication for sale on the NFT marketplace, which may, for example, lead to trademark infringement.[79]
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However, the authors note that the obligation to prevent such infringements in the digital single market[80] is imposed on online content sharing service providers by the Copyright and Related Rights Directive.[81] Thus, where NFT marketplaces are considered to be online content-sharing providers, this obligation falls on the NFT marketplaces to comply with it by building and applying self-regulatory security mechanisms.[82] Last but not least, the authors identify the InfoSec[83], Rights[84] and Digital Copyright[85] Directives as guiding legislation for the copyright aspects of NFTs. At the same time, they point out that copyright laws in the EU are not fully harmonised[86] across nations, which can lead to conflicts of interpretation.[87]
Currently there is no specific copyright legislation for NFTs in the United States (USA), but the United States Copyright Office published a summary[88] of its basic rules, which is useful for any NFT investors and enthusiasts.[89] In general NFTs can be linked to a variety of different assets and represent numerous rights and obligations, that is the reason why certain types of NFTs may fall under existing federal and state securities regulations,[90] and in this approach, an NFT may be classified as securities[91] or commodities,[92] but examining this is not part of this study.
In the United States, copyright is also relevant mainly in the context of transactions involving NFTs, since these transactions involve up to three parties 1) the author of the original work, 2) the issuer (seller) of the NFT and 3) the buyer of the NFT purchased.[93] In general, the rights associated with NFTs are determined either by the author or the issuer (seller) of the NFT. For the NFTs available on the market, the author owns the intellectual property rights to the asset and can decide what rights to grant to the buyer of the NFT. However, the NFT may be created and offered for sale by someone other than the original author. In this case, the buyer's right to use the NFT after the acquisition differs as follows. If the issuer of an NFT is the author of the original work, the issuer owns all rights to the NFT and any of these rights may be transferred to the buyer. If the issuer acquires the NFT from the author of the original work, the issuer obtains only those rights that the author has licensed and may transfer only those limited rights to the buyer.[94]
Indeed, in practice, it is often difficult to identify the boundaries between the different identified legal positions, which leads to legal uncertainty. And in the case of copyright infringement, authors and artist is currently limited to submit a Digital Millennium Copyright Act takedown request to NFT platforms in order to enforce copyright violations.[95] Meaning that NFT owners must constantly monitor countless websites to identify unauthorized productions of their works,[96] which represents a disproportional burden on them.[97] Among other things, to prevent the previously mentioned infringements and to understand how NFTs
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fit into the world of intellectual property rights, in 2022 two senators sent a letter to the Directors of the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and US Copyright Office requested that the agencies jointly undertake a study of intellectual property (IP) rights considerations with respect to non-fungible tokens.[98] The arrival of the statement could be relevant for copyright aspects of NFTs on a global basis.
Intellectual property law, in general terms, covers the legal institutions that form the body of law governing the creation and use of original work.[99] Intellectual property can be divided into two main areas: industrial property and copyright. Industrial property provides legal protection for intellectual works of a technical nature and for signs (trade marks) used to distinguish goods and services. Copyright, on the other hand, protects literary, scientific and artistic works and the performances associated with their use. Intellectual property itself is a legal relationship with an absolute structure,[100] similar to property rights, whose system of rules under civil law protects the creator of the intellectual property by granting exclusive economic and moral rights[101] Therefore, the critical point in copyright law is whether an original work is used lawfully or unlawfully.
In the national legislation, under the applicable Act LXXVI of 1999 on Copyright, the use of a traditional "offline" work is subject to a licence agreement,[102] and the cases of use are set out in an illustrative list.[103] In the case of NFTs, the following observations can be made regarding the use and resale of the work in the light of the provisions of the applicable national copyright law. As a general rule, the use of the original work is subject to payment of a fee. However, the existing national copyright legislation allows the parties to freely determine the content of the licence agreement or to differ from the provisions of the licence agreement by mutual consent, if the law or other legislation does not prohibit such a difference.[104] Based on the logical interpretation of the law, it is possible to use the work free of charge, which is also the opinion of the academic literature.[105]
According to the legislation, one type of use for a fee or free of charge is distribution. Distribution is effected by transferring the ownership of the original work, the limit being the exhaustion of the distribution right, which occurs when the work is transferred to the owner, with the consequence that the author gives up his right to control the original work[106]. One example of a typical practical use is the auctioning of a painting.[107] To continue with the example, the sale of the painting exhausts the distribution right, so the owner of the original work is not restricted from reselling it, even at a higher price. The party who legally owns the work cannot be restricted in the exercise of his/her rights by the copyright owner, nor, in the context of the tradability of the original work.[108]. However, notwithstanding the fact that the owner of the work has the right to resell it,[109] the sale
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of the work does not result in the transfer of copyright with ownership.[110]
From the above, it is my view that the rules on lawful use and royalties for NFTs are framed as follows. After the native sale - lawful distribution -of NFTs, the secondary sale of NFTs on the NFT marketplaces can begin. In this process, the legal owner of the NFT is given the opportunity to resell[111] the NFT - for distribution - at a higher price, which could be achieved by auction. The resale of the NFT will have different property and copyright consequences, whereby the identity of the owner changes - the seller is replaced by the buyer - while the copyright holder remains the authorIn addition, in the current practice of NFT projects, the tendency to apply different royalty schemes on a case-by-case basis or to allow free use is in harmony with national copyright legislation.
Finally, with regard to the payment of royalties, I would highlight the fact that, in the case of resale of a given NFT on the secondary market, the royalty goes directly into the wallet of the beneficiary party (who is lawfully the author or a party acting on behalf of the author) and does not pass through intermediaries such as offline collective management organisations (CMO).[112]
Notwithstanding the fact that non fungible tokens are less than a decade old and as the previous sub-part explains, the legislation has also targeted the independent crypto-asset category, NFTs and related operations have already been a hotbed of several infringements. Hence, in this sub-part, the most significant NFT cases of the recent period are presented, from different sectors, such as the media and film industry or the fashion industry. It should be noted that the majority of the presented cases are copyright infringement cases, but this is not exclusive and other types of infringement, like criminal law, also occur.
