It remains to be seen whether NFTs turn out to be the future of Hollywood collectibles or just another faddish hustle promoted by the financial gurus on TikTok. Mantooth, who follows intellectual property cases. “I have a sneaking suspicion that Tarantino’s folks and Miramax’s folks will figure out a way where everyone can make money, because that’s the easiest path,” said Oklahoma City-based patent attorney T.J. The collectibles are expected to be sold next month, so there’s not much time for Miramax to make its next move, which would be to file a motion for preliminary injunction or apply for a temporary restraining order. The Tarantino-Miramax could settle, like most entertainment lawsuits. My colleague Matt Pearce in April wrote about how comic book publishers including DC were clamping down on illustrators trying to sell digital superhero artwork as NFTs. Miramax isn’t the only company asserting rights amid the NFT craze. Tarantino’s plan is another example of artists trying to use this increasingly popular type of asset to make money from existing work and promote themselves to a rabid audience.īut NFTs are a potential revenue stream for studios too, which have taken advantage of the boom by selling commemorative tokens tied to “The Matrix Resurrections,” “No Time to Die,” “Space Jam: A New Legacy” and “Ghostbusters: Afterlife.” That’s how NFTs of “Mini-Pufts” (or tiny Stay Puft marshmallow men) came into being.
The dispute is really just a crypto-infused update of an age-old story: studios and artists battling to capitalize on famous work. “The question,” he wrote, “is whether selling ‘1 of 1' digital scans of pages from the screenplay falls within Tarantino’s publication rights or, conversely, constitutes the sale of something else, such as merchandise, that he assigned to Miramax.” Under the terms of the contract covering “screenplay publication,” Tarantino can sell the “Pulp Fiction” script in book form or publish a making-of book or novelization, Moss said. (Photo illustration by Nicole Vas / Los Angeles Times Ron Dyar / Unsplash) Crucially, the print publication rights in this case include “screenplay publication,” according to the contract language included with Miramax’s suit. The case will hinge on whether the digital items attached to the NFTs fall under rights Tarantino retained in his deal with the studio, which include the soundtrack album, music publishing, live performance, print publication and interactive media rights. “But the less-shiny reality is that this is primarily a contract dispute - a fight about whether the publication rights Quentin Tarantino reserved in his agreement with Miramax include the right to sell digital screenplay scans.” “NFTs are clearly the bright shiny object that’s driving the parties to court and attracting public interest in the lawsuit,” Moss wrote. It’s more a matter of interpreting Tarantino’s contract. Tarantino earlier this month announced plans to sell NFTs containing “secret” content viewable only by the owner, including “the uncut first handwritten scripts of ‘Pulp Fiction’ and exclusive custom commentary from Tarantino, revealing secrets about the film and its creator.”Īlthough the dispute is fascinating, it may not turn out to be a landmark case for copyright and trademark law in the NFT age.Īaron Moss, an intellectual property attorney at Greenberg Glusker who’s an expert in entertainment cases, wrote in a blog post that this wasn’t really much of a copyright dispute at all and didn’t even have all that much to do with the weird nature of NFTs. An NFT is more like the deed than the house. But they’re not the artifacts themselves. Tarantino’s lawyer Bryan Freedman says the filmmaker is allowed to sell the images under his “reserved rights.”Īs a refresher, NFTs are basically certificates of authenticity that are tracked on a public ledger, giving people a reliable way to prove ownership of one-of-a-kind art, memorabilia and other items. Miramax says Tarantino, who won an Oscar for writing “Pulp Fiction’s” screenplay, doesn’t have permission to sell the NFTs under the terms of his 1993 contract with the company and didn’t consult the studio before forging ahead.