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A landmark judgement on NFT and Web 3 was delivered today by Hon’ble Justice Amit Bansal, of the Delhi High Court. He dismissed Rario’s plea against Web 3 fantasy gaming platform Striker as well as digital gaming platform Mobile Premier League. Rario had asked to stop Striker using information about cricket players that were publicly available.
In its order, the Delhi High Court stated that “the plaintiffs cannot claim an exclusive right to use an NFT technology.” NFT is an open-source technology.
Striker collaborates with artists to create original art based on public events and memories. The platform is primarily a fantasy league that allows users to develop and retain the players that they “buy” in their fantasy teams over multiple seasons of cricket.
Cricketers such as Harshal Patel Shivam Dube, and Umran malik have all signed NFT agreements with Rario. Striker’s petition was also joined by All India Gaming Federation and Winzo. AIGF stated in its intervention that the Indian gaming sector would be at a disadvantage if it could not use identifiers to identify players.
Roland Landers (CEO of the All India Gaming Federation, AIGF) said: “This is a win for thousands of independent game developers who work tirelessly to build a vibrant Indian gaming sector and achieve our Hon’ble PM’s dream of $1 trillion digital economy.” “AIGF intervened as the legal questions involved directly affected the online gaming industry, and sought to limit innovation, especially in fantasy sports and the NFT, blockchain and NFT arenas. AIGF’s interventions focused on preventing any monopoly in the online gaming industry and allowing MSMEs the freedom to innovate continuously within the Web 2 or Web 3 space. AIGF, as the largest and oldest industry body and voice of MSME gaming startups, believes that the sector must support innovation and encourage creativity and discourage anticompetitive, monopolistic, and anti-competitive tendencies. Through the order, the Hon’ble Court has acknowledged that the use Web 3 technologies and traditional formats of online gaming cannot be restricted, unless there is a clear violation to the law, and has upheld rights for small developers to develop for India”, Landers added.
The artist community welcomed the order, as they had worked with Striker in order to show their digital art and monetize it effectively to a wider audience. Najeeb Thomas, an artist, stated, “We thank the Delhi High Court, for recognising small independent artists’ rights. Young and aspiring artists can express their love for players by creating cricket-themed art. The court’s ruling today not only protects the rights of artists to create and contribute to the conversation around cricket and art, but also gives us more freedom to do so.”
Nitesh Jain said that Striker is grateful to the Delhi High Court, which ruled there cannot be a monopoly on NFT technology. Striker and other indie game developers can’t thrive in a world with NFT technology monopolized. Just as you can’t ask photographers to stop using public color photos, you also cannot tell developers and artists not to make NFTs from publicly available images or data. It protects both the rights of indie developers, who can’t afford expensive licenses and the artists we work with. They are able to use the revolutionary new technology (NFT) and create art from public images and information. “By using blockchain and NFT technology, we can also keep our systems transparent and free from fraud.”