In Miramax LLC v. Tarantino et al. case[113] the dispute involved non-fungible tokens created from exclusive scenes from the film Pulp Fiction, directed by Quentin Tarantino. The background of the case is that, in relation to the 1994 film Pulp Fiction basically all rights in and to the film, including the right to distribute the film in all media were reserved for Miramax under the original rights agreement except for a narrow set of rights that were reserved for Tarantino and his film production company Visiona Romantica Inc.[114] In this context, it is relevant that Tarantino's retained rights include, inter alia the creation of soundtrack album, music publishing, live performance, print publication and including without limitation screenplay publication, creation of books, comic books and novelization, in audio and electronic formats as well, as applicable, interactive media, theatrical and television sequel and remake rights, and television series and spinoff rights.[115]
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According to the background to the legal dispute, in 2021, Tarantino created seven NFTs of exclusive scenes from the film Pulp Fiction and intended to auction them on one of the largest NFT marketplaces, of which, until the dispute arose, one NFT was sold for $1.1 million in January 2022. In response to the NFT project, which featured exclusive content, Miramax LLC as a plaintiff filed a lawsuit against Tarantino and Visiona, as defendants for breach of contract, copyright infringement, trademark infringement and unfair competition, which later resulted in the auction being suspended. The defendants' defence was based on their claim that the sale of the NFTs fell within the scope of the rights reserved for Tarantino's reserved right to screenplay publication. On this basis, the court had to examine, inter alia, whether the sale of the NFTs fell within or went beyond the scope of the right reserved to Tarantino.[116]
Nevertheless, the case could not be settled as, despite several months of litigation, the plaintiff eventually withdrew its claim and the parties agreed by joint settlement to cooperate in the future, including on the possible release of NFT collections. However, the case illustrates perfectly that NFTs can conflict with previously signed license and other specific copyright contracts that were concluded at a time when NFTs did not exist.[117]
The Frosities NFT project is linked to a no less serious case,[118] which can be described as the so-called rug-pull scheme. A rug-pull is an umbrella term referring to some kind of operations or activities aiming to financially harm investors, the most common practical manifestations include liquidity stealing, limiting sell orders and pump-and-dump. The term rug-pull itself is appropriate, as it illustrates the fraudulent behavior of the issuing team and/or developers when they abandon investors, unexpectedly terminate the project and disappear with the cryptocurrency they collected. The different rug-pull schemes can be divided into two categories, hard-pull and soft-pull. Hard-pull always refers to operations that are illegal and give rise to infringements, whereas soft-pull covers operations that are essentially unethical but not necessarily illegal, the case of which of course requires an ad hoc investigation. In other words, all rug-pull is unethical, but not all rug-pull is illegal.[119] The Frosties NFT project falls into the category of hard-pull,[120] in light of the history of the case, whereby Ethan Nguyen and Andre Llacuna, the issuing team, were private individuals offering colourful cartoon ice cream-themed characters for sale as NFTs, with the promise that NFT owners would receive various future benefits, such as early access to a metaverse game, the opportunity to participate in exclusive events. In other words the Frosties NFT project was basically an utility NFT project (uNFT).[121] The project was launched on January 9, 2022 and generated over $1 million in cryptocurrency[122] revenues in a short period of time.
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The infringement occurred because the successful sale of Frosties after its launch was soon followed by the deactivation of the Frosties NFT website and the removal of the related social media pages. The team exited the project and the crypto revenue was transferred to different cryptocurrency wallets using a series of transactions and an intermediary cryptocurrency-mixing service to hide the original source of the cryptocurrency.[123] However, the anonymity of the team members could not be preserved thanks to the outstanding investigative work of the authorities,[124] who played a major role in identifying the perpetrators. Thus, in March 2022, two individuals were charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering in connection with a million-dollar scheme to defraud purchasers of NFTs advertised as Frosties.[125]
The Hermès v Rothschild case[126] is a textbook example of the clash between the fashion industry and the art sector in relation to NFTs. The - ongoing - case is unique in that it raises legal questions such as how far artists' creative freedom can extend in the virtual world, in other words what they can and cannot create and what they can and cannot represent virtually in the form of NFTs.
The background to the case is that back in 2021, artists Mason Rothschild and Eric Ramirez sold a 2000x2000 pixel animated NFT called Baby Birkin on Basic.space for $23,500.[127] However, this project did not meet with any opposition from Hermès, but rather the MetaBirkins NFT project launched by Mason Rothschild in November 2021. The MetaBirkins NFT collection is a 100-piece collection of Hermès' iconic Birkin handbags, with the distinctive feature of featuring never-before-seen colors, unique graphics and a special use of unique bag-materials like fur.[128]
Rothschild has sold more than $1 million worth of MetaBirkins NFT, which was listed on OpenSea.io marketplace, by early January 2022. Luxury fashion brand Hermès has filed a lawsuit against the artist, alleging trademark infringement, dilution and cybersquatting, claiming that the NFTs marketed under the MetaBirkins name depict the company's Birkin handbags and were sold without permission.[129]
Rothschild, on the other hand, relies in its defense on the First Amendment,[130] under which it is not unlawful[131] to make and sell NFTs depicting Birkin handbags. Rothschild explains in a statement on a social media platform that he does not make any counterfeit Birkin handbags, nor does he offer for sale any imitations, but only NFTs which display Birkin handbags. He further explains that the source of the conflict lies in the misunderstanding that Hermès does not understand what is NFT and even less know what these crypto assets are used for. It is obvious that the final decision of the lawsuit will be determining for cases involving Web3 and NFT.
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The Nike Inc. v. Stockx LLC case[132] is also involving the fashion industry. The background of this case is that StockX began operations in 2016 as an online resell business that can connect sellers with buyers, while fulfilling all the obligations associated with completing a transaction between the two parties, like product delivery. The marketplace is a place to buy, among other things, clothes, bags and in particular sneakers, as well as other collectibles. In addition, StockX, recognizing the growing trend of the use of NFTs, has expanded its services in this area, offering non- fungible tokens representing physical products of different brands.
