Seth Green's Stolen Bored Ape

Submission 10,661

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Overview

Seth Green's Stolen Bored Ape refers to the theft of four NFTs from actor and television producer Seth Green in May 2022, including an ape that he had been using as the main character for an upcoming television series based on Bored Ape Yacht Club characters. Green's ape was stolen by a phishing scam and then sold to the pseudonym DarkWing84. Because Green no longer has ownership of the ape, he cannot move forward with the television series as he no longer holds the copyright to the ape, leading him to publicly plead with DarkWing84 and threaten to bring him to court. The situation elicited mockery and schadenfreude on social media from many.

Background

On May 17th, 2022, Seth Green announced that he had had four NFTs of his stolen via a phishing scam, tweeting,^[1] "Well frens it happened to me. Got phished and had 4NFT stolen. @BoredApeYC @opensea @doodles @yugalabs please don’t buy or trade these while I work to resolve: @DarkWing84 looks like you bought my stolen ape- hit me up so we can fix it."

Developments

On May 21st, 2022, Green appeared at an NFT conference called VeeCon, where he debuted the trailer for a new television series, called White House Tavern, which he was working on starring one of his stolen apes (#8398) who he dubbed "Fred Simian."

.SethGreen</a> new trailer for his new show, keep your eyes peeled👀<a href="https://twitter.com/BoredApeYC?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">BoredApeYC GutterCatGang</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/veefriends?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">veefriends pic.twitter.com/ZzYN87HYWA

— FFVV1211.eth (@FFVV1211) May 21, 2022

On May 25th, Buzzfeed^[2] then wrote about the situation, noting Green's show could be in legal trouble as he no longer owns the rights to the starring character. Later that day, a tweet by @morebuttertv^[3] explaining the situation in plainer terms went viral. The tweet (shown below) reads, "Seth Green’s Bored Ape NFT, which was set to star in its own animated show, was stolen through a phishing scam. Green no longer owns the commercial rights to the NFT and thus the show cannot move forward." The tweet gained over 4,000 retweets, 8,000 quote-tweets, and 30,000 likes in three hours.

The tweet set off a chain of amused schadenfreude at Green's expense. For example, Twitter user @Patrickklepek^[7] tweeted, "You could not make up a funnier story if you tried," gaining over 6,700 retweets and 84,000 likes in less than one day (shown below, left). Adding to the hilarity of the situation for outsiders, it appeared Green had no legal recourse to get his ape back and his only hope was DarkWing84 returning it. Twitter user @EdZitron^[5] pointed out that Yuga Labs, the creators of Bored Apes, make clear in their legal terms that the owner of a Bored Ape has the rights to its usage, no matter how they obtained it, and Yuga Labs "sacrificed any rights to fight for you" (shown below, right).

As of May 24th, DarkWing84 had not responded to Green's request to return the ape. Later that day, Green tweeted,^[4] "Looking forward to precedent setting debates on IP ownership & exploitation, having spent 18 years studying copyright & the industry laws. I’d ather meet @DarkWing84 to make a deal, vs in court. We can prove the promise of ape community" (shown below, left) The tweet, and particularly the sentence "We can prove the promise of ape community," set off another chain of jokes at Green's expense. The Twitter account for Web3 Is Going Great mockingly repeated the phrase in a quote of Green's tweet,^[8] gaining over 170 retweets and 1,000 likes in one day (shown below, right).

DarkWing84's Response

On the morning of May 25th, 2022, Buzzfeed^[6] published an article saying they had reportedly been successful in tracking down DarkWing84, who seemed amenable to returning Green's Ape. While their headline said DarkWing84, who also uses the handles Mr Cheese and drwerty online, "had no plans to return the ape," this appeared to be misleading. DarkWing84 told Buzzfeed, "I’m happy to chat to Seth directly. Just woke up and have seen this craziness. Please put him in contact with me." He also stated the reason he had not responded to Green thus far is that he rarely checks the @DarkWing84 Twitter account, as it's his alternate account to his main, @drwerty. Notably, Green now follows @drwerty on Twitter as of May 25th, 2022.