Mango wins NFT copyright case in Spanish courts

In a significant legal development, Mango emerged victorious in a lawsuit filed by the Spanish copyright society VEGAP for copyright infringement. The lawsuit pertained to the generation of NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens) based on the artistic creations of three highly regarded Catalan artists which Mango showed in the US.

For the opening of a Mango store on Fifth Avenue in New York, Punta Na (Mango’s IP holding company) temporarily provided its works for display during the inauguration. These works, along with new digital ones commissioned by Mango from crypto artists, were meant to fuse art, fashion, and Mediterranean culture.

During the store opening, the original and digital works were simultaneously displayed in its physical (Fifth Avenue store), digital store (Opensea platform), and virtual (Decentraland metaverse) dimensions. The controversy centers on whether the the owner of the original paintings, had the right to transform them into NFTs without infringing on the authors' rights.

To make it more complex, the creation of the NFTs was based on digital copies of works of famous artists such as Miró, Tàpies and Barceló (of which Mango owned the physical originals), reported IPKitten.

The Spanish court said it found no proof that the agreement for selling the physical artworks to Mango excluded the right to show them to the public. The court also believed that since Mango became the new owner, it had the right to exhibit the artworks publicly, whether in the real world or in a virtual space