Washington DC - HitPiece, a website slammed for trying to sell songs and album art as NFTs without permission, is finding itself boiling in more hot water as the music industry's big boss has stepped in.

HitPiece lit a dumpster fire of incandescent rage last week as artists found out the website had snagged their work from Spotify.

Now, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has slapped HitPiece in the face with a letter saying the company is liable for copyright infringement.

Billboard, among other outlets, got their hands on the letter, which the RIAA sent to the website's legal representation – and things do not look good for HitPiece's owners.

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The letter is a combination of a cease-and-desist order and a demand for a rundown of the website's revenue and activities.

Jared Freedman, RIAA's vice president of litigation, wrote in the letter: "As you are no doubt aware, your clients, through the HitPiece website, have been engaged in the systematic and flagrant infringement of the intellectual property rights of the record companies and their recording artists on a massive scale."

Freedman then laid out exactly how artists and labels have explicit copyright protection.

"Using artist and track names, copyrighted album art, and other protected images – all without the permission of the rights' owners – your clients have offered at auction and sold NFTs promising ownership in a 'unique song recording' and the ability 'to create a digital display of album artwork associated with their favorite music, with a one-of-a-kind, non-fungible token of the artwork,'" he wrote. "Many of these 'unique song recordings' and associated artwork are those owned or exclusively controlled by the record companies."

The letter also notes that even though the creators of HitPiece took their website down last week, they are still responsible "for their prior conduct."

Sometimes it really is better to ask permission instead of forgiveness, if you don't want to get hit with hefty legal action.