HitPiece criticized for selling music as NFTs without artists consent

• HitPiece’s business concept was straightforward: sell non-fungible tokens (NFT) of music.

• The musicians were unaware that their material was being sold on HitPiece.

• HitPiece did not tell artists that NFTs of their work were being sold on the site, nor did they confirm that these artists wanted NFTs of their music.

Artists and music enthusiasts alike were upset by this. While the music NFT platform appears to have begun with the goal of assisting artists in continually earning cash from their sales, it has now been so heavily falsely accused that it has removed its marketplace from its website.

Rory Felton, a music producer who co-founded the independent record label The Militia Group, which was eventually bought by Sony Music, and Jeff Birmingham, an early investor in Spotify, started HitPiece in 2020. Felton revealed in January that the business had acquired $5 million in early investment.

No consent from musicians

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HitPiece did not consult with musicians before marketing their compositions as NFTs.

On the podcast, Felton stated. “The artist will receive supremacy from the first auction and later from each subsequent payment, resulting in a continuous cash flow for rights holders and artists.”

According to Felton on the podcast, the two planned for HitPiece to be “the destination for music NFTs online.” Users could collect 1/1 edition NFTs for every song in the world in the beta version of HitPiece, which was developed on top of Spotify’s API.

However, it appears that HitPiece did not tell artists that NFTs of their work were being sold on the site, nor did they confirm that these artists wanted NFTs of their music in the first place – which appears to be at the heart of the majority of user outrage.

Users further argued that because HitPiece only took debit or credit cards for NFT purchases rather than bitcoin, there would be no transaction on the blockchain indicating that customers held a HitPiece NFT.

After receiving widespread criticism, HitPiece apologized to its users on February 2 and offered to reorganize.

Artist will be rewarded

HitPiece did not answer in time to explain how artists will be rewarded for their efforts.

It’s not clear where the platform will go next. Users, on the other hand, hope that given the criticism surrounding HitPiece’s business model, more attention will be paid to the artists impacted by the site.