NFT quarrel: PUNKS and PHUNKS

NFTs, non fungible tokens, are the newest multi-million dollar market. Every day dozens of new NFT projects are launched, after all, everyone wants to be the creator of a new NFT success.

Pictures of monkeys, monsters, houses, everything passes by. A popular project does everything slightly differently than the previous projects (hence, everything is about branding and originality). Or you just don't do everything differently… in this blog we talk about the matter between the Punks and the Phunks.

One of the older, and most popular, projects is the CryptoPunks. The company behind these NFTs is Larva Labs. Hundreds of thousands of dollars are paid for an NFT of a CryptoPunk.

Recently, the NFT project CryptoPhunk was launched by Not Larva Labs. The motto of the newcomer CryptoPhunks is probably “copying is also art”. The name, the design and even the company name, everything is based on a copy of Larva Labs.

On the Not Larva Labs website, the homepage reads: “Our lawyers told us to put something here to remind you that we are, in fact, definitely not Larva Labs.” They also have a statement in which they indicate that on Web3 (the newest form of the internet), absolute freedom of expression should apply because art is always a derivative of previous expressions. Freedom should be limitless. This statement is already a preview of their response to the copyright claim of Larva Labs, who understandably struggles with the CryptoPhunks.

Although the entire NFT market is new, young and to a large extent decentralized, this does not mean that current laws and regulations do not apply. Therefore, CryptoPhunks can await some legal firework. On the other hand, CryptoPhunks is an interesting project that pushes the boundaries and questions it. Can a copy and parody also be art?

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