By Jack Queen
(Reuters) – Quentin Tarantino and Miramax LLC have settled a copyright suit over the director’s “Pulp Fiction” non-fungible tokens, court records show.
The Oscar Award-winning director and Los Angeles-based Miramax plan to file dismissal papers within two weeks, according to a Thursday filing in federal court in California.
Tarantino and Miramax said in a joint statement that they have put the matter behind them and look forward to future collaborations, including possible NFT projects.
The case was one of the first intellectual-property disputes over the popular digital assets known as NFTs.
Miramax, which distributed the landmark 1994 film, sued Tarantino https://www.reuters.com/legal/transactional/miramax-sues-quentin-tarantino-over-pulp-fiction-nfts-2021-11-16/ in November 2021 after blockchain provider Secret Network announced it would be selling several tokens of “uncut Pulp Fiction scenes.”
Miramax said in the lawsuit that it held all rights to “Pulp Fiction” except specific ones reserved for Tarantino, which it said did not cover NFTs. The studio asked the court to block the sale.
Tarantino said in a June filing https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/tarantino-tells-court-miramax-has-no-right-block-pulp-fiction-nfts-2022-06-22/ that the case should be thrown out because the NFTs are based solely on his screenplay, which he said is covered by a separate copyright.
The NFTs contain handwritten Pulp Fiction scripts and commentary from Tarantino, according to the filing. The first of the seven tokens sold for $1.1 million in January, according to Secret Network.
Secret Network canceled the remaining auctions several days later, citing “extreme market volatility.”
(Reporting by Jack Queen; editing by Jonathan Oatis)
