Can’t have a real-life or digital Birkin now …
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TechTranscript
00:00Luxury brand Hermes won a trademark lawsuit
00:02against a digital artist who created unauthorized NFTs
00:06of their signature handbag.
00:07The fashion house sued Mason Rothschild
00:09over his meta Birkins project,
00:11which consisted of 100 images of the coveted Birkin bag
00:14covered in colorful fur and patterns.
00:16In 2021, Rothschild began selling the NFTs for $450 each
00:20and earned roughly $125,000 in total.
00:23A lawyer for Hermes argued the only reason
00:25the NFTs were purchased was because of the Birkin name,
00:28which implied a non-existent connection to the brand.
00:30Lawyers for Rothschild argued the NFTs were art
00:33and should be protected by the first amendment,
00:35similarly to Andy Warhol's paintings of Campbell's soup cans.
00:38A Manhattan federal judge concluded
00:40that the non-fungible tokens were neither art
00:42nor protected speech and could likely confuse consumers.
00:45Hermes was awarded $133,000 in damages
00:48for trademark infringement, dilution, and cyber squatting.
00:51The meta Birkins trial is one of the first
00:53to examine the relationship
00:54between intellectual property law and NFTs.