According to the facts of the case, in February 2022, StockX created and offered for sale, under the name Vault NFT, different non-fungible tokens representing inter alia, certain products of the global Nike brand. As a result, Nike Inc. has filed a lawsuit alleging trademark infringement, trademark dilution, and related rights violations. In its 50-page complaint,[133] Nike Inc. states that StockX used the trademarks and brand reputation of the well-known global brand without the prior authorization and permission of Nike Inc., in order to attract more customers and ultimately generate more sales.[134] The company identifies StockX's bad faith essentially in the fact that the online reseller marketplace had knowledge that Nike-branded products were the most popular and best-selling on the platform. Thus, StockX, noticing the trend surrounding NFTs, instead of building its own brand's reputation, relied on the unlawful use of an already well-known global brand. In addition, StockX, may have created the false impression that Nike Inc. was an official partner of the Vault NFT collection, which could have misled consumers and influenced their buying decisions. In this respect, the risk of damage to Nike Inc.'s reputation is that Nike Inc. had no control over the quality of the Vault NFT collection, but that this fact was not known to the customers, so that, due to the lack of information provided to the customers, the possible poor quality of the Vault NFTs could easily be considered to be the fault of Nike Inc.[135]
StockX's position, on the other hand, is that Vault NFTs are not virtual products or otherwise digital sneakers, but that a certain Vault NFT is linked to or provides access to a specific underlying physical product, but has no other intrinsic value. However, Nike Inc. considers the information provided by StockX to its customers to be confusing, given that the Vault NFT collection not only identifies an underlying physical product, but also StockX's assignment of additional related exclusive services and future benefits, which were not specified nor supported by Nike.[136] Furthermore, Nike Inc. is concerned that StockX reserves the right to unilaterally determine certain matters that may negatively affect customers with respect to the Vault NFT Collection.[137]
In contrast to Hermès v. Rothschild, where the legal dispute concerns the infringement of the virtual Birkin handbags and related trademark rights dis-
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played by the NFT, the legal dispute in this case concerns the trademark rights related to the underlying physical products displayed by the Vault NFT and the damage to Nike's reputation as a world brand. The decision in the case may not only serve as guidance for the application of the law, but is also of decisive importance for Nike Inc., which acquired the RTFKT company[138] dealing with virtual collectibles, in December 2021, without hiding its intention to expand the global brand in the metaverse, which may be negatively affected by the activities indicated by StockX in the present case.[139]
Noteworthy among the cases is Janesh s/o Rajkumar v. unknown (username: chefpierre) case.[140] The relevance of this case is that in May 2022, a Singapore court has ordered a freeze on the sale of the NFT character from a successful NFT project, Bored Ape Yacht Club, due to the fact that this NFT was used as collateral for a previously concluded loan agreement.
According to the historical facts of the case, the owner of the NFT concerned, as debtor, had previously entered into a quasi-atypical loan agreement with its counterparty "chefpierre", as lender on the NFTfi.com[141] which is a special NFT lending platform.[142] Under the loan agreement, the debtor obtained a specific loan amount collateralised by a Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) NFT character. However, the debtor took particular care to ensure that the agreement expressly stated that he would not abandon ownership of the NFT and would repay the loan amount in full in order to redeem the NFT, and the parties excluded the foreclose option. The owner of the NFT Mr Janesh, had applied for such a loan several times before and based on NFTfi.com's data, was a reliable debtor and entered into another loan agreement without any particular concerns.[143]
The case went to court because the debtor failed to repay the loan amount on time, whereupon the lender, in breach of the contract between the parties, transferred the BAYC NFT to another private crypto wallet and offered it for sale on the OpenSea.io marketplace. This conduct by the lender was challenged by Mr Janesh, who applied to a Singapore court for relief to prohibit the sale of the relevant NFT, in light of the terms of the loan agreement and the fact that he repaid the loan in full within a short time in accordance with the agreement.[144] As a side note, the quasi-atypical nature of the loan agreement referred to may be identified by the fact that the loan amount was traditionally collateralised by a non-fungitable token, so that the contract is atypical in this approach, but on the other hand, given that the contract was "concluded" on a specific NFT lending platform, it does not contain an atypical element.
