Mason Rothschild created an NFT project called MetaBirkins in which each of 100 NFTs depicts one of Hermès’ famous Birkin handbags. Hermès sells those handbags for thousands of dollars and owns trademarks in the handbag’s name and trade dress. Hermès sued Rothschild for trademark infringement and related claims.

Yuga Labs is the creator behind the most well-known NFT project to date: the Bored Ape Yacht Club, a collection of 10,000 NFTs of apes in various costumes and poses. Ryder Ripps, an artist, alleged that the team behind Yuga had neo-Nazi sympathies, and he created a mirror image of the BAYC NFTs called RR/BAYC, which Ripps described as “a protest against and a parody of” BAYC. Yuga sued Ripps and his business partner Jeremy Cahen for trademark infringement and related claims.

This is the second major copyright infringement suit filed against generative-AI company Stability AI (creator of Stable Diffusion). Getty’s complaint is for copyright infringement, trademark infringement, unfair competition, trademark dilution, DMCA violations, and related state law claims. Getty alleges that Stability AI is building a competing business using Getty’s images without permission. It listed 7,216 of its copyrighted images in the complaint, a subset of the millions it’s alleging Stability AI is infringing. Getty also alleges that its famous watermark is on some Stability AI output images, confusing users into believing the images originated with Getty, and that Stability AI violated the DMCA by trying to remove it.

StockX sells NFTs that represent ownership of physical goods (like sneakers) that are stored in StockX’s “vault.” StockX minted and sold NFTs of shoes having Nike’s famous trademarks which represent ownership of Nike shoes in its vault. Nike sued StockX for trademark infringement and related claims.

Playboy sued the people behind the websites www.playboyrabbitars.app and www.playboyrabbit.com for selling counterfeit copies of Playboy’s Rabbitars, a collection of 11,953 NFTs inspired by Playboy’s most famous iconography, art, photography, and celebrities. Playboy brought claims for federal trademark infringement and trademark infringement and unfair competition under New York law.

Quentin Tarantino, one of the most celebrated film directors of modern times, announced plans to auction seven “exclusive scenes” from the 1994 hit Pulp Fiction as NFTs. Miramax sued Tarantino for breach contract, copyright and trademark infringement, and unfair competition, claiming that it held all the rights in the film except for a narrow sliver of “Reserved Rights” held by Tarantino, which didn’t include minting and selling Pulp Fiction NFTs.