Serena Williams is no stranger to the spotlight and often paves her way through making it into the hot topics discussed around the globe.
The sensational former tennis professional is a minted American personality who has made massive earnings in her career of almost three decades through tournaments prize money and various endorsements with MNCs.
Popularly regarded as the ‘King of WTA’ Williams has her hands dipped in multiple assets for better monetization and earning, and some of these assets have raised suspicion and marked those methods in question illegal.
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Serena, who has been upfront and quite vocal about her struggles in the past, including topics revolving around her body image and struggles concerning racism, was wrapped in an NFT (Non-Fungible Token) controversy almost 2 years back.
The scandal involving the star began in 2021 when Serena announced that her NFT collection “The Serena Collection” was up for auction, following the celebration of her career in the form of digital art and animation on the platform.
Her collection however drew attention concerning the fact that one of the NFTs in it was created by the “Bored Ape Yacht Club” (BAYC), a token collection operating in the crypto Ethereum blockchain, which has been accused of stealing and plagiarizing works of lesser-known artists. The token in question involved a cartoon of a woman with Williams’ signature and an official mech of the American on it.
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The scandal also involved and accused A-list celebrities such as Justin Bieber, and Madonna of their involvement in “promoting and selling a suite of digital assets” and also resulted in being served with a class action lawsuit against the company behind BAYC, Yuga Labs.
Why is Serena Williams’ involvement in the NFT more critical than what was expected?
In addition to the enormous public backlash that followed the events of Serena Williams‘ name in the scandal, the incident gave rise to questions about the ethical implication in the art world when using NFTs to deal with digital art as they resorted to plagiarism.
After a full-scale investigation into the matter was initiated, it was found that Yuga Labs, the company behind Bored Ape, was responsible for selling and bootlegging unauthorized merchandise from other companies, and the art piece in the question of “The Serena Collection” was allegedly claimed as a work stolen from an artist.
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NFTs have often been a subject of discussion and evaluation as they undermine artists and collectors working towards creating significant art pieces and plagiarize their work enjoying the liberty of operating undetected owing to the vast crypto platform offered.
