Moonbirds' Public Flight Sparks Debate About Intellectual Property Rights

Moonbirds are now in the public domain.

On Aug. 4, project founder Kevin Rose said that the popular owl-themed NFTs would be moving to a CC0 public license along with Oddities, their companion collection.

Moonbird #6830

“You’re now free to use any Moonbirds and Oddities art in any way you see fit – forever,” he tweeted. A Moonbirds DAO will be formed to oversee licensing of the Moonbirds and Oddities trademarks.

Prominent NFT collectors like DCinvestor, Bharat Krymo and Vincent Van Dough welcomed the surprise move. Still, many felt that Moonbird NFT holders should have been consulted before essentially giving away their IP rights.

“So what exactly is the point of owning an #NFT under a CC0 license compared to say, having it right click and saved on your PC?” tweeted NFT influencer Pranksy.

Twitter user KingBlackBored calls the move a ‘bait-and-switch’.

Most Moonbird holders seem to be unconcerned with the change, as the floor price of the collection is holding steady at around 18 ETH ($29,700), with just a handful of sales since the announcement.

Scammers Misuse OpenSea Transfer Feature

Leading NFT marketplace OpenSea recently launched a new feature that lets users send NFTs to a different wallet than the one making the purchase.

Naturally, scammers have already begun to take advantage of the feature by using it to send questionable NFTs to popular influencers like Gary Vaynerchuk. Wallet tracking apps show these transactions as genuine purchases, enticing flippers to buy in.

“I hope we can get this…addressed so people don’t get fooled,” tweeted Vaynerchuk.

NFTiff

Luxury jeweller Tiffany and Co. is making its first foray into Web3, selling a collection of 250 NFTiffs for 30 ETH ($49,500) apiece.

CryptoPunk holders who mint the NFTs will be able to redeem them for “bespoke handcrafted pendants”. The public sale starts on Aug. 5.

State Of The Market

It was another quiet week in the NFT markets. Sales volumes fell 18% to $170M in the week ending August 1. The number of transactions dropped 10% to 410K.

Source: Dune Analytics

Floor Prices

• Bored Ape Yacht Club – Down 5% this week to 81.75 ETH
• CryptoPunks – Up 7% to 76 ETH
• Otherdeeds – Flat at 2.2 ETH
• Moonbirds – Down 14% to 18 ETH
• Doodles – Down 7% to 10 ETH
• Clone X – Up 18% to 8.9 ETH
• Chromie Squiggles – Down 2% to 9.5 ETH