Submission 10,549

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web3 is going just great @web3isgreat We can prove the promise of ape community Seth Green @SethGreen Looking forward to precedent setting debates on IP ownership & exploitation, having spent 18 years studying copyright & the industry laws. I'd ather meet @DarkWing84 to make a deal, vs in court. We can prove the promise of ape community DISNEY M

Patrick Klepek @patrickklepek You could not make up a funnier story if you tried. More Butter @morebuttertv . 21h Seth Green's Bored Ape NFT, which was set to star in its own animated show, was stolen through a phishing scam. Green no longer owns the commercial rights to the NFT and thus the show cannot move forward. : buzzfeednews.com/article/sarahe... Show this thread Disney MAND ... M

Ed Zitron @edzitron This is very funny on almost every level. Yuga Labs' ownership rules are very clear that *whoever has the ape* has full copyright. And they've sacrificed any rights to fight for you. Just amazing. OWNERSHIP i. You Own the NFT. Each Bored Ape is an NFT on the Ethereum blockchain. When you purchase an NFT, you own the underlying Bored Ape, the Art, completely. Ownership of the NFT is mediated entirely by the Smart Contract and the Ethereum Network: at no point may we seize, freeze, or otherwise modify the ownership of any Bored Ape. ii. Personal Use. Subject to your continued compliance with these Terms, Yuga Labs LLC grants you a worldwide, royalty- free license to use, copy, and display the purchased Art, along with any extensions that you choose to create or use, solely forthe following purposes: (i) for your own personal, non-commercial use; (ii) as part of a marketplace that permits the purchase and sale of your Bored Ape / NFT, provided that the marketplace cryptographically verifies each Bored Ape owner's rights to display the Art for their Bored Ape to ensure that only the actual owner can display the Art; or (iii) as part of a third party website or application that permits the inclusion, involvement, or participation of your Bored Ape, provided that the website/application cryptographically verifies each Bored Ape owner's rights to display the Art for their Bored Ape to ensure that only the actual owner can display the Art, and provided that the Art is no longer visible once the owner ofthe Bored Ape leaves the website/application. iii. Commercial Use. Subject to your continued compliance with these Terms, Yuga Labs LLC grants you an unlimited, worldwide license to use, copy, and display the purchased Art for the purpose of creating derivative works based upon the Art ("Commercial Use"). Examples of such Commercial Use would e.g. be the use of the Art to produce and sell merchandise products (T-Shirts etc.) displaying copies of the Art. For the sake of clarity, nothing in this Section will be deemed to restrict you from (i) owning or operating a marketplace that permits the use and sale of Bored Apes generally, provided that the marketplace cryptographically verifies each Bored Ape owner's rights to display the Art for their Bored Ape to ensure that only the actual owner can display the Art; (ii) owning or operating a third party website or application that permits the inclusion, involvement, or participation of Bored Apes generally, provided that the third party website or application cryptographically verifies each Bored Ape owner's rights to display the Art for theirBored Ape to ensure that only the actual owner can display the Art, and provided that the Art is no longer visible once the owner of the Purchased Bored Ape leaves the website/application; or (iii) earning revenue from any of the foregoing. :

Seth Green @SethGreen Looking forward to precedent setting debates on IP ownership & exploitation, having spent 18 years studying copyright & the industry laws. I'd ather meet @DarkWing84 to make a deal, vs in court. We can prove the promise of ape community DISNEY M STAP MAND buzzfeednews.com Someone Stole Seth Green's Bored Ape, Which Was Supposed To Star In His N... The actor has been pleading on Twitter with "DarkWing84," who bought his ape from a scammer, to return it. 4:03 PM . May 24, 2022. Twitter for iPhone

More Butter @morebuttertv Seth Green's Bored Ape NFT, which was set to star in its own animated show, was stolen through a phishing scam. Green no longer owns the commercial rights to the NFT and thus the show cannot move forward. : buzzfeednews.com/article/sarahe... Disney M MAND 1:26 PM - May 24, 2022. Twitter for iPhone B

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Overview

Seth Green's Stolen Bored Ape refers to the theft of four NFTs from actor and television producer Seth Green in May 2022, including an ape that he had been using as the main character for an upcoming television series based on Bored Ape Yacht Club characters. Green's ape was stolen by a phishing scam and then sold to the pseudonym DarkWing84. Because Green no longer has ownership of the ape, he cannot move forward with the television series as he no longer holds the copyright to the ape, leading him to publicly plead with DarkWing84 and threaten to bring him to court. The situation elicited mockery and schadenfreude on social media from many.