The court ordered freezing the sale of relevant NFT, indicating that the courts' jurisdiction also extends to crypto assets on the blockchain. hence, the relevance of the judgment is, among other things, that it is the first case in which a
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court in a centralised system prevented the sale of a non-fungible token located in a decentralised system,[145] based on an underlying private law relationship. On the other hand, the court also ruled that the NFT is a property and it follows logically that an NFT is not only capable of being used as collateral for a contract but also of being the subject of a property law. This finding of the order may have been inspired by a decision - see below - in a case before the High Court of Justice in London earlier in 2022, which held that NFTs constitute legal property.[146]
The relevance of the Osbourne v Persons Unknown, Ozone case[147] is that the court ruled that NFT is legal property, which is in line with the scientific literature.[148]
The background of the case is that Lavinia D. Osbourne is the founder of the Women in Blockchain Talks community, which is the UK's first women-led blockchain education and networking platform. The aim of Blockchain Talks community among other things, to empower women to succeed in the blockchain sector and encourage them to explore the industry and help them build their web3 careers.[149] While, the Boss Beauties is an NFT collection of 10,000 NFTs, which essentially a utility NFT project, giving owners different utility rights and access to services and/or for access to exclusive events. The collection was launched in 2021 and was founded by Lisa Mayer. She is associated with My Social Canvas, which is an e-commerce platform specifically targeting Generation Z women.[150] The Boss Beauties NFT project has been a great success in the NFT sector, with all items of the collection being sold within 1 hour after launch. It is also the first NFT collection to be listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and has collaborated with several major brands and celebrities such as Barbie, Hugo Boss and Rolling Stone. In addition, the Boss Beauties NFT project was supported by the United Nations (UN) when the limited edition Boss Beauties Role Models NFT collection was displayed at the UN headquarters in New York on International Women's Day.[151]
The case historical background, is that it was February 2022, when Lavinia D. Osbourne tweeted on about that two Boss Beauties NFT characters were stolen from her MetaMask crypto wallet. The missing Boss Beauties #680 and #691 characters were later appeared in two separate anonymous user accounts on OpenSea.io NFT marketplace. Ms Osbourne then went to court, seeking both the blocking of the anonymous users' accounts and asking the court to order Ozone Networks to provide the anonymous users' data on the OpenSea.io NFT marketplace.[152]
The court upheld the plaintiff's claim and issued an order to "freeze" the unknown users' accounts, making it impossible to sell the NFTs and conduct any associated transactions with them. It also upheld the data provision by obligating the plaintiff to among other things, protect the integrity of the data provided by OpenSea.io and
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to use it strictly for the purposes for which it was provided, in compliance with the standards of necessity and proportionality.[153]
In reaching its judgment, the court took into account a number of circumstances beyond the individual examination of this specific case. For example, the court's decision reflected the findings in AA v Persons Unknown, Ors, Re Bitcoin, where the court ruled that crypto assets are property.[154] Merely by way of illustration, the jurisdiction and procedural ability of the court itself was based on the fact that previously, in Ion Sciences Ltd, Duncan Johns v Persons Unknown, Binance Holdings Limited, Payment Ventures Inc,[155] the court had ruled, on an ex parte application by the claimant, that the jurisdiction of the court in crypto-asset disputes was to be determined by the place of establishment of the owner of the crypto-asset.[156] As a final thought, the court's decision that the NFT in legal terms is a cryptoasset which, as a property asset, is subject to property rights, is in line with the scientific literature.
In the case of Halston Thayer v. Matt Furie, Chain/Saw LLC, PegzDAO[157] the subject of the dispute was a rare Pepe Frog NFT. The background of this case is that Pepe the Frog was originally one of the characters in the Boy's Club comic created by artist Matt Furie in 2005, Pepe the Frog was a little weird but lovely character, then turned into a meme over the years, eventually being identified with by radical groups and finally the creator himself ended the character's career on the internet when he officially announced the death of his creation in 2017 (2005-2017).[158] Prior to Pepe's death, in 2016 Matt Furie created an NFT collection on the Ethereum blockchain under the name Feels-Goodman Rare Pepe Card, than later in 2021 the NFT card, named PEPENOPOULOS, was auctioned for $3.6 million at Sotheby's online auction.[159] The background of the case includes two more online spaces that need to be mentioned. These are the online NFT marketplace Chain/Saw,[160] which offers NFTs by several artists for sale, and PegzDAO,[161] the online platform for the Pegz crypto-entity,[162] where 100 unique NFTs digitally created by Matt Furie, including the rare Pepe Frog's butt NFT, as the subject of this lawsuit.
According to the historical background of the case, back in October 2021, a campaign and auction of Matt Furie's FEELSGOODMAN Rare Pepe Card NFT collection was released on Pegz and/or ChainSaw online platforms, focusing on 100 Pepe NFTs, with the call that as a piece of blockchain history, of the original 500 NFTs minted in 2016, 400 were burned, and out of the remaining 100 unique and rare NFTs, only 1 will be made available for auction, with the remaining 99 remaining on PegzDAO. In order to clarify the situation regarding the 90 NFTs remaining in the DAO during the bidding period, a tweet was received from the official Twitter account of Pegz saying that the remaining 99 NFTs were being held indefinitely in the DAO and they wished every bidder a happy bidding.
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Afterwards, Mr. Thayer made a winning bid of 150 ETH on October 2021, paying around $537 084 for the Pepe NFT. The conflict arose on 21 October 2021, when 46 of the 99 NFTs remaining in the DAO were offered for auction for USD 30 000, resulting in Mr Thayer suffering a significant loss of value in respect of his Pepe NFT previously purchased for ETH 150. Furthermore, the 46 NFTs were presumably distributed to DAO members free of charge.[163]
After all this happened, Mr Thayer requested in his letter of 4 February 2022 essentially in integrum restitutio, when he asked for the refund of the amount paid to Chain/Saw and Pegz for Pepe NFT, in parallel with the return of Pepe NFT by Mr Thayer. As the parties were unable to reach an out-of-court settlement, Mr. Thayer, as plaintiff, filed a claim for relief against Matt Furie, Chain/Saw LLC and PegzDAO, as defendants. In the statement of claim and demand, the plaintiff highlights, inter alia, the defendants' fraudulent inducement, but also claims breach of contract, violation of the consumers legal remedies act, and violation of the unfair competition law. The outcome of this case will be a landmark ruling on the compensation claims related to NFTs.[164]
In my view, the relevance of NFTs can be found both in the art and design sector and in the metaverse.[165] In the art and design sector, NFTs can be used to support artistic activities and to finance the realisation of any project, not only artistic ones. Outside the art and design sector, the importance of NFTs will also be seen in the evolving and constantly developing metaverse, with precursors in the so-called play-to-earn (P2E)[166] blockchain-based games, such as the Hungarian-developed Mortifer.[167] But NFTs will also reform the current royalty system and the process of distribution and promotion of music in the music sector, with the consequence of a market-shaping effect, and in the long term may also lead to the replacement of the role of intermediaries such as collective management organisations. Beyond this, NFTs can also bring about changes in everyday events and processes such as customer coupon promotions, event and flight tickets.
In my view, the cases presented as examples show that, despite the fact that NFTs are a new class of crypto-assets, the infringements committed with them and by them are no different from those committed by propertys that exist in the physical world. Therefore, the application of the existing legislation is not generally difficult. The obstacle arises when a preliminary question needs to be decided in an NFT-related case. For example, when a dispute requires the court to rule on the legal quality of an NFT, its usability or even its limitations and similar issues. Deciding on these issues does not simply result in a legal decision, but also provides guidance for future legislation. As a comment, it should be noted here that this paper has not examined the NFT-related use of the Anglo-Saxon fair use test and the notice and take
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down procedure for reasons of limited length, although these two institutions are undeniably relevant to the copyright aspects of NFTs.
