Florida Judge Dismisses Case Against NFT Artist Over Million-Dollar Deal That Never Was

A Florida judge ruled in favor of the digital artist Danny Casale in a breach of contract suit brought by the web3 collective DigiART, which claimed that the two had a year-long profit-sharing agreement on initial drops of Casale’s NFT projects. According to the suit, DigiART claims Casale gave the company exclusive rights to market and sell any NFTs the artist made between May 2021 and May 2, 2022. In exchange for DigiART’s marketing prowess, Casale would split the net profits of his NFTs evenly with the company. In the judgement, Judge Wendy Berger outlined a blow-by-blow account the events that led to the lawsuit and the reason for her decision. Marcel Katz, who since January 2021 had worked as Casale’s “east coast representative” for his physical artworks via his company Art Plug, asked Casale if the artist would like to form a second partnership, one strictly based on the sale of NFTs called DigiART. Casale agreed to that proposal. After the two had come to terms about splitting profits and secondary sales, a DigiART representative emailed Casale a draft agreement. While there were details in the body of the email regarding the profit-sharing structure, it had no start date. Casale signed the agreement on April 30, 2021, with the start date still blank.