Quentin Tarantino, Miramax at War Over Pulp Fiction NFTs

Filmmaker Quentin Tarantino is pressing ahead with his plans to sell NFTs connected to his breakout hit “Pulp Fiction,” thus risking the — to quote the movie — “great vengeance and furious anger” of Miramax studio.

That anger comes in the form of a lawsuit from the studio, which distributed the 1994 crime drama, and claims Tarantino breached his contract with them when he announced plans to auction off the NFTs in November. Tarantino disagreed with Miramax’s claims, but his auction, which had been set for December, was put on hold.

Now, the director is planning to go ahead with the auction of the non-fungible tokens, which are associated with his original, handwritten screenplay for Pulp Fiction, the New York Times reported Wednesday (Jan. 5).

A hearing on the next steps in the lawsuit is slated for next month, but Tarantino’s plan to hold the auction in the coming weeks could lead Miramax to request an emergency stay of the auction until the legal matters are resolved, the Times says.

Attorneys for the studio say that NFTs are unique, while Tarantio’s lawyers contend the director is simply reproducing copies of his script, a right he reserved more than 25 years ago.

Read more: Melania Trump Is Latest Celebrity With NFT Offering

NFTs are pieces of code connected to images, sound or video files, recorded on the blockchain, and are essentially acting as digital certificates of authenticity.

As they’ve grown in popularity, a number of famous faces have begun pitching the tokens, including Justin Bieber, Lindsay Lohan, superstar Korean pop group BTS and, just weeks ago, former first lady Melania Trump.

It’s not quite clear how NFTs compare with earlier forms of art, Frank Gerratana, an intellectual property expert at Mintz in Boston, said.

“Someone could mint hundreds or thousands of unique NFTs linked to the same creative work, kind of like printing many copies of a book,” he said.

So while each NFT has a unique identifier on a blockchain, they may not be considered distinct. Gerranta said this question will likely arise again as interest in cryptocurrencies grows, meaning the winner of this battle may end up leaving their own mark on the law.