A judge in the U.S. has blocked Roc-A-Fella Records co-founder Damon Dash from auctioning his rights to Jay-Z’s 1996 debut album Reasonable Doubt as a non-fungible token (NFT).
The auction, scheduled for June 23-25, was cancelled by SuperFarm after Roc-A-Fella sent a legal threat.
The label then filed a lawsuit against Dash alleging that “by attempting such a sale, Dash has converted a corporate asset and has breached his fiduciary duties.”
Judge John Cronan agreed that Roc-A-Fella was likely to prevail on its claims of breach of fiduciary duty, conversion and unjust enrichment.
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Dash, who co-founded Roc-A-Fella in 1995 with Jay-Z and Kareem Burke, countered that he was trying to sell his share of the label, not his rights to any one album.
But, according to multiple reports, SuperFarm had said in a release: “The newly minted NFT will prove ownership of the album’s copyright, transferring the rights to all future revenue generated by the album from Damon Dash to the auction winner.”