Lil Yachty is taking an NFT seller to court. In a lawsuit filed in the Los Angeles federal court on Friday (January 28), Lil Boat is reportedly suing a company called Opulous for “trademark infringement.” The music-related NFT dealer allegedly used Yachty’s name and brand to advertise their “Lil Yachty NFT Collection.”
As reported by Billboard,the collection aimed to give buyers access to new Yachty tracks and included images of the “Yacht Club” rapper as well as press interviews.
Yachty’s lawyer explained in the suit, “Defendants knew that they did not have authorization to utilize plaintiff’s name, trademark or image… yet did so anyways because [it] was beneficial to Defendants’ commercial enterprise, in blatant and conscious disregard for plaintiff’s exclusive legal rights.”
Opulus reportedly pitched Yachty’s management about a potential partnership, and Yachty even joined up for what he called “a general introductory meeting” at one point, but communication between the two sides stopped there and a deal never materialized.
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The suit continued, “There were no further communications between the parties, and accordingly no agreement or deal terms for plaintiff’s involvement in the defendants’ launch of the Opulous platform was ever reached.”
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Lil Yachty’s lawyer added, “Defendants have never remitted any funds or earnings to Plaintiff despite generating millions of dollars from the use of his name, trademark, and image.”
The suit named Parsons and his company Ditto Music as additional defendants. Charges included trademark infringement, unfair competition and a violation of Lil Yachty’s “right of publicity,” which is the right to control how your brand is used.
