Director Quentin Tarantino is being sued by the film studio Miramax over the release of NFT’s for his classic 1994 film Pulp Fiction. Earlier this month, Tarantino and Secret Network announced that seven Secret NFTs based on Pulp Fiction are being released, including scenes that were cut from the film. In addition, those that buy the NFTs will also receive exclusive access to extras, including commentary from Tarantino and art. The assets will be one-of-a-kind and will only be visible to the owner of the NFT.
The film Pulp Fiction was released by Miramax, who has their own plans to release NFT’s for the feature, alleges that Tarantino does not hold the rights to release the NFT line and that his team added goals for the line after a cease-and-desist letter was sent.
Part of Miramax’s lawsuit is as follows:
“Tarantino’s conduct has forced Miramax to bring this lawsuit against a valued collaborator in order to enforce, preserve, and protect its contractual and intellectual property rights relating to one of Miramax’s most iconic and valuable film properties,” it goes on to say. “Left unchecked, Tarantino’s conduct could mislead others into believing Miramax is involved in his venture. And it could also mislead others into believing they have the rights to pursue similar deals or offerings, when in fact Miramax holds the rights needed to develop, market, and sell NFTs relating to its deep film library.”
In a statement, Bart Williams, a partner at Proskauer Rose LLP, who is representing Miramax in the lawsuit, had this to say: “This group chose to recklessly, greedily, and intentionally disregard the agreement that Quentin signed instead of following the clear legal and ethical approach of simply communicating with Miramax about his proposed ideas. This one-off effort devalues the NFT rights to Pulp Fiction, which Miramax intends to maximize through a strategic, comprehensive approach.”
Tarantino's lawyers have said that the director has "Reserved Rights," and the rights to publish his own screenplay. Tarantino and Miramax have collaborated on several films, including Reservoir Dogs, Jackie Brown, Kill Bill: Volume 1 and Volume 2. It will be interesting to see how this turns out, as this could be a landmark in who owns the rights to distribute NFTs going forward.