The Long Legal Saga Between Artist Ryder Ripps and the Bored Ape Yacht Club Is Finally Over
ARTnews reported that Yuga Labs and artist Ryder Ripps, along with Ripps’s business partner Jeremy Cahen, reached a confidential settlement on Tuesday ending their legal dispute over the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC). The parties said the settlement includes a permanent injunction barring Ripps and Cahen from using Yuga Labs trademarks or images. The case began in 2022 after Ripps launched an NFT project called RR/BAYC using identical ape images and the same embedded URL as BAYC smart contracts, reporting sales of 9,500 NFTs totaling $1.6 million, which he framed as appropriation art and a critique of alleged racist symbolism that Yuga Labs denied. A district judge ordered Ripps and Cahen to pay up to $8.8 million in October 2023, but the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned that ruling last July and required a trial, which the settlement now avoids.
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This story was covered in Museum Power Shifts and Art Crime Crackdowns