News - 9 January 2023 12:36

Manchester United accused of copying NFT from artist

The NFT collection that Manchester United introduced on Tezos sold out far more quickly than anticipated, but it is accused of copying from another well-known Tezos NFT artist.

On December 28, NFT artist Lucréce tweeted that he was in discussions with Arthur Breitman, co-founder of Tezos, to ask Manchester United why its new NFT line incorporates his designs and aesthetics.

Lucréce’s collection is substantially more expensive and older than that of United, with an average NFT price of about 21 ETH (US$24,919). But United’s Red Devils 7,777 NFTs, on the other hand, sold out more quickly for approximately US$40 each.

The similarities between Lucréce's artwork and that of Manchester United are so striking that some online community members have questioned whether the artist was involved in the Manchester United project.

Lucréce is hoping to reach a mutually beneficial agreement with the Red Devils.

[I’m not saying @ManUtd was inspired by my work, but I’m not saying Manchester United wasn’t inspired by my work. pic.twitter.com/q09Y6uouxF — Lucréce (@DesLucrece) December 23, 2022]

Although the artist took care to avoid accusing Manchester United specifically of stealing his works, he posted an image on Twitter comparing the two pieces of art so that readers may make their own judgements.

The terms and conditions of the United collection state that the NFTs were created by TriliTech platform OÜ, “the for-profit arm of the Tezos foundation,” which is authorized by the Foundation to mint and sell the digital collection of the English football team.

The Devils collection launched by Manchester United is the team’s second digital collectible release.

A few days later, Lucréce announced that Manchester United had responded to him with the intention of reaching an agreement.

[Update: correspondence between me and ManU has started. Had a productive call with them just now. Probably the last update on this for a while since everyone is still on holiday. In times of adversity, you’ll know who your friends are. Thank you, tezos community. 🤝 — Lucréce (@DesLucrece) December 28, 2022]

Many of his followers praised the club for its response and the singer for handling the situation respectfully, which differs from how most people manage controversies on Twitter.

PicthMark has previously covered a story about gaming company Activision Blizzard, which was accused of stealing the concept of an NFT design that gaming studio Midnight Society was planning to introduce in its own game Deadrop. Although Activision admitted adopting the skin design without the artist's consent in its game, it rejected the plagiarism allegations.

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