Luxury handbag brand Hermès won a lawsuit against the NFT artist behind the “MetaBirkins” collection Mason Rothschild, after accusations that he “stealed the design” of the Birkin bag and put it in the NFT.
Last January, Hermès filed a lawsuit against NFT MetaBirkins founder Mason Rothschild, alleging that he used Hermès’ real-life 100 Birkins designs, NFT themed them and sold them for profit.
In addition, the naming of the prefix “Meta” before Birkins also makes buyers misunderstand that this is the official project of the Hermès brand.
According to BloombergRothschild’s “MetaBirkins” originally sold for around $450, then their value skyrocketed from $12,000 to nearly $200,000.
In the latest court ruling, it was said that Rothschild had infringed Hermès’ trademark copyright by designing and selling a product that was “close to” the physical product of this bag company.
However, the ruling in favor of the French bag brand has received mixed reactions, some are upset because they think that “art is always inspired by the outside world”. But most agree with the decision to protect the copyright for Hermès.
Fred Hsu, CEO of ClubID, a web3 community platform, supports the brand’s stance:
“I 100% support Hermès. The intention to sell artwork that closely resembles an existing product and not even rename the collection is a flagrant violation.”
Rosario Tech Law founder Nelson Rosario said the ruling will help other major brands “bay in” to access similar cases in the future:
“Of course, this is not the case for all art NFT projects. But this is one of the first cases that future litigants will be able to use as a guide.”
As Kyptos reported, Hermès has “total attack” plan on Metaverse, with the initial step of applying for a patent. If licensed, Hermes will providing virtual goods storage and management software; trading digital, crypto and NFT collections; virtual retail stores as well as virtual reality trade and fashion shows.
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