Finally, I believe that, on the one hand, the trend of transformation to NFTs will increase in the near future, so that more and more objects will appear in the metaverse as NFTs, and on the other hand, the spread of NFT-based services will continue to increase. These processes could ultimately lead to the emergence of a new generation of legal declarations in which NFTs could be the subject of the contract. NFT-based services can create new situations, which can be guided by legislation that works well in a centralized system, but where the development of specific rules or the flexible application of law will be inevitable. [Manuscript completed in January, 2023.] ■
NOTES
[1] Kretschmer, Martin-Lionel Bently-Ronan Deazley: Introduction: The History of Copyright History: Notes from an Emerging Discipline. In. M. Kretschmer-L. Bently-R. Deazley (eds.): Privilege and Property: Essays on the History of Copyright 1st ed. Open Book Publishers, 2010. pp. 1-20.
[2] Szilovics Csaba: Az állami pénzügyek rendszere. In: Kálmán, János (szerk.) A pénzügyi jog alapintézményei. 2022. ORAC. Budapest. 258-303 pp.
[3] Csécsy György: A szellemi alkotások joga. Novotni Kiadó. Miskolc, 2000. pp. 9-12.
[4] Bodó Balázs: A szerzői jog kalózai, Typotex, Budapest, 2011. pp. 53.
[5] Horváth Attila: A szellemi alkotások jogának története, a szerzői jogi védelem kialakulása, a jogalkotás kezdetei Magyarországon. Szerzői Jog Mindenkinek. 2016. Vol. 121(4) pp. 95-101.
[6] Vékás Lajos: A szerzői jogvédelem kialakulásának kezdetei. In. Gellén Klára - Görög Márta (eds.): Lege et fide Ünnepi tanulmányok Szabó Imre 65. születésnapjára. Szeged, 2016. pp. 670-675.
[7] Csécsy György: A szellemi alkotások jogának fejlődéstörténete. Bíbor Kiadó. Miskolc, 2006. pp. 9394.
[8] Farkas Henrietta Regina: A szoftverek jogi helyzete az Európai Unióban. Debreceni Jogi Műhely, 2013. Vol 10(3) pp. 181-201.
[9] The Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property (Paris Convention) https://treaties.un.org/doc/Publication/UNTS/Volume%20828/volume-828-I-11851-English.pdf (2023. 01. 02.)
[10] Paris Convention Article 1. sub section 2 "The protection of industrial property has as its object patents, utility models, industrial designs, trademarks, service marks, trade names, indications of source or appellations of origin, and the repression of unfair competition".
[11] The Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works (Berne Convention). https://treaties.un.org/doc/Publication/UNTS/Volume%20828/volume-828-I-11850-English.pdf (2023. 01. 02.)
[12] Berne Convention Article 5.
[13] Mádl Ferenc - Vékás Lajos: Nemzetközi magánjog és nemzetközi gazdasági kapcsolatok joga. Eötvös Kiadó, Budapest, 2018. p. 378.
[14] Ferenczi Fanni Az építészeti alkotások nemzetközi és európai uniós szerzői jogi szabályozása. Miskolci jogi Szemle. 2016. Vol 11(1) pp. 105.
[15] Papp László: Magyarország és az Iparjogvédelmi Unió a XX. század első évtizedeiben. Iparjogvédelmi és Szerzői Jogi Szemle. 2012. Vol. 117(4) pp. 60.
[16] Wertheimer, H. W.:The Principle of Territoriality in the Trademark Law of the Common Market Countries. International and Comparative Law Quarterly. 1967. Vol 16(3) pp. 630-662.
[17] See: The Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS); Madrid Agreement Concerning the International Registration of Marks of 1891; The Protocol Relating to the Madrid Agreement (1989); Nice Agreement Concerning the International Classification of Goods and Services for the Purposes of the Registration of Marks. of June 15, 1957.
[18] Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), Article 27. "Everyone has the right to the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he is the author." https://www.ohchr.org/en/universal-declaration-of-human-rights (2023. 01. 02.)
[19] Nótári Tamás: A magyar szerzői jog fejlődése. Lectum Kiadó. Szeged, 2010. pp. 332.
[20] SZTNH: The the official website of the Hungarian Intellectual Property Office (SZTNH) as of 2 January 2023 lists 20 relevant EU, 10 international and 15 national copyright-related laws. https://www.sztnh.gov.hu/hu/szakmai-oldalak/jogforrasok-0 (2023. 01. 02.)
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[21] Convention Establishing the World Intellectual Property Organization. Preamble. https://wipolex.wipo.int/en/text/570730 (2023. 01. 02.)
[22] Ződi, Zsolt: Precedenskövetés és jogszabály-értelmezés. Állam-és Jogtudomány, 2014. Vol 55(3) pp. 60-85.
[23] Badó Attila: Bevezetés az USA jogrendszerébe. Acta Universitatis Szegediensis : acta juridica et politica, 1997. Vol. 52(1) pp. 1-27.
[24] Oren Bracha: Owning Ideas: The Intellectual Origins of American Intellectual Property, 1790-1909. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge, 2016. pp. 12-53.
[25] Khan, B. Zorina: The Democratization of Invention: Patents and Copyrights in American Economic Development 1790-1920. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge, 2005. pp. 234.
[26] Irving Lowens: Copyright and Andrew Law. The University of Chicago Press. The Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America. 1959. Vol. 53(2) pp. 150-159.
[27] L. Bently - M. Kretschme: Connecticut Copyright Statute, Connecticut (1783). Primary Sources on Copyright (1450-1900). www.copyrighthistory.org (2023. 01. 02.)
