Seth Green Loses NFTs for His Upcoming Series in a Phishing Scam

American actor and producer Seth Green had initially planned to launch a new live-action series that would incorporate his NFTs. Unfortunately, the future of the project — titled White Horse Tavern — remains up in the air after Green recently became the victim of a phishing scam. On May 17, the actor took to Twitter to explain what had happened. Four of his NFTs were stolen, following the scam, consisting of Bored Ape #8398, Mutant Apes #9964 and #19182, and Doodle #7546.

“Well frens it happened to me. Got phished and had 4NFT stolen. @BoredApeYC @opensea @doodles @yugalabs please don’t buy or trade these while I work to resolve: @DarkWing84 looks like you bought my stolen ape- hit me up so we can fix it,” Green tweeted on his account. “Thought I was minting GutterCat clones- phishing link looked clean.”

The series had to be put on hold, particularly due to the underlying issues regarding licensing. Bored Apes Yacht Club (BAYC) creator Yuga Labs noted that while it owns the copyright to its NFTs, owners are granted the broad license to utilize their tokens as they please. “When you purchase an NFT, you own the underlying Bored Ape, the art, completely,” it added. Given the situation, the user who stole Green’s tokens has now become the “purchaser” under the company’s licensing rules, taking away the actor’s license to the intellectual property of the NFTs. Hence, the user who goes by DarkWing84 could file for legal action if Green pushes through with the series.

“I bought that ape in July 2021 and have spent the last several months developing and exploiting the IP to make it into the star of this show,” Green elaborated. “Then days before — his name is Fred, by the way — days before he’s set to make his world debut, he’s literally kidnapped.”

Alston & Bird LLP attorney Daniel Dublin furthered that “[if the user] wanted to cause trouble for Seth Green, they probably could, because that person becomes the holder.” Anderson Kill partner and lawyer Preston Byrne, however, assured that the “clean hands” rule would prevent any individual from profiting from property that was acquired in a dishonest fashion.

Green has since been attempting to reach out to the current owner of his NFTs in hopes of settling the affair between them outside of court. “Looking forward to precedent-setting debates on IP ownership & exploitation, having spent 18 years studying copyright & the industry laws. I’d rather meet @DarkWing84 to make a deal, vs in court. We can prove the promise of ape community,” the actor tweeted recently.

Sources: Decrypt, Hypebeast