NFT site straight up lifts content from thousands of musicians without permission!
Provo, Utah - NFT scams are a dime a dozen these days, but this one really went above and beyond, by apparently ripping off almost every artist on Spotify!
Music NFT website HitPiece, which was launched in 2021, has come under heavy fire from artists who found out that their songs were being sold as NFTs, without their permission.
According to NME, which checked out the site before it went down, the FAQ section explained that the platform was made to "let fans collect NFTs of your favorite songs."
But no agreements were signed with almost any of the featured artists, whose songs were sourced from Spotify through software which lets a webpage grab information from another online service.
A firestorm of artist rage erupted on Twitter this week, and led to HitPiece's founders taking down their website, which now only says: "We Started The Conversation And We’re Listening" – the "conversation" being auctioning off music without the creators' permission.
If you want to see some true justified rage, the Twitter thread from HitPiece's Tweet addressing the musicians' outcry is a goldmine.
Indie artists and labels pile in to flame HitPiece into the ground, including numerous calls for the company to drop songs from its platform, and a chorus of warnings about impending legal action.
Indie musician p3tro also had some choice words for the website, and a brief explanation on the massive copyright infringement issue of selling someone's property without their permission.
According to its LinkedIn page, the company is based in Provo, Utah, and run by Director of Marketing Ryan Singer, co-founder Rory Felton, and Chief Creative Officer, Michael Berrin, with funding from venture capitalist Blake Modersitzki.
Cover photo: Collage: IMAGO / ZUMA Wire, YAY Images