Cinema hero Quentin Tarantino has settled his NFT lawsuit with film production company, Miramax, according to a ruling filed in the United Stated District Court in the Central District of California earlier this week.
In 2021, Miramax sued Tarantino for breach of contract, copyright infringement after the director announced that he was looking to capitalise on the NFT market and offer scenes that were left on the cutting room floor in 1994 when Pulp Fiction was released.
Tarantino's position throughout the entire matter was that his contract with Miramax was clear and that:
he has the right to sell NFTs of his hand-written script for Pulp Fiction and this ham-fisted attempt to prevent him from doing so will fail.
In a joint statement released after filing the settlement, Tarantino and Miramax said:
The parties have agreed to put this matter behind them and look forward to collaborating with each other on future projects, including possible NFTs.
The terms of the settlement have not, at the time of writing, been disclosed by either party. Indicative of what the settlement figure was, in January of this year the first NFT drop from Tarantino's collection sold for over USD$1 million at auction.
Crypto-analysists and market commentators have viewed the Miramax action as a typical example of Web2 copyright laws being applied in a Web3 environment. Critical to Tarantino's argument was the notion that, as NFTs did not exist - nor were even in contemplation - in 1994, they were not captured by the contractual provisions relating to restrictions on the mediums for redistribution or adaptation of his films.
The allusion in the joint statement about potential future artistic collaboration is interesting, leading to the obvious inference that Tarantino and Miramax are 'cool' at this moment 'like [two] little Fonzies...' (with apologies to Samuel L Jackson).