Conglomerates fight to keep their contents from 'NFT hunters'

South Korea’s retail giant Shinsegae Inc. was recently tipped off that its marketing character JRilla is available for trade on New York-based NFT (non fungible token) exchange called OpenSea. 

The gorilla sporting a cool hairdo is created in the image of its vice chairman Chung Yong-jin. The JRilla NFT is priced at 0.1 ETH, equivalent to over $260 at the time of publishing this article. 

Shinsegae plans to request OpenSea to delete the item, citing lack of permission from the company. 

The South Korean chaebol is not alone in actively detering the so-called NFT hunters from trying to turn their intellectual property into digital assets. 


‘NFT HUNTERS’ 

The global NFT trade volume has been skyrocketing in recent years.

According to Reuters, the figure jumped from $94.9 million in 2020 to $24.9 billion last year. 

In addition to OpenSea, Ethereum-based Rarible, Cryptopunks, and SuperRare are well-known NFT platforms worldwide.

In South Korea, Hyosung Corp.’s Meta Galaxia, operated by GalaxiaMetaverse Co. and Kakao Corp.’s Klip Drops are the best known NFT exchanges. 

The digital creators' enthusiasm for existing works of art is also prevalent in fine arts.

Marketing agency Wannabe International was in the hot seat last year for trying to turn famous works of art by renowned modern artists into NFTs to auction them off. The agency’s auction plan did not materialize, hit by outrage from the original creators.

Whether Shinsegae Food Inc., the owner of JRilla's intellectual property, can have the US exchange delete the token is unclear. 

“Under the South Korean copyright law, a creator’s intellectual property is protected on the internet as stipulated by Article 18 of the Public Transmission Right,” PD & Law partner Han Sang-hoon said. “There is a growing number of legal disputes as some NFT creators are turning contents into tokens without permission from the original artists and uploading them on global exchanges.” 

UNCLEAR LEGAL CONSEQUENCES

US activewear giant Nike and French fashion house Hermes are also in legal battles with those who used their trademarks in the digital space.

Last week, Nike Inc. sued StockX in Manhattan federal court. The online marketplace specializing in sneaker resale used the company's trademark to create NFTs based on the image of a limited edition Nike kicks. 

In Jan last year, Hermes began legal proceedings against US artist Mason Rothschild. Rothschild created and sold digital art inspired by the famous Birkin bag on OpenSea. Dubbed MetaBirkins, the token was sold for $42,000.

Some companies are preemptively releasing their own NFTs before the third parties. 

Adidas launched digital tokens in Nov. 2021. Prior to the token release, the activewear giant bought a Bored Ape and outfitted it with a custom-branded tracksuit.

In South Korea, Brand X Co., which owns the leggings maker Xexymix, announced its plans to sell NFTs last week. The fashion label collaborated with Galaxia Moneytree Co. to create digital leggings as token to don avatars. 

The Hyundai Department Store, for its part, applied for three NFT-related trademarks on Sunday, one of which is dubbed Meta Hyundai.

Write to Jeong-Cheol Bae at bjc@hankyung.com
Jee Abbey Lee edited this article.