French luxury fashion house Hermès has permanently blocked the creator of MetaBirkins NFTs, Mason Rothschild.
MetaBirkins is a collection of 100 non-fungible tokens minted on the Ethereum blockchain. It was released in December 2021 by digital artist Mason Rothschild, whose real name is Sonny Estival. Hermès is famous for its exclusive exotic leather bags. So, the idea behind the NFT collection was to put viewers’ minds on alternative textiles, including faux fur.
The same month when the collection was issued, the fashion house claimed the artworks to be an infringement of the brand’s intellectual property. In January 2022, Hermès filed a lawsuit against the creator. After a year-long battle, in February, Hermès won the case against Mason Rothschild, and the artist was ordered to pay the company $133,000 in damages.
Following this, in March, Hermès requested the Manhattan federal court to stop Mason Rothschild from promoting his NFT collection on social media and his website. On June 23, a Manhattan federal judge issued an order that permanently bans the creator of the MetaBirkins NFT collection from selling and promoting it. In a filing, the Judge, Jed Rakoff, writes: “Hermès proved that Rothschild intentionally misled consumers into believing that Hermès was backing its products.”
In addition to the trademark victory, the company receives $133,000 in damages. More than that, Mason Rothschild was also ordered to transfer Hermès the domain name of the project’s website, “metabirkins.com.”
The filing bans the artist from promoting and selling MetaBirking NFTs. In addition, Rothschild can not mint new Hermès-related artwork. Mason also can not provide additional benefits, such as airdrops, to non-existing holders, as this would incentivize NFT purchases.
Notably, the creator, as well as existing holders, can keep the digital artwork. However, Rothschild must airdrop NFT holders the court order.
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Source: mPost
