Enthusiasts of the ETH blockchain token have taken to social media to accuse the Ethereum Investment Trust, officially announced yesterday by Digital Currency Group and Grayscale Investments, of violating copyright.

Critics claim that the name may not be applied to an investment trust deriving value from the Ethereum Classic blockchain. Among them, Redditor etheraddict77 posted to the ETHtrader subreddit a thread titled “Is It Time For The Foundation To Protect The Ethereum Trademark?”

The post claims that the investment trust’s name is willfully misleading, appearing to advertise “original Ethereum,” and thereby bamboozling customers into purchasing the wrong blockchain token. Ethereum Foundation supporters on Reddit further argue that because Ethereum’s founding organization is a non-profit, their intellectual property should not be used by a for-profit entity to gain revenue.

Because the Foundation chose to sell upwards of 90% of the ETC tokens in its possession since the contentious hard fork following the hacking of the DAO, the marketing of an Ethereum Classic investment trust would likely weaken the organization’s influence over the overall Ethereum ecosystem.

Image courtesy of ETHnews publication

A passionate Ethereum supporter named John Lilic, ConsenSysLLC member and co-founder of a coding school for girls in Afghanistan, argued via Twitter that the Ethereum Investment Trust was engaging in “crony capitalism,” which he defined as a “broadly applied term describing scum bag behavior.” Appending to his Tweets the #ProtectEthereum hashtag, he posits that that the advertising of the investment trust amounted to “[r]ipping off non profit name for personal financial benefit.”

Upon further reflection, the provocative nature of the Ethereum Classic investment trust’s branding as “Ethereum Investment Trust” may well have been intentional. Implicit in the naming of the trust, decided on by DCG founder Barry Silbert and other cryptocurrency analysts involved, is the argument that the Classic chain has an equal right to define itself as “Ethereum” technology as does the ETH chain controlled by the Ethereum Foundation.

In an article cross-posted by the ETHnews online publication back in September, the Los Angeles-based law firm Berns Weiss LLP analyzed the intellectual property issues surrounding Ethereum’s contentious hard fork. Stemming from an ideological split, the hard fork famously resulted in the formation of two separate blockchains, today known as “Ethereum” and “Ethereum Classic.”

The article analyzed the situation from a legal perspective, citing several arguments favoring the Classic camp’s broad use of the Ethereum brand. Jeffrey Berns, managing partner at the firm and CEO of ETHnews’ parent company, had the following to say.

“On the remote chance that a court could find a likelihood of confusion with respect to the two blockchains,” wrote the author, “Ethereum Classic would have strong defenses. After all, the Ethereum Classic blockchain, which the Ethereum community has effectively abandoned, was originally called Ethereum. The fact that the new, post-hard fork chain is also named Ethereum is hardly the fault of the Ethereum Classic community.”

The conclusion by the author suggests that ETH blockchain supporters may not have a very strong legal argument to make against the naming of the Ethereum Investment Trust. While the Ethereum Foundation will likely find its political influence weakened by any success won by the Ethereum Classic investment trust, the Foundation’s conscious decision to abandon the classic chain and sell its associated tokens is, as the author points out, “hardly the fault of the Ethereum Classic community.”

At this time it is the responsibility of the Ethereum Foundation to respond to the aforementioned complaints and weigh in on this issue. To this date the Foundation, despite actively selling away its ETC tokens, has made no accusations of wrongdoing against the Ethereum Classic community. While the Foundation does indeed own the Ethereum trademark, there is no indication that the ETC community, nor the Ethereum Investment Trust, is in violation of the General Public License conditions protecting the trademark against misuse.

While ETH blockchain supporters taking to social media may view the investment trust’s emergence as a contentious issue, legal experts may well disagree. As a result of the Public License conditions protecting the ETC community’s use of the blockchain, the precedent of the Ethereum Investment Trust may help solidify Classic’s claim of being equally deserving of being defined as “Ethereum.”

Reddit — Is It Time For The Foundation To Protect The Ethereum Trademark?