[28] Benjamin W. Rudd: Notable dates in American copyright 1783-1969. The Quarterly Journal of the Library of Congress, 1971. Vol. 28(2) pp. 137-143.
[29] Tom W. Bell: Intellectual privilege: copyright, common law, and the common good. Mercatus Center at George Mason University. Arlington, Virginia, 2018. pp. 16-27.
[30] Pfeffer Zsolt: Adóügyek a büntetőbíróságok előtt. 2020. Miskolci Jogi Szemle: A Miskolci Egyetem Állam- És Jogtudományi Karának Folyóirata 15. 97121. pp.
[31] $0,6 USD
[32] B. Zorina Khan - Kenneth L. Sokoloff: History Lessons: The Early Development of Intellectual Property Institutions in the United States. The Journal of Economic Perspectives, 2001. Vol. 15(3) pp. 233-246.
[33] Part Krisztina Katalin: A szerzői jogi szabályozás kialakulása Angliában, Németországban, és az Egyesült Államokban. Iparjogvédelmi és Szerzői Jogi Szemle. 2006. Vol. 111(4) pp. 140-153.
[34] Sápi Edit: A szerzői jog sokoldalúsága - a szabályozás mögött rejlő igények a szerzők és a társadalom oldalán. Multidiszciplináris tudományok, 2021. Vol. 11(2) pp. 298-304.
[35] Kate Darling: Contracting About the Future: Copyright and New Media. Northwestern Journal of Technology & Intellectual Property, 2012. Vol. 10(7) pp. 503.
[36] Latournerie, Anne: Petite histoire des batailles du droit d'auteur. Multitudes, 2011. Vol. 2. pp. 37-62.
[37] Décret du 13-19 janvier 1791 relatif aux spectacles. (Decree of January 13-19, 1791 Relating to Performances).
[38] Décret du 19-24 juillet 1793 relatif aux droits de propriété des auteurs, compositeurs de musique, peintres et dessinateurs (Decree of July 19-24, 1793 on the Property Rights of Authors, Musicians, Painters, and Illustrators)
[39] Geoffroy-Schwinden - Rebecca Dowd: Music, Copyright, and Intellectual Property during the French Revolution: A Newly Discovered Letter from André-Ernest-Modeste Grétry. Transposition, 2018. Vol. 9(7) pp. 1-17.
[40] Mezei Péter. A szerzői jog története a törvényi szabályozásig (1884:XVI. tc.). Jogelméleti Szemle. 2004. Vol. 3. http://jesz.ajk.elte.hu/mezei19.html#_ftnref27 [accessed: 2023. 01. 02.]
[41] Herman Finkelstein: The Copyright Law - A Reappraisal. University of Pennsylvania Law Review, 1956. Vol. 104(8) pp. 1058.
[42] Geoffroy-Schwinden - Rebecca Dowd op. cit.
[43] Andrew Paster: Rethinking Copyright Termination in A Global Market: How A Limitation in U.S. Copyright Law Could Be Resolved by France's Droit D'auteur. Southwestern Journal of International Law, 2017. Vol. 23. pp. 381.
[44] Calvin D. Peeler: From the Providence of Kings to Copyrighted Things (and French Moral Rights). Indiana International & Comparative Law Review 1999. Vol. 9(2) pp. 432.
[45] Tran Kien: Can copyright law be transplated? Vietnam's experiences with droit d'auteur, 1864-1975. In Paul Torremans (eds.): Research Handbook on Copyright Law: Second Edition. 2017. p. 540.
[46] D'Agostino, Giuseppina: The Globalisation of Copyright: A Comparative Analysis of the Anglo-American and Continental European copyright laws in relation to the Author. Hibernian Law Journal. 2001. Vol. 2. pp. 35.
[47] Baldwin, Peter: The Battle between Anglo-American Copyright and European Authors' Rights. In The Copyright Wars: Three Centuries of TransAtlantic Battle. Princeton University Press. Princeton, 2014. pp. 14-52.
[48] Pogácsás Anett: Szerzői jog újratöltve. Iparjogvédelmi és Szerzői Jogi Szemle. 2010. Vol. 115(6) pp. 36.
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[49] See: The Act LXXVI of 1999 on Copyright Section 95/A sub section. 1
[50] Mezei Péter: Mitől fair a fair? Szerzői művek felhasználása a fair use-teszt fényében. 2008. Szerzői művek felhasználása a fair use-teszt fényében. Iparjogvédelmi és Szerzői Jogi Szemle. 2008. Vol. 113(6) pp. 26-68.
[51] Martin Senftleben: bridging the differences between copyright's legal traditions - The emerging ec fair use doctrine. Journal of the Copyright Society of the U.S.A. 2012. Vol. 57(3) pp. 522.
[52] Barton Beebe An Empirical Study of U.S. Copyright Fair Use Opinions. University of Pennsylvania Law Review. 2008. Vol. 156(3) pp. 549-623.
[53] Christine L. Chinni, Droit d'auteur versus the economics of copyright: Implications for american law of accession to the berne convention. Western New England Law Review, 1992. Vol. 14(2) pp. 154.
[54] Sardjono, Agus: author's right is not only copyright. Indonesian Journal of International Law. 2021. Vol. 7(2) pp. 199-214.
[55] The practical manifestation of third-generation blockchain technology is Cardano (ADA). Cardano, the first platform created solely on the basis of scientific research, is developed in Haskell.
[56] Vitalik Buterin: Ethereum Whitepaper. https://ethereum.org/en/whitepaper/ (2023. 01. 02.)
[57] Fabian Vogelsteller: ERC: Token standard. https://github.com/ethereum/EIPs/issues/20 (2023. 01. 02.)
[58] Shermin Voshmgir: Token Economy: How the Web3 reinvents the Internet. Token Kitchen, Berlin, 2020. p. 17.
[59] A decentralised application is an application that can operate autonomously, basically through the use of smart contracts, that runs on a decentralized blockchain system.
