Quentin Tarantino Ends ‘Pulp Fiction’ NFT Lawsuit For Copyright Infringement
Acclaimed filmmaker Quentin Tarantino and movie studio Miramax have resolved their longstanding dispute over “uncut script scenes.” According to filing in courtboth parties agreed to drop the lawsuit.
NFT infringes copyright
Miramax sued Tarantino in November 2021 after he announced the NFT auction of “uncut script scenes” from “Pulp Fiction”. The film studio claimed to own all distribution rights to the film.
At the time, Marimax was building its own NFT strategy. According to studio attorney Bart Williams, “this one-time effort devalues the NFT rights to ‘Pulp Fiction,’ which Miramax intends to maximize through a strategic and holistic approach.”
Tarantino’s team claimed that because NFTs did not exist at the time of the film’s release, they did not fall within the scope of prohibited media for redistribution.
The first NFT in Tarantino’s collection sold at auction in January 2022 for over $1 million. Additional NFT sales were canceled due to the dispute.
In the original auction press release, Secret Network claimed that Tarantino had “exclusive publishing rights to his Pulp Fiction screenplay and that the original handwritten copy remained a personal creative treasure that he kept private for decades”.
After months of fighting, the film company reportedly intends to pull its case within two weeks and work with the filmmaker on future projects, including NFTs.
“The parties have agreed to put this matter behind them and look forward to collaborating on future projects, including potential NFTs,” Tarantino and Miramax said in a joint statement.
Tarantino and Miramax have collaborated on hit films such as Kill Bill: Volumes 1 and 2. Since its premiere in 1994, Pulp Fiction has grossed $107.93 million in the United States and $213 million internationally.
NFTs are still a gray area in copyright law
NFT technology has taken the digital intellectual property creation arena by storm quite recently, so it remains a headache for regulators and copyright advocates.
The minting and selling of NFTs is mostly unregulated, but it is also widely available to a global audience. Although there have been decades-long disputes over artists’ resale rights in the United States, NFTs offer potential workarounds for artists in this regard.
The sale of an NFT does not necessarily transfer to the buyer the underlying copyright in the work that exists “off-chain”. When selling a physical copy of a creative work, the transfer of the underlying copyright belongs to the creator or most recent copyright holder.
Under US copyright law, the creation of an NFT may be classified as a copy or derivative of the original work. This means that the copyright holder is and should be the only one entitled to transform the original work into NFT.
on the reverse
- After the backlash, NFT market Opensea recently updated its policy and security measures to protect users from plagiarism and scams.
- On July 1, 2021, Larva Labs, a well-known NFT developer, filed a Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) takedown request with the NFT platform Foundation for online exposure of CryptoPunk work donated by Ryder Ripps as its own. .
Why You Should Care
The lawsuit was considered by many to be a classic example of the application of Web2 copyright laws in a Web3 environment. As the NFT industry is still young and developing, copyright regulations are still vague.
Learn more about how blockchain is revolutionizing the film industry:
Would “Game of Thrones” have ended differently if it was on the Blockchain?
Decentralize the film industry for better funding
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