Artist hoist with his own NFT petard
Luxury leathergoods brand Hermès has taken a dim view of complaints from a California-based artist and entrepreneur, Mason Rothschild.
At the start of December, Mr Rothschild launched a series of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) based on the famous Hermès Birkin bag.
NFTs are units of data, associated with objects, that are stored on a blockchain. Mr Rothschild’s are called MetaBirkins; consumers began buying them immediately, paying in cryptocurrency and displaying them in online, 3D virtual environments.
As soon as Mr Rothschild began selling MetaBirkins, though, “fake versions” of them began to appear and to find buyers. Mason Rothschild quickly cried foul.
He has earned no sympathy whatsoever from Hermès. The leathergoods brand told the Financial Times it had not authorised the artist’s use of its product name or image. It said the NFTs were an infringement of its intellectual property.
Hermès said it had not yet taken any steps of its own into NFTs, saying that what it values is the “tangible expression of handcrafted physical objects”.
