This month, Kanye West filed a trademark lawsuit against the creators of the cryptocurrency “Coinye,” (formerly Coinye West) one of several upstart cryptocurrencies to compete with Bitcoin.
Even though Coinye’s founders claim to have changed the name (and jokingly added reference to a South Park episode poking fun at Mr. West), Kanye West is still pursuing them.
In fact, this week, a federal judge in New York authorized Kanye to pursue third party subpoenas to discover the identities of the creators of Coinye, via information about the webhosts. While cryptocurrencies have, in some part, a measure of anonymity as a goal, the judge’s order gives Kanye’s lawyers great latitude to force third parties to divulge who is behind Coinye (with failure to comply theoretically resulting in contempt). Below are documents from the court case.
Kanye – Order Granting Ex Parte Application