A court in the eastern city of Hangzhou in China held NFTCN’s parent company, Bigverse, responsible for allowing a user to mint NFTs from stolen artwork.
In a landmark ruling, the court accused Chinese digital art trading platforms of failing to ascertain whether a user using NFTs was in fact the rightful owner of the artwork.
nft artifact theft
As reported by the South China Morning Post, the court ruled that it was NFTCN’s fault for allowing the owner’s “right to disseminate actions through the information network” to be infringed.
The lawsuit against BigVerse was filed by the Shenzhen-based company Qice. The plaintiffs said that a user on the NFTCN Marketplace listed a non-fungible token with an artwork featuring a cartoon tiger that had received a vaccine shot created by artist Ma Qianli. The report states that the cartoon picture was sold by an anonymous user for $137.
To compensate for the loss, BigVerse was ordered to fine Qice $611 and block NFTs from being transmitted by sending them to an “eater address”, which is essentially a crypto wallet with no private keys.
The court argued that BigVerse is responsible for monitoring user actions that infringe on the rights of other customers as it profited directly from such transactions. It further suggested that the NFT Marketplace should set up a copyright check mechanism to look into artworks uploaded by users on its platform.
The latest development comes less than a month after popular Chinese messaging app – WeChat – announced the suspension of some NFT-linked accounts to curb speculation in the digital asset.
China’s NFT Ecosystem
The NFT digital art market has been stirring up, despite Chinese regulators’ distaste for cryptocurrency trading and mining operations.
So far, the country has allowed NFTs, but prohibited individuals from betting and trading. Tech Goliaths such as Alibaba, Tencent and JD have made their own initiatives that allow users to buy and collect NFTs. However, they are barred from trading or reselling their purchases.
As previously reported, China’s state-backed blockchain infrastructure Blockchain Services Network (BSN) announced plans to launch NFTs. To accelerate such adoption, BSN teamed up with Neo to form an unlicensed chain – Jiuquan.
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