NFT startup HitPiece, widely panned for unauthorized music listings, relaunches
The website shut down in February after an “early launch” made it appear as though it was selling unauthorized NFTs of songs.
Photo by JUSTIN TALLIS/AFP via Getty Images
Few recent crypto-related endeavors have generated as hard and swift a backlash as HitPiece did back in February. The website promised "one-of-one NFTs of all your favorite songs" with dozens of tracks listed without permission from the artists. After the firestorm erupted, HitPiece said the site did not stream or sell music before closing down the entire website.
On Monday, Billboard published an interview with HitPiece co-founder Rory Felton discussing the site's relaunch, which went live last week. Felton says the site's "preview" build was what lead to the initial controversy, and claims that its reboot comes in collaboration with the artists who made the music.
"We need to be buttoned up whenever we allow any portion of our service to be publicly available,” Felton told Billboard. “By buttoned up, I mean having secured the necessary rights to any content that is made available through our platform.”
At the moment, HitPiece has 10 artists listed as "creators" on its platform. Lil Gotit, Matt Ox, ATL Jacob, and others have their own landing pages, though there is only a handful of actual NFTs currently for sale.