Background

On May 17th, 2022, Seth Green announced that he had had four NFTs of his stolen via a phishing scam, tweeting,^[1] "Well frens it happened to me. Got phished and had 4NFT stolen. @BoredApeYC @opensea @doodles @yugalabs please don’t buy or trade these while I work to resolve: @DarkWing84 looks like you bought my stolen ape- hit me up so we can fix it."

Developments

On May 21st, 2022, Green appeared at an NFT conference called VeeCon, where he debuted the trailer for a new television series, called White House Tavern, which he was working on starring one of his stolen apes (#8398) who he dubbed "Fred Simian."

.SethGreen</a> new trailer for his new show, keep your eyes peeled👀<a href="https://twitter.com/BoredApeYC?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">BoredApeYC GutterCatGang</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/veefriends?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">veefriends pic.twitter.com/ZzYN87HYWA

— FFVV1211.eth (@FFVV1211) May 21, 2022

On May 25th, Buzzfeed^[2] then wrote about the situation, noting Green's show could be in legal trouble as he no longer owns the rights to the starring character. Later that day, a tweet by @morebuttertv^[3] explaining the situation in plainer terms went viral. The tweet (shown below) reads, "Seth Green’s Bored Ape NFT, which was set to star in its own animated show, was stolen through a phishing scam. Green no longer owns the commercial rights to the NFT and thus the show cannot move forward." The tweet gained over 4,000 retweets, 8,000 quote-tweets, and 30,000 likes in three hours.

The tweet set off a chain of amused schadenfreude at Green's expense. For example, Twitter user @Patrickklepek^[7] tweeted, "You could not make up a funnier story if you tried," gaining over 6,700 retweets and 84,000 likes in less than one day (shown below, left). Adding to the hilarity of the situation for outsiders, it appeared Green had no legal recourse to get his ape back and his only hope was DarkWing84 returning it. Twitter user @EdZitron^[5] pointed out that Yuga Labs, the creators of Bored Apes, make clear in their legal terms that the owner of a Bored Ape has the rights to its usage, no matter how they obtained it, and Yuga Labs "sacrificed any rights to fight for you" (shown below, right).

As of May 24th, DarkWing84 had not responded to Green's request to return the ape. Later that day, Green tweeted,^[4] "Looking forward to precedent setting debates on IP ownership & exploitation, having spent 18 years studying copyright & the industry laws. I’d ather meet @DarkWing84 to make a deal, vs in court. We can prove the promise of ape community" (shown below, left) The tweet, and particularly the sentence "We can prove the promise of ape community," set off another chain of jokes at Green's expense. The Twitter account for Web3 Is Going Great mockingly repeated the phrase in a quote of Green's tweet,^[8] gaining over 170 retweets and 1,000 likes in one day (shown below, right).

DarkWing84's Response

On the morning of May 25th, 2022, Buzzfeed^[6] published an article saying they had reportedly been successful in tracking down DarkWing84, who seemed amenable to returning Green's Ape. While their headline said DarkWing84, who also uses the handles Mr Cheese and drwerty online, "had no plans to return the ape," this appeared to be misleading. DarkWing84 told Buzzfeed, "I’m happy to chat to Seth directly. Just woke up and have seen this craziness. Please put him in contact with me." He also stated the reason he had not responded to Green thus far is that he rarely checks the @DarkWing84 Twitter account, as it's his alternate account to his main, @drwerty. Notably, Green now follows @drwerty on Twitter as of May 25th, 2022.

Search Interest

External References

^[1] Twitter – SethGreen

^[2] Buzzfeed – Someone Stole Seth Green's Bored Ape, Which Was Supposed To Star In His New Show

^[3] Twitter – @morebuttertv

^[4] Twitter – @SethGreen

^[5] Twitter – @EdZitron

^[6] Buzzfeed – We Spoke To The Owner Of Seth Green's Stolen Ape. They Don’t Have Plans To Return It.

^[7] Twitter – @patrickklepek

^[8] Twitter – web3isgreat

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Seth Green's Stolen Bored Ape