Matt Furie, the maker of the sometimes controversial, beloved Frog Meme Pepe, demanded that about $4 million worth of the NFT frog theme project be withdrawn from OpenSea due to copyright infringement.
The Mystery Behind The Sad Frog’s NFT Theme
This NFT project, ‘Sad Frogs,’ consists of 7000 programmatically created Sad Frog NFT, which came from 200 traits. Pepe Furrier’s character inspires the showcased artwork.
OpenSea’s Community-help Discord station discloses that various members are asking why the delisting of the verified NFT has happened. Since they no longer have access to the project platform.
According to an OpenSea middleman, they have confirmed that their Pepe items are withdrawn because of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) takedown petition by Matt Furie, Pepe’s creator.
Early in August, the Sad Frog’s community went live. That notwithstanding, it has created above $4M in worth already through its median price of $450 for each NFTs.
A DMCA takedown happens when the person that owns copyright claims that their content is used on the internet without their permission and petitions for its takedown, or the culprit will face more legal action.
The message Furie sent says, “we are aware of the disappointing implications, and we are not enjoying it. However, we must follow due to legal takedown requests”.
Still, the OpenSea moderator added that the project creators can still file a counteraction DMCA even following the DMCA takedown. Thus, he maintains, “we are not biased. We must adhere to the due legal process”.
As stated by the ‘Sad Frog’s project site, this project inspired the communal artworks of cyberpunk aesthetics and internet artists.’ It seems that the ‘Sad Frog’s team is ready to fight the DMCA claim since they now know that they can request a counteraction Digital Millennium Copyright Act to OpenSea.
Team Sad Frogs Takes Action
Already, the ‘Sad Frog’s team has sent an over-the-counter Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Nobody knows the outcome of this particular DMCA since the artwork for the project doesn’t exactly look like the Frog Meme Pepe. Iced Cooly, a Twitter user, points out that Furie is taking risks since the creator of Pepe also has an NFT listing on OpenSea, which illustrates Jabba the Hut, the Star Wars character, in his distinctive art style.
The first time the Frog meme Pepe emerged in Furies comic book “Boy’s Club” series was in 2005. It was an easygoing frog with the trendy catchphrase of “feels good man.” This frog character became famous online after many years of vast “memeing” on online platforms like Reddit, Tumblr, MySpace, and 4chan.
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Furie is not new to contentions over who owns the Pepe Meme brand. Moreover, he played a part in the project “Non-Fungible Pepe,” withdrawn from OpenSea early this year. The project was a great hit and on its way to generating $60m. But then, Furrie rejected the project’s approval when the team appealed to him to join in.
Furrie is constantly on the warpath to bring back his beloved frog from the alt-right undertones linked to 4chan users. Alex Jones of Inowars in 2019 paid Furie the sum of $15,000 because he sold Pepe’s theme wall art.
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