{"id":5059,"date":"2023-03-21T14:52:59","date_gmt":"2023-03-21T14:52:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nft.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2023\/03\/21\/lawsuit-against-sothebys-and-kevin-mccoy-dismissed\/"},"modified":"2023-03-21T14:52:59","modified_gmt":"2023-03-21T14:52:59","slug":"lawsuit-against-sothebys-and-kevin-mccoy-dismissed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nft.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2023\/03\/21\/lawsuit-against-sothebys-and-kevin-mccoy-dismissed\/","title":{"rendered":"Lawsuit Against Sotheby\u2019s and Kevin McCoy Dismissed"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<h2 id=\"h-the-alpha\">The Alpha<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>A New York federal judge <a href=\"https:\/\/www.law360.com\/articles\/1587630\/ownership-claim-over-nft-sotheby-s-sold-for-1-5m-tossed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">dismissed<\/a> the Canadian corporation Free Holdings Inc.\u2019s lawsuit claiming ownership of the digital artwork <a href=\"https:\/\/nftnow.com\/art\/quantum-the-first-piece-of-nft-art-ever-created\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Quantum<\/a> on March 17, 2023. Created in 2014 by Jennifer and Kevin McCoy, Quantum is the first known NFT. It was auctioned for $1.47 million by Sotheby\u2019s in June 2021. <\/li>\n<li>The judge, U.S. Magistrate Judge James L. Cott, noted that the litigation appeared to be an \u201cattempt to exploit open questions of ownership in the still-developing NFT field.\u201d Further, the suit did not allege \u201ca concrete or particularized injury sufficient for standing to sue in federal court.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>While the NFT was minted on Namecoin, an early blockchain controlled by Free Holdings, the judge says Kevin McCoy later minted it on Ethereum, making them two different NFTs. <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n<h2 id=\"h-dive-deeper\">Dive deeper<\/h2>\n<p>According to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ledgerinsights.com\/sothebys-sued-over-quantum-nft-auction\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Ledger Insights<\/a>, in order to maintain ownership of a digital item minted on the Namecoin blockchain, users must renew it every 250 days. However, after the McCoys minted Quantum in 2014, they did not renew it, leading to a user named EarlyNFT to acquire the ownership rights. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nysd.uscourts.gov\/sites\/default\/files\/2023-03\/Free%20Holdings%20vs%20mccoy.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Court documents<\/a> state that the user EarlyNFT was a \u201cpseudonym for Free Holding\u2019s sole member.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Free Holdings argued that McCoy and Sotheby\u2019s statements in the NFT auction\u2019s promotional materials, calling it the \u201cfirst NFT ever created,\u201d harmed its chances of profiting from the $1,472,000 sale of Quantum. The company cited in its <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nysd.uscourts.gov\/sites\/default\/files\/2023-03\/Free%20Holdings%20vs%20mccoy.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">amended complaint<\/a> that the materials did not distinguish the difference between \u201cEthereum-Quantum\u201d and \u201cNamecoinQuantum.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Yet, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nysd.uscourts.gov\/sites\/default\/files\/2023-03\/Free%20Holdings%20vs%20mccoy.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">the ruling<\/a> determined that Free Holdings \u201cfailed to allege a proprietary interest in Quantum,\u201d meaning the company did not sufficiently allege a claim that they had sole ownership of the Quantum sold by Sotheby\u2019s even though they had the basis to support its ownership of the Namecoin NFT. <\/p>\n<p>Ultimately, the fact that the NFTs were on two different blockchains drove the final decision. This case is a prime example demonstrating how blockchain technology can be used to confirm ownership of NFTs.<\/p>\n<p><em>This story was breaking and has been updated.<\/em><\/p>\n<h3 id=\"h-in-case-you-missed-it\">In case you missed it: <\/h3>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/nftnow.com\/news\/lawsuit-against-sothebys-and-kevin-mccoy-dismissed\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Alpha A New York federal judge dismissed the Canadian corporation Free Holdings Inc.\u2019s lawsuit claiming ownership of the digital artwork Quantum on March 17, 2023. Created in 2014 by Jennifer and Kevin McCoy, Quantum is the first known NFT. It was auctioned for $1.47 million by Sotheby\u2019s in June 2021. The judge, U.S. Magistrate [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5060,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/nftnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/Quantum_NFT-1.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nft.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5059"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nft.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nft.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nft.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nft.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5059"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nft.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5059\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nft.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5060"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nft.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5059"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nft.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5059"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nft.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5059"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}