RIAA goes after music NFT scammers HitPiece

Attorneys for the RIAA sent a letter Friday to NFT scam site HitPiece and its founders demanding they stop all infringing activity and account for THE NFTs and artwork auctioned off as well as ANY revenue collected.

Earlier this week HitPiece.com took its site down “temporarily” after artist outrage over their issuing of unauthorized NFTs. The site now reads only: “We Started The Conversation And We’re Listening.”

“As music lovers and artists embrace new technologies like NFTs, there’s always someone looking to exploit their excitement and energy\,” said RIAA Chairman and CEO Mitch Glazier in a statement. “Given how fans were misled and defrauded by these unauthorized NFTs and the massive risk to both fans and artists posed by HitPiece and potential copycats, it was clear we had to move immediately and urgently to stand up for fairness and honesty in the market.”

“HitPiece appears to be little more than a scam operation designed to trade on fans’ love of music and desire to connect more closely with artists, using buzzwords and jargon to gloss over their complete failure to obtain necessary rights,” added RIAA Chief Legal Officer Ken Doroshow. “Fans were led to believe they were purchasing an NFT genuinely associated with an artist and their work when that was not at all the case.”

The letter authored by RIAA Senior Vice President, Litigation Jared Freedman reads In part:

Your clients’ operations have been variously described in recent days as a “scam,” a “complete sham,” “immoral,” “unethical,” and a “fraud.” All of these criticisms are of course accurate. Although it appears that your clients now contend that they did not actually include any sound recordings with their NFTs (which, if true, likely amounts to yet another form of fraud), it is undeniable that, to promote and sell their NFTs, your clients used the names and images of the Record Companies’ recording artists, along with copyrighted album art and other protected images, the rights to which belong to the Record Companies and their artists. Your clients’ outright theft of these valuable intellectual property rights is as outrageous as it is brazen.

Bruce Houghton is Founder and Editor of Hypebot and MusicThinkTank and serves as a Senior Advisor to Bandsintown which acquired both publications in 2019. He is the Founder and President of the Skyline Artists Agency and a professor for the Berklee College Of Music.