[60] Breszkovics Botond: Az elsődleges nyilvános érmekibocsátás előtti jogi teendők Európában. In: Bujtár Zsolt, Szívós Alexander Roland, Gáspár Zsolt, Szilovics Csaba, Breszkovics Botond (eds.) Kriptoeszközök világa a jog és gazdaság szemszögéből. Pécsi Tudományegyetem, Állam- és Jogtudományi Kar. Pécs, 2021. pp. 136-158.
[61] Szilovics Csaba: A kriptovaluták pénzfunkciójáról és gazdasági, társadalmi jelentőségéről. In: Bujtár, Zsolt; Szívós, Alexander Roland; Gáspár, Zsolt; Szilovics, Csaba; Breszkovics, Botond (szerk.) Kriptoeszközök világa a jog és a gazdaság szemszögéből : konferenciakötet : 2021. március 19. Kriptoeszközök világa a jog és gazdaság szemszögéből konferencia válogatott tanulmányok 2021. Pécsi Tudományegyetem Állam-és Jogtudományi Kar. Pécs. 245-257. pp.
[62] Ferencz Barnabás: The Tide is Turning - The Change from Shareholder Approach to Stakeholder Approach in Light of The Business Roundtable's 2019 Statement on the 'Purpose of a Corporation' Economics & Working Capital. 2021. Vol. 1. pp. 57-62.
[63] Erc721.org. http://erc721.org/ (2023. 01. 02.)
[64] Enjin.io: ERC-1155: The Multi Token Standard. https://enjin.io/about/erc-1155 (2023. 01. 02.)
[65] The ERC-1155 standard allows to make massive transfers natively of the tokens included in a smart contract. In this way, if, for example, we have a series of NFT tokens or fungible tokens (or both), we can transfer several of these tokens in the same operation, making a single operation make this transfer effective.
[66] Quantum predates the ERC-721 technical standard in chronological order, so it is probably based on a different technical standard.
[67] Sarah Cascone: Sotheby's Is Selling the First NFT Ever Minted - and Bidding Starts at $100. https://news.artnet.com/market/sothebys-is-hosting-its-first-curated-nft-sale-featuring-the-very-first-nft-ever-minted-1966003 (2023. 01. 02.)
[68] Clifford Chance: Non-fungible tokens: The global legal impact-thought leadership. 2. https://www.cliffordchance.com/content/dam/clifford-chance/briefings/2021/06/non-fungible-tokens-the-global-legal-impact.pdf (2023. 01. 02.)
[69] Harmath Dávid - Breszkovics Botond: Festmény a blokkláncon avagy, mi is az az NFT. Kutatók Éjszakája, Live presentation. PTE-ÁJK. Pécs, 30 September 2022.
[70] NonFungible.com: Yearly NFT Market Report 2021. How Nfts Affect The World. 5th Edition. https://nonfungible.com/reports/2021/en/yearly-nft-market-report (2023. 01. 02.)
[71] Szilovics Csaba: On the Origins of Taxation. Ancient roots of tax systems. 2022. Aula Magna Proyecto Clave Mcgraw Hill. Sevilla 150-166. pp. (ISBN: 9788419187420)
[72] Katharina Garbers-von Boehm-Helena Haag-Katharina Gruber: Intellectual Property Rights and Distributed Ledger Technology with a focus on art NFTs and tokenized physical artworks. European Parliament. Brussels, 2022. pp. 17-20.
[73] Katharina Garbers - von Boehm - Helena Haag - Katharina Gruber op. cit. pp. 19.
[74] Katharina Garbers - von Boehm - Helena Haag - Katharina Gruber op. cit. pp. 31-40.
[75] Heine R. - Stang F: Weiterverkauf digitaler Werke mittels Non-Fungible-Token aus urheberrechtlicher Sicht. MMR. 2021. pp. 755-760.
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[76] Katharina Garbers - von Boehm - Helena Haag - Katharina Gruber op. cit. pp. 34-35.
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[112] The Act XCIII of 2016 on Collective management of copyright and related rights.
[113] Miramax v. Tarantino et al., 2:21-cv-08979 (C.D. Cal.)
[114] Wright, Keira: Miramax Sues Tarantino over 'money Grab' Pulp Fiction NFTs. 2021. https://coin-telegraph.com/news/miramax-sues-tarantino-over-money-grab-pulp-fiction-nfts (2023. 01. 29.)
[115] Costa Cameron: Quentin Tarantino to Offer Seven Uncut Scenes from 'Pulp Fiction' as NFTs. 2021. https://www.cnbc.com/2021/11/02/quentin-tarantino-to-offer-seven-uncut-scenes-from-pulp-fiction-as-nfts.html (2023. 01. 29.)
[116] Miramax, LLC, Plaintiff, v. Quentin Tarantino; Visiona Romantica, Inc,; and DOES 1-50, Defendants. 2021 United States District Court - Central District of California https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/21111461/miramax-tarantino-nft.pdf (2023. 01. 29.)
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[118] U.S. v. Nguyen és Llacuna, 22-mag-2478 (S.D.N.Y.)
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[124] Revenue Service (IRS), Criminal Investigation (IRS-CI), New York Field Office of the Department of Homeland Security (HSI), U.S. Postal Inspection Service (USPIS)
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[126] Hermès v. Rothschild, 1:22-cv-00384 (S.D.N.Y.)
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[128] Taylor Dafoe: Hermès Is Suing a Digital Artist for Selling Unauthorized Birkin Bag NFTs in the Metaverse for as Much as Six Figures. https://news.artnet.com/art-world/hermes-metabirkins-2063954 (2023. 01. 29.)
[129] Blake Brittain: Hermes lawsuit over 'MetaBirkins' NFTs can move ahead, judge rules. https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/hermes-lawsuit-over-metabirkins-nfts-can-move-ahead-judge-rules-2022-05-05/ (2023. 01. 29.)
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[132] Nike, Inc. v. Stockx LLC, 1:22-cv-00983 (S.D.N.Y.)
