A new platform NFT platform called HitPiece has caused a huge backlash from artists overnight for allegedly selling their songs as NFTs without any taking permission.

"HitPiece allows fans collect NFTs of your favorite music" a description on the site read. "Every NFT HitPiece is a one of one NFT for every unique music recording. Members build the hit list of their favorite tracks, get on leader board, and receive in life worth such as access and experience with musicians."

The main problem is, this was news to several artists whose work was listed on the website, which had hundreds of music for sale, ranging from major artists like Drake, Billie Eilish and The Beatles.

Furious artists flood the internet  

Angry and furious about HitPiece start blowing up recently, largely from indie labels and artists, asking what was going on and saying they would have no involvement or knowledge of the site.

Among those blasting the website as shady and scam there where A-Track, Laura, Clipping, Eve6, Jeff Rosentock, Jack Antonoff, and Adult Mom. The Taylor Swift, Lana Del Rey, Lorde super-producer called any token for his band Bleachers, "Bullshit."

“We don"t have any deal with you or any NFT site and there SURE DOES LOOK like an active auction going on for a speedy ortiz song.” tweeted Sadie of indie rockers Speedy Ortiz.

She was among many artists who tweeted they would sought legal action against the website, demand cease, and desist action from the NFT site to remove their songs.

HitPiece responds to this backlash

The Twitter account of the HitPiece responded to a bunch of posts, stating it was certainly not a scam and the song had “not been streamed, sold or bid on”. Though, following these all outrage and reports from many music publications, the website scrubbed its site of every NFT listing now.

The landing web page is currently blank save for a short statement: "We started the conversation and we are listing". The HitPiece has expanded slightly more with a notes app statement on Twitter. "Clearly, we’ve struck a nerve and are extremely eager to make the ideal experience for music lovers." the post reads.

To be clear, artists get paid when virtual goods are sold on the NFT site. Like the best products, we’re contributing to listening to every user feedback and are committed to evolving the product to fit the artist"s needs, labels, and fans alike.

Other tech experts have pointed out that the website appears to have no link to a public blockchain wallet, scrutinizing mention on the site’s FAT of Hit Chain, a private ETH side chain.

Quicker explainer – NFT tokens on a block, which is what also, powered digital assets, but crypto was reportedly not accepted to buy on HitPiece.

Who founded HitPiece?

The website was launched last year by co-founded by Rory Felton, the former of The Militia Group exec and a tech entrepreneur.

Rory Felton gave an interview with Business Builder earlier this year, outlining the site’s business model – and confirmed what many online commentators had theorized: HitPiece website had tapped into Spotify’s Application Programming interface. Basically, the site was scraping the metadata of millions of songs on the streaming platform.

Every individual song is then auctioned and sold as one of the edition NFT on the website. According to Rory Felton, the company had raised 5 million USD in funding and their main goal was to provide NTFs for each song in the world.

But buyers were not getting access to the songs themselves; instead, Rory Felton likened the procedure to virtual trading cards. Your start to collect your favorite music and built your hit list.

The idea is you get to show off your buddies and people around the globe, like, you own the best hit list you’d create of like your favorite songs, Felton explained. He also claimed, artists get royalties from not only the initial auction but also each time it is traded on the platform.

So it becomes a continuous revenue stream for artists and rights holders that are super cool. "The way smart agreements are written is, the money is forever accredited to the right holder’s account and it is certainly our aim for them to always get paid."

However, as the outcry demonstrates, several artists are extremely skeptical of those claims and say none of that was communicated to them.

The market of NFTs is a wild west. Is it bald for our planet?

For the whole hype about NFTs, there’s concern that as the marketplace expands, so too will the harmful environmental side effects of any product auctioned on a block chain.

In any case, it is the owner’s right to infringement. It is re-commodifying the metadata (song, art and album titles, etc.), to get money without any permission, said the guitarist, Eve6 front man Max Collins echoed the same issues Rolling Stone.

"These kinds of websites are normally nebulous pump and dump plans and in this case, I am willing to bet the dump would have included every artist on the shit end of the stick" he said.

Max Collins was also shocked to learn that Rory Felton was behind the website HitPiece, describing the website’s business model as a PR gambit made to attract purchasers and attention via intentional controversy.

Given the NFTs platform was hugely unheard of before now, it seems likely. After all, as they say, there is no such thing as bad promotion.