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Hermès International S.A. clinched a decisive legal victory against digital artist Mason Rothschild, with a Manhattan court banning the sale of his 'MetaBirkin' NFTs. The court ruled Rothschild's virtual Birkin bags infringed upon the French fashion house's trademark rights.
Late last week, a court in Manhattan issued a permanent ban on Mason Rothschild. This means that the federal judge ordered him to stop selling the controversial MetaBirkin NFTs. The decision is a complete victory for Hermés, which has been fighting the sale of the non-fungible token that features its famous Birkin bag.
According to Decrypt, in February this year, a jury also took the side of Hermés, which had accused the digital designer of infringing the company's exclusive trademark for a line of Birkin handbags. At the time of the lawsuit filing, the company pointed to Rotschhild's selling of his 100 "MetaBirkins" NFTs which are digital tokens tied to images of various fur-covered bags.
"In effect, the jury found that Rothschild was simply a swindler," the ruling Judge Jed Rakoff said in a filing. "Hermès proved that Rothschild intentionally misled consumers into believing that Hermès was backing its products."
His order immediately bars Rothschild and his partners from selling, marketing, or minting MetaBirkins NFTs. Some other restrictions mentioned include Rothschild's ban from making statements or comments that may confuse people or lead the public to link his NFTs with Hermes MetaBirkin bags.
Moreover, the French company was awarded $133,000 in damages after the court determined that Rothschild's non-fungible token collection was not in any way a form of protected free speech.
The digital designer is not allowed to give any perks or benefits to holders of Metabirkin NFTs that would attract people to buy the NFTS, like airdrop offerings.
"Defendant's entire scheme here was to defraud consumers into believing, by his use of variations on Hermès' trademarks, that Hermes was endorsing his lucrative MetaBirkins NFTs," Fox Business further quoted Judge Rakoff as saying in a statement. "Nothing in the First Amendment insulates him from liability for such a scheme."
Photo by: Henry Chen/Unsplash
