Actor Seth Green pays $300,000 to recover stolen NFT Bored Ape

Actor Seth Green was “rediscovered” with the non-fungible token (or NFT) from the Bored Ape Yacht Club (or BAYC) collection that he had lost in a phishing attack in May, according to an article in BuzzFeed. Green reportedly paid 165 ETH (over $295,000) for the NFT after it was sold to a collector.

In total, four of Green’s NFTs, worth more than $300,000, were stolen last month, including Bored Ape #8,398, which not only cost him $200,000 to acquire but was also supposed to be the star of his upcoming TV series “White Horse Tavern”.

Happening now
Join me https://t.co/GeByqCjlak

— Seth Green (@SethGreen) June 9, 2022

On Thursday (9), during an appearance in a chat on the Twitter Spaces platform, Green confirmed that his NFT “is home”. Transaction records indicate that the funds were sent from a wallet controlled by Green to an NFT collector known as “Mr. Cheese” and “DarkWing84” by the crypto deposit platform NFT Trader.

The collector claimed to have acquired the NFT “in good faith” after Green was tricked while trying to acquire an NFT on a fake website. At the end of May, Green had threatened take legal action against DarkWing84 before Confirm who had contacted the collector.

At this time, the OpenSea NFT market flags Bored Ape #8,398 as “suspicious activity”, i.e. the NFT is frozen and cannot be bought or sold on the market; That’s why Green turned to the NFT Trader platform to transact with DarkWing84.(Image: OpenSea)

Bored Ape NFTs and IP

While it’s unclear exactly what convinced DarkWing84 to return the NFT to its original owner (aside from the monetary incentive), the events surrounding the story have raised questions about the intellectual property (or IP) rights granted by the NFT property.

Licensing rules applied to the NFT Bored Ape Yacht Club series allege that while Yuga Labs, the creators of the collection, own the copyright to the brand, the company gives the owner of the individual NFTs a broad license to use the image they own, including a unlimited, worldwide license to use, copy and display the artwork purchased.

NFT owners have already used these licensing rights to create content and companies with Bored Apes, ranging from restaurants to bands.

However, these rules do not apply to NFTs that were stolen and resold, leading to speculation that Green would no longer be able to move forward with his TV show plans.

the actor himself was sure that since his NFT would be regarded as stolen art, whoever bought the asset would not be “legally authorized to use and enjoy the IP”.