Yuga Labs is back in the news again, but this time it’s not in a good way. Yuga is being accused of using and trademarking an existing image for their Bored Ape Kennel Club collection. Is this a simple misunderstanding or was there an intentional act of theft?
On February 17, 2023, a Twitter user dropped an accusatory tweet outlining information they uncovered about the Bored Ape Kennel Club’s logo. In the evening, the image’s original creator, Easy Drawing Guides, responded to the tweet confirming their ownership over the intellectual property. Their tweet states “the intellectual property rights for the drawing belong to Easy Drawing Guides.”
The same night around 9:00 pm central time, Yuga Labs Co-Founder, Greg Solana, acknowledged the potential issue and stated the company was “still investigating the situation.” The original promotional tweet from Easy Drawing Tutorial pointing to the step-by-step drawing of the wolf skull can be seen here.
Bored Ape Kennel Club
Yuga Labs released its Bored Ape Kennel Club collection in June of 2021. These digital pups were a free claim available for one week (users only paid gas fees) for any wallet holding a Bored Ape. Each dog was a one to one claim and any unclaimed dogs were “sent to the swap” or burned. There are currently only 9602 dogs in the collection, meaning some Bored Apes missed the dog claim.
Solana stated “This collection was meant from the start to be about raising money for charity,” specifically animal charities. Creator royalties (2.5% fee) from the first 6 weeks, totaling over $1 million, were donated to a variety of animal charities listed on the Bored Ape Yacht Club website.
After 6 weeks, the royalty fee was removed from the collection. Creator royalties were only recently reinstated on December 12, 2022, after Co-Founder Wylie Aronow (Twitter: @GordonGoner) tweeted out to the community asking permission so they could use the additional funding for the Kennel Club.
The Kennel Club was not included in Yuga Labs original roadmap, which is outlined via their website. Yuga “wanted to give our members something fun and unexpected” while they worked on the treasure hunt and the mutant-breeding.
What is Yuga’s Next Move?
According to the statement released by Solano, Yuga Labs had hired a freelance artist to create the logo’s design and was unaware of any violation. He added that Yuga “reached out to the freelancer we hired for that design and Easy Drawing Guides.” The team planned to remove and replace the logo on the project’s website and asked marketplaces to do the same.
Easy Drawing Tutorial’s website contains explicit language in the terms & conditions granting access for “personal, non-commercial use.” At the time of this writing, the original Bored Ape Kennel Club image with the “wolf skull” has been replaced on marketplaces OpenSea and Blur, but has yet to be removed on sites such as X2Y2 and LooksRare.
Yuga has moved swiftly on this issue as they’ve attempted to correct their oversight. Yuga and Solana debuted this new logo so they can “continue to do some good work for causes we care about.” This new logo is likely temporary while Yuga creates a new one, but no information about such plans have been released yet.
What was the Market Response?
How have the markets responded to the recent news? At the time of the bombshell tweet, the Kennel Club’s floor price was ~7.74 eth. By the time Solana tweeted acknowledging the issue, the floor remained relatively unchanged at ~7.4 eth.
The Kennel Club floor actually rose significantly after Solana’s tweet before peaking at ~9.3 eth on February 19th. There has also been significant volume with over 900+ OpenSea sales since the accusatory tweet was published. The floor of the dogs sits at ~8.15 eth at the time of this writing.
The Future of Yuga?
How will this issue affect Yuga Labs in the future? The majority of the community seems to have dismissed it as a freelancer’s mistake rather than a massive oversight by Yuga. This means the whole matter will likely be a blip on the radar for a well established web3 brand that is supported by a strong community.
However, Yuga has been given an opportunity to rebrand their Bored Ape Kennel Club collection. This may even be a chance to involve the community by allowing members to be involved in the new logo process.
There have been no new public statements on the matter by either Easy Drawing Guides or Yuga Labs at the time of this writing.
