In February, an early version of an NFT marketplace centered on single and album artwork called HitPiece became the focal point of a social media uproar. Artists aired their collective rage after seeing their album and single artwork apparently being offered up as NFTs without permission. The website shut down in short order. Months later, the service has relaunched with actual participation from a handful of artists, Billboard reports.
HitPiece founder Rory Felton told Billboard that the company learned its lesson following the uproar surrounding the service’s initial “preview” launch. “We need to be buttoned up whenever we allow any portion of our service to be publicly available,” Felton wrote. “By buttoned up, I mean having secured the necessary rights to any content that is made available through our platform.”
There is currently not much available on HitPiece. There are currently 10 artists listed as “creators” affiliated with HitPiece, including Lil Gotit, Matt Ox, ATL Jacob, Lil Gnar, Fuse808, Uffy, King Midas, and more. The company is determined with this launch to convince skeptics that it is a legitimate, not-scam business. Felton told Billboard that HitPiece is in talks with record companies about expanding its business and that it is working with music rights identification company Audible Magic “to help verify ownership of new music prior to minting of an NFT, thus ensuring only legitimate content is distributed.”
