Key Takeaways
- OpenSea has delisted a number of Ethereum Identify Service domains after receiving trademark complaints from the RIAA.
- The domains in query refer to numerous main recording corporations in addition to particular person executives.
- Yesterday, OpenSea introduced that it could lay off 20% of its workforce resulting from poor market circumstances.
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NFT market OpenSea acquired trademark complaints from the Recording Trade Affiliation of America (RIAA) right this moment and has delisted a number of offending tokens in response.
OpenSea Delists Offending NFTs
It’s been a tough week for OpenSea.
A letter from the RIAA asserts that OpenSea’s market options a number of Ethereum Identify Service (ENS) domains with names that confer with the recording affiliation and its members. OpenSea has now delisted the offending ENS domains from its non-fungible token market.
The RIAA stated that the sale of the offending domains constitutes “dilution, confusion, and/or tarnishment” of emblems. It added that promoting such domains violates cybersquatting legal guidelines, widespread regulation rights of publicity, and unfair buying and selling practices.
The letter lists 89 domains together with these referring to Common Music Group, Atlantic Data, Capitol Data, Warner Music Group, Parlophone Data, and Virgin Data.
A number of different domains confer with particular person music executives. These domains confer with Sony Music Leisure CEO Rob String, Columbia Data CEO Ron Perry, Alamo Data CEO Todd Moscowitz, and UMG CEO Lucian Grainge.
One particular person named within the letter was RIAA chairman Mitch Glazier. In March, Glazier addressed the difficulty of emblems within the NFT business. He famous that RIAA was taking motion in opposition to the NFT platform HitPiece for its rights violations.
OpenSea Prepares for Downturn
At the moment’s information comes shortly after OpenSea announced that it would lay off 20% of its workforce in response to market circumstances.
OpenSea CEO and co-founder Devin Finzer wrote on July 14 that the “unprecedented mixture of crypto winter and broader macroeconomic instability” implies that OpenSea wants to arrange for a presumably “extended downturn.”
General crypto market circumstances have brought on the worth of the NFT market to drop dramatically this summer time.
In comparison with the large market downturn, the RIAA’s complaints are unlikely to do appreciable harm to OpenSea on their very own. Nonetheless, the potential of authorized motion and the compulsion to delist tokens will seemingly have an effect on buying and selling volumes to some extent.
This isn’t the primary time that OpenSea has delisted gadgets. It beforehand delisted ENS domains referring to designer Calvin Klein, and it has additionally delisted a group known as Not Okay Bears, which imitated one other NFT line known as Okay Bears.
Disclosure: On the time of writing, the creator of this piece owned BTC, ETH, and different cryptocurrencies.