Why are people outraged at this music NFT startup?

Why are people kicking off?

There was already large disdain for NFTs even before this whole theft fiasco. Most of us collectively groan whenever another rapper or artist changes their Twitter picture to a ‘Bored Ape’ NFT