The production company Miramax filed a complaint on Tuesday, November 16, against director Quentin Tarantino.
The studio that owns the copyright to the film
Pulp Fiction
opposes the plan to sell NFT, these unique digital assets, taken from the film.
The artist announced his intentions in early November to sell “
exclusive
”
scenes
from the feature film in the form of NFT. A sale organized on the Secret Network sales platform running on the blockchain. The exact content of these tokens, however, remains a "
secret
" and can only be known by buyers. For the company founded by Harvey Weinstein, this use of the cult license for commercial purposes represents an infringement of copyright.
What gets stuck is that at no time in the process was the Miramax company made aware of this project.
The lawyer for the plaintiff Bart Williams explains that this impromptu sale comes in addition to disrupting the plans of the studio which scrutinizes the NFT market for its own account.
"
This ad hoc effort devalues the NFT rights of Pulp Fiction that Miramax intends to maximize through a strategic and global approach
", denounces the lawyer.
Legal vagueness
The NFT being only a recent concept, the exploitation of this concept was not taken into account when the contracts were signed in the early 1990s. In this case, the NFT must be assimilated to "
a publication". of the scenario
”according to Quentin Tarantino's lawyers.
A publication right which the director has not waived in his agreement with Miramax.
On the studio side, the situation is taken the other way around.
He argues that NFTs are a one-time sale and do not amount to posting a screenplay.
Consequently, Miramax would hold the exploitation rights in NFT.
A real legal puzzle.
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