Yuga Labs, the Miami-based Web3 company that owns popular NFT collections CryptoPunks and Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC), is making headlines for enforcing its intellectual property rights. Recently, Tom Lehman, creator of the Ethscriptions Protocol, removed Ethereum Punk images from his website and the Ethereum Punks' website at Yuga Labs' request. This move has sparked discussions about the implications of Yuga Labs' earlier trademark-based legal victory for current NFT holders and creators.

While copyright issues in the NFT space remain unclear, trademarks are becoming increasingly important, especially for collections like BAYC that have extensive commercialization rights. Legal expert Frye suggests that owning the copyright to one of 1,000 images in an NFT collection may not be very valuable, but holders of Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs have extensive rights to launch commercialized endeavors around their apes as long as they still own them.

Copyright violations have not been a major legal concern in NFT disputes because what is inscribed on the blockchain cannot be infringing, although this may change if NFTs exceed certain data limits or make substantial changes to the original file. Yuga Labs retains ownership of the intellectual property in CryptoPunks NFTs, but buyers are granted a license and may create derivative works subject to certain restrictions.