Pepe The Frog Creator Removes “Sad Frogs NFT” Project From OpenSea

Pepe the Frog creator removed $4 million worth of Sad Frogs NFT from the OpenSea market after filing a counter DMCA to the marketplace so let’s read more in our latest crypto news today.

The creator of the Pepe the Frog meme Matt Furie requested that the NFT project worth $4 million be removed from Opensea market due to copyright infringement. The “Sad Frogs District” is an NFT project with 7000 programmatically generated NFTs from a selection of 200 traits and the artwork depicted in the NFTs that could draw some inspiration from the character Pepe. According to OpenSea’s community help Discord channel, plenty of members asked why the verified NFT project was delisted as they could no longer access the Sad Frog NFT on the platform. One moderator confirmed the delisting and noted that all Pepe items have been delisted due to a DMCA takedown request by Matt Furie.

Sad Frogs District @SadFrogsD was delisted from @opensea due to a DMCA by @Matt_Furie

Meanwhile he using Jabba the Hutt to sell his NFTs. pic.twitter.com/Dr4EYmDF2m

— Iced Cooly 🧊 (@IcedCoolyETH) August 16, 2021

The Sad Frogs district was launched earlier this month and generated more than $4 million in volume from the median price of $450 per NFT. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act takedown usually happens when a copyright owner asserts that their content Is being used online without having their permission and requested for removal to forgo further legal action:

“We know this is likely disappointing, and we don’t enjoy doing it—that said, we must comply with lawful takedown requests.”

The team has already sent on over the counter DMCA to OpenSea, please be patient with us while we await a response. If you have any questions, please join our discord linked in our bio and we will assist your questions as best we can. #FreeSadFrogs ⚔️ 🐸

— Sad Frogs District (@SadFrogsD) August 16, 2021

The moderator added that while OpenSea had to comply with the DMCA takedown, the creators that feel that their work should not be subject to DMCA are still welcome to file a counter-DMCA:

“ We are unbiased and will follow whatever is lawfully required.”

#SadFrogsDistrict #SadFrogsMeme #NFT

WEN MOON!! @SadFrogsD pic.twitter.com/ubMk6cwKVZ

— SF #1615 (@G4yFrog) August 15, 2021

According to the project’s website, the Sad Frogs are still inspired by collective artworks of internet artists and the team seems to be ready to fight the claims after it revealed that it took up the option to submit a counter DMCA to OpenSea. It is still unclear how the DMCA claim will play out as the project’s artwork doesn’t appear to depict Pepe the Frog. Twitter user “Iced Cooly” pointed out that Furie is playing in a grey area as the Pepe creator has an NFT listed on OpenSea depicting a Star Wars character Jabba the Hut in his specific art style. Pepe the Frog appeared in a 2005 comic book series “Boy’s Club”  as a chilled-out frog with the catchphrase “feels good man.” The character became popular after years of memes on social media platforms like Reddit, 4Chan, and MySpace.