NFT site HitPiece prompts outrage for allegedly unauthorized listings of songs

HitPiece, a website accused of offering NFTs of songs, came under scrutiny on Tuesday after musicians accused it of minting the NFTs without their permission.

NFTs, or Non-Fungible Tokens, are digital certificates of ownership that are stored in a database called the blockchain. HitPiece emerged as the concept of NFTs has gained mainstream visibility, with HitPiece's Instagram account promising "one-of-one NFTs of all your favorite songs."

However, Tuesday evening saw artists blasting the site for displaying NFTs of their music without permission. Jack Antonoff, producer and frontman of Bleachers, called HitPiece's Bleachers listings "bullshit" while Ted Leo excoriated the site's creators as "bottom feeding scavengers of late capitalism sucking the last marrow from our bones."

As the controversy blossomed, HitPiece's Twitter account responded to individual artists and claimed that the site does not sell or stream music. HitPiece's NFT database was scrubbed not long after and replaced with the message: "We Started the Conversation and We're Listening." In a separate statement posted on Twitter, the company wrote: “Clearly we have struck a nerve and are very eager to create the ideal experience for music fans. To be clear, artists get paid when digital goods are sold on HitPiece."

HitPiece was co-founded by Ryan Felton and Jeff Birmingham. As Pitchfork points out, they were guests on an episode of the Business Builders podcast this year. In the interview, Felton claimed that HitPiece is built on Spotify's API, giving the site access to streaming platform's catalog.

“The idea," Felton said, "is you get to show off to your friends or people around the world, like, you own the greatest hit list you could create of like all your favorite songs. Artists get royalties from not only the initial auction but also every time it’s traded.”

The FADER has reached out to Ryan Felton for more information.