According to the complaint, Taylor Whitley co-created an NFT collection called Caked Apes, which incorporated some of Whitley’s IP. Whitley and the defendants agreed to split the revenue from sales of the collection, which was around $1.9 million in primary sales and $225,000 in secondary sales. The partnership quickly devolved. The defendants allegedly locked Whitley out of the community (Discord server and social media accounts) and failed to pay him some proceeds from the NFT sales. Whitley sued for copyright infringement, negligent misrepresentation, breach of implied contract, defamation, and other claims.

In 2017, Luna Aura (real name Angela Anne Flores) co-authored “Walk Away,” a song featured in 3LAU’s (real name Justin Blau) album Ultraviolet. Per the terms of their 2017 agreement, 3LAU was granted rights in the master recording, and Luna Aura was granted a royalty. In February 2021, 3LAU released Ultraviolet as a series of NFTs and generated more than $11 million in initial sales, but Luna Aura allegedly received no royalties from those sales. Aura sued 3LAU for breach of contract, unfair competition, an an accounting.

Quentin Tarantino, one of the most celebrated film directors of modern times, announced plans to auction seven “exclusive scenes” from the 1994 hit Pulp Fiction as NFTs. Miramax sued Tarantino for breach contract, copyright and trademark infringement, and unfair competition, claiming that it held all the rights in the film except for a narrow sliver of “Reserved Rights” held by Tarantino, which didn’t include minting and selling Pulp Fiction NFTs.