Kanye West's lawyers put legal pressure on upstart crypto currency Coinye (formerly Coinye West). In return, the anonymous founders moved up their release date. Danny Yadron has details on digits.

IT'S a tough gig being Kanye West.

First people try to steal your limelight on stage, then they spoof your music videos and now the rapper is fighting a legal battle against a new digital currency made in his image.

'Coinye' is the brainchild of an anonymous group of seven web developers who claim they are just a few guys "excited about the future of cryptocurrency."

The digital currency is designed to rival bitcoin and uses Kanye's name and image as a parody in a bid to help it become more mainstream.

However Kanye hasn't taken kindly to his monetary likeness, with lawyers for Mr West firing a 'cease and desist' letter against the developers.

"Mr West is an internationally renown musical artist, songwriter, producer, film director and fashion designer, to name just a few of Mr West's endeavours," says a letter dated January 6 that reads as if it could have been written by Kanye himself.

The lawyers claim the name of the currency is "substantially similar" to Kanye's name and have demanded the group deactivate all websites and social media accounts associated with the currency.

The developers have changed the name from Coinye West to Coinye and moved their website to India, according to the Wall Street Journal.

However they've also decided what doesn't kill them makes them stronger and brought forward the launch date due to 'legal pressure', according to a note on their website.

Would you sign up to use Coinye? Continue the conversation on Twitter @newscomauHQ

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