Nfts
NFT Digital Basel website shuts down amid copyright infringement complaints
The NFT site digitalbasel.io, launched last year and quickly provoked anger of the largest conglomerate of art fairs in the world, Art Basel, has stopped. An email addressed to “Galleries, Artists and Collectors” was sent Wednesday morning announcing the failure of the project.
“The journey of our project has been strewn with pitfalls, and we must announce its conclusion,” reads the letter, before specifying that the project “has been confronted with misunderstandings and unfounded accusations of fraudulent activities” which hindered its progress.
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“Despite our relentless efforts to address these concerns and maintain our integrity, the pervasive criticism and bias from some sectors of the industry has proven insurmountable,” the email continues.
In March 2023, Art Basel sent a cease and desist letter to Digital Basel and accused the company of copyright infringement. At the time, the Digital Basel website described itself as “a new digital art distribution platform with the ability to present artists and their works in a digital dimension” and implied a connection to Art Basel by stating that ” Art Basel goes digital.” » and that “The greatest [sic] The art fair now has a digital twin: Digital Basel.
The website claimed to sell NFT versions of paintings from galleries that often participate in Art Basel fairs, including JTTBlum and Poe, David Zwirner Gallery and Kasmine. Below a page dedicated to each “participating” gallery was a list of NFT versions of physical paintings. Often the images were works of art that were not for sale or listed on the respective gallery’s website. In one case, an NFT of When Frustration Threatens Desire (1990) by artist David Zwirner Kerry James Marshall was available for 4,989 ETH, or $8,720. There was no such NFT for sale by the gallery and the physical work was on loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art from April Sheldon and John Casado.
A spokesperson for Zwirner told ARTnews at the time: “It is important for us to protect both the reputation of the gallery and the intellectual property rights of the artists we represent. We would like to clarify that neither we nor any of our artists have given digitalbasel.io permission to use our name or their works. We will send a cease and desist letter to digitalbasel.io.
According to the website, galleries paid $199 to have their works published on the site, although several galleries denied having any connection to Digital Basel. The end of Digital Basel’s user agreement stated – in hard-to-read gray text – that the company “is not affiliated with Art Basel in any form or partnership.” All galleries, artwork and prices shown on the website are for reference purposes only. The user agreement also stated that Digital Basel was “not responsible for any direct, indirect or consequential damages, claims, losses or liabilities relating to the use or inability to use the Digital Basel platform.”
In April 2023, a spokesperson for Digital Basel told ARTnews that the website had not officially launched and that the platform was intended “as a project that would help connect new collectors and leading galleries across the world,” adding that “we never intended to connect new collectors and leading galleries across the world.” sell anything – on the contrary, we wanted to connect galleries to new collectors.
“We envisioned our platform as a complete virtual meta-gallery where users can discover contemporary artists, galleries and notable artworks. Digital Basel aims not only to present art, but also to create a sense of belonging. To achieve this, we incorporated a “call to action,” allowing visitors to request artwork quotes from galleries,” the spokesperson said in an email.
Digital Basel did not immediately respond to a request for comment.