At the end of 2021, artist Mason Rothschild was inspired by the "Birkin bag", one of Hermès' classic designs, to create a limited edition of 100 pieces of NFT artwork "MetaBirkin", which was released at Art Basel Miami, sparking a wave of hype and panic buying upsurge.

This move immediately attracted the attention of the brand, and it was a rare big move to file a lawsuit; after a year, the result of this lawsuit was finally released this week. The Manhattan Federal Court ruled that Mason Rothschild’s NFT is not subject to the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution case protection, but also to face huge monetary compensation.

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Mason Rothschild released a series of "MetaBirkin" artworks at the end of 2021. At that time, the price started at 0.1 ETH on the NFT platform OpenSea. The transaction volume reached as much as 1.1 million US dollars (approximately NTD30,276,141).

This series of works of art immediately aroused Hermès’ dissatisfaction. They believed that it was not only an obvious infringement, but also misleading the public. These are actually products of their own brand, and they sued Mason Rothschild angrily.

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The "MetaBirkin" series is obviously inspired by the Hermès Birkin bag regardless of its name and shape.

(taken from instagram)

According to Mason Rothschild's point of view, he should be protected by the First Amendment of American law. The lawyer also cited the 1989 case of Rgers v. Grimaldi and the "Rogers review standard", thinking that as long as the result of creation meets a certain degree of artistry, And there will be no problem of confusing consumers, artists have the right to use trademarks without (brand) permission; however, according to a piece of data from professionals presented by Hermes in court, buyers of this NFT Among them, the confusion rate is as high as 18.7%. Not only that, but many media even mistake it for Hermes products, which has indeed caused confusion.

Hermès even posted a series of text messages from Mason Rothschild after the series sparked discussion, revealing that he hopes to "create the same exclusivity and huge demand as this famous bag", not only using and deceiving, Misleading the relevant vocabulary, and even bluntly saying that he wants to find a "golden father" to support himself; Nicolas Martin, Hermès' legal counsel, also told the jury in court that the brand has always planned to launch NFT products, but "MetaBirkin" has greatly damaged The brand’s ability to break into the space, he said: “If we bring our bags into this virtual world, these products will always be considered to be a reference to MetaBirkin.”

More expensive than genuine Hermes!

The million-dollar NFT "Birkin bag" was accused of infringement and all were taken off the shelves  

The "MetaBirkin" series has already disappeared from the platform under the protest of Hermès, and after the verdict was officially announced on Wednesday (8), Mason Rothschild still needs to compensate the brand for a total of US$133,000 (about NT$4 million) loss.

He was quite dissatisfied with such a result, and said in a statement: "What happened today is wrong. If we don't continue to fight, what happened today will continue to happen, and it is far from the end." Hermes is no responded to a request for comment.

According to the report of "VOGUE" magazine, the biggest focus of this case is whether these trademarks that exist in the real world can also be enforced in the virtual world, and it can bring about future trademark issues in Web3 and NFT virtual goods. clearer standards.

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