NFT
The creator of the Grumpy Cat meme has sent a letter to Twitter user “SlumDOGE millionaire”, urging him not to push a memecoin that may violate their intellectual property rights.
Last week, an official letter was sent via NFT to Glauber Contessoto regarding the promotion of a token called GrumpyCat, which it says is involved in clear and deliberate breaches.
The letter states that Grumpy Cat Limited has not licensed or authorized the use of its trademarks in connection with this particular cryptocurrency offering.
In a tweet on Tuesday, the creator of the Grumpy Cat meme called out Contessoto for endorsing unauthorized offers that continue to infringe GCL’s intellectual property rights. The tweet described these recommendations as a “sad attempt” to scam unsuspecting traders.
“Don’t be fooled by these scammers or their lies. No legal issues have been resolved. GCL will never approve such scam coins,” the creator said.
The tweet followed Contessoto’s claim that the intellectual property concerns surrounding the Grumpy Cat token had been resolved. Etherscan shows the project has about 2,900 holders (Blockworks insists on due diligence when interacting with memecoins, always do your own research!)
pic.twitter.com/8xiw5AL1JC
— Grumpy Cat (@RealGrumpyCat) May 22, 2023
Meme creators usually have no copyright control over their creations, but the original copyright holders of the material used in memes can take action against memecoins or other uses of their copyrighted content.
“Pepe the Frog” Matt Furie famously sued Alex Jones’ Infowars for selling posters featuring the meme, winning a $15,000 settlement in 2019.
As memecoins grapple with the concept of copyright, it is becoming more common to use NFTs as a means of serving legal documents, especially when faced with the challenge of unknown or unverifiable identities
Last week, Loevy & Loevy’s attorney, Mike Kanovitz, sought a settlement from pseudonymous memecoin creator Ben.eth through an NFT alleging fraud during a $7 million token presale.
In a separate instance this year, a US judge ordered an anonymous group of hackers to reimburse one of their victims $1 million USDT.
This ruling, which took place in the Southern District of Florida, upheld the plaintiff’s decision to use NFTs to deliver the legal documents to the unidentified hackers.