[133] Heitner Legal: https://heitnerlegal.com/wp-content/uploads/Nike-v-StockX.pdf (2023. 01. 25.)
[134] Blake Brittain: Nike ramps up sneaker NFT lawsuit with StockX counterfeiting claim. https://www.reuters.com/legal/legalindustry/nike-ramps-up-sneaker-nft-lawsuit-with-stockx-counterfeiting-claim-2022-05-11/
[135] Andrew Rossow: The Nike v. StockX Lawsuit Could Determine What Type of NFTs Can Be Created. https://nftnow.com/features/the-nike-v-stockx-lawsuit-could-determine-what-type-of-nfts-can-be-created/ (2023. 01. 29.)
[136] StockX Launches Vault NFTs: https://stockx.com/about/stockx-launches-vault-nfts/ (2023. 01. 26.)
[137] StockX Terms And Conditions of Use: https://stockx.com/terms (2023. 01. 26.)
[138] Nike Acquires RTFKT: https://about.nike.com/en/newsroom/releases/nike-acquires-rtfkt (2023. 01. 29.)
[139] Jacklyn Wille:Nike Avoids Disclosing NFT, Shoe Revenue in StockX Legal Battle .https://news.bloomberglaw.com/ip-law/nike-avoids-disclosing-nft-shoe-revenue-in-stockx-legal-battle (2023. 01. 29.)
[140] Janesh s/o Rajkumar v. Unknown Person ("chefpierre") HC/OC 41/2022.
[141] Use your NFTs to get a crypto loan: https://nftfi.com (2023. 01. 26.)
[142] Joanna Ossinger:Bored Ape NFT Barred From Sale by Singapore Court After Dispute. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-05-20/bored-ape-nft-barred-from-sale-by-singapore-court-after-dispute#xj4y7vzkg (2023. 01. 29.)
[143] Dominic Low: Singapore High Court blocks potential sale and transfer of rare NFT. https://www.straitstimes.com/tech/tech-news/singapore-high-court-blocks-potential-sale-and-transfer-of-rare-nft (2023. 01. 26.)
[144] Lachlan Keller: Singapore court issues 'huge' NFT decision, allows papers to be served via blockchain. https://forkast.news/singapore-court-issues-huge-nft-decision-blockchain/ (2023. 01. 29.)
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[146] Laura Dobberstein: Landmark case recognizes Bored Ape NFT as an asset. https://www.theregister.com/2022/05/19/nft_recognized_asset/ (2023. 01. 29.)
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[150] My Social Canvas: About. https://mysocial-canvas.com/join (2023. 01. 28.)
[151] Boss Beauties: About. https://bossbeauties.com/about (2023. 01. 28.)
[152] Andrew Rossow: U.K. Court Recognizes NFTs as 'Property' in Boss Beauties Theft Case. https://beincrypto.com/uk-court-recognizes-nfts-as-property-with-injunction/ (2023. 01. 29.)
[153] Shawn Johnson: UK courts recognize an NFT as property in the stolen Boss beauties case. https://biz.crast.net/uk-courts-recognize-an-nft-as-property-in-the-stolen-boss-beauties-case/ (2023. 01. 29.)
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[154] AA v Persons Unknown. Ors, Re Bit-coin [2019] EWHC 3556 (Comm) (13 December 2019). https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Comm/2019/3556.html (2023. 01. 28.)
[155] Ion Sciences Ltd, Duncan Johns v Persons Unknown, Binance Holdings Limited, Payment Ventures Inc. [2020] unreported (21 December 2020.)
[156] Micah: UK Courts Recognise An NFT As Property In Stolen Boss Beauties Case. https://nftevening.com/uk-courts-recognise-an-nft-as-property-in-stolen-boss-beauties-case/ (2023. 01. 29.)
[157] Halston Thayer v. Matt Furie et al 2:2022cv01640
[158] James Vincent: Pepe the Frog is officially dead. https://www.theverge.com/2017/5/8/15577340/pepe-the-frog-is-dead-matt-furie (2023. 01. 28.)
[159] Lot 12: Rare Pepe PEPENOPOULOS, 2016 (collected by. Tokenangels): https://metaverse.sothebys.com/natively-digital/lots/pepenopoulos (2023. 01. 28.)
[160] Chain/Saw: About. https://www.chainsaw.fun/about (2023. 01. 28.)
[161] Pegz: About. https://www.pegz.fun/about (2023. 01. 28.)
[162] Bujtár Zsolt: A decentralizált autonóm szervezet (DAO) - fenntartható társasági forma? In: Bujtár, Zsolt; Gáspár, Zsolt; Szilovics, Csaba; Breszkovics, Botond; Ázsoth, Szilvia; Szívós, Alexander Roland; Ferencz, Barnabás; Martin, Márton (szerk.) Fenntarthatóság, technológia és jog : Konferenciakötet - Válogatott tanulmányok. 2022. Pécsi Tudományegyetem Állam- és Jogtudományi Kar. Pécs. pp. 50-63.
[163] Luke Plunkett: $500,000 NFT Lawsuit Over Pepe The Frog's Butt Is A Very Funny Story. https://kotaku.com/pepe-frog-nft-lawsuit-sue-dao-matt-furie-halston-thayer-1848663957 (2023. 01. 29.)
[164] Halston Thayer, v. Matt Furie; Chain/Saw LLC; PegzDAO, (2:22-cv-01640-AB-MRW) (Document 1 Filed 03/12/22). 1-19 pp. https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cacd.846250/gov.us-courts.cacd.846250.1.0.pdf (2023. 01. 28.)
[165] The metaverse is one of the concepts of the future internet. It is based on decentralised crypto solutions and consists of 3D virtual spaces that form a virtual universe.
[166] In play-to-earn games, players can earn rewards and even cash/cryptocurrency during gameplay.
[167] Mortifer P2E game. https://mortifer.io/ (2023. 01. 29.)
Lábjegyzetek:
[1] The Author is doctoral candidate, Doctoral School of the Faculty of Law, University of Pécs.
Visszaugrás
