In a surprise development, the copyright clash between Yuga Labs and the duo behind the Bored Ape Yacht Club-lookalike NFT series RR/BAYC, Ryder Ripps and Jeremy Cahen, will continue in the US District Court.
On April 21, Yuga Labs filed a motion in the federal court that demanded Cahen turn over control of four cryptocurrency wallets allegedly holding some $400,000 in assets. The request follows a February judgment that ordered Ripps and Cahen to pay nearly $9 million in damages, disgorgement, and legal fees for infringing on Yuga Labs’ trademarks and cybersquatting (the practice of registering a domain name with the intent to profit from another’s trademark or brand).
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According to the Yuga Labs’ filing, the company has made consistent monthly efforts since the judgment to locate and collect on Cahen’s assets. Those attempts have included subpoenas, levies on banks and crypto exchanges, and even a request for Cahen’s financial records from the Los Angeles Clippers—who confirmed he is a season ticket holder.
The motion alleges that shortly after a court-authorized levy was served on Gemini, a crypto exchange where Cahen held an account, he transferred large sums of Bitcoin and Ethereum to private wallets in an apparent attempt to avoid paying damages. These wallets, identified on the public blockchain, remain active and are now the subject of Yuga Labs’ turnover request.
The filing argues that because Cahen has refused to cooperate with post-judgment discovery or post a bond to delay enforcement, the court should issue an order directing him to provide the cryptographic keys to the U.S. Marshals. Without this access, Yuga Labs contends, there is a risk the funds could be lost or further hidden.
The case centers the RR/BAYC NFTs (short for Ryder Ripps Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs) created by Ripps, whose side argued that the collection was a protest artwork meant to “bring attention to Yuga’s use of racist and neo-Nazi messages and imagery” and that it was never intended to mislead consumers into believing the collection was associated with BAYC. His legal team has attempted to frame the Yuga Labs lawsuit as an attempt to silence dissent—what’s known as a SLAPP suit—but that argument failed to find traction.
Yuga Labs is the parent company behind the NFT projects Bored Ape Yacht Club and Crypto Punks, and has argued that the project should not earn copyright protections, as it was not satire, but a deliberate attempt to confuse buyers and damage their brand—a claim the court upheld last year. In an earlier ruling, the judge wrote that “confusion is likely given the complexity and required sophistication to understand the blockchain and verify provenance.”
In a email to ARTnews, a representative for Cahen called Yuga Labs’ latest filing as “more of the same,” and includes arguments the court has already rejected. He pointed to a previous similar motion—filed under the guise of an emergency—that was denied after a judge found it both untimely and based on “misleading or incomplete” information. Cahen’s team plans to respond by May 5, and will again highlight what they allege are factual misrepresentations. “Yuga’s so-called emergency tactics are little more than courtroom theater—legally flimsy, financially wasteful, and emblematic of a company that once raised hundreds of millions for a monkey metaverse that still doesn’t exist,” he said.
Attorneys Yuga Labs did not answer a request for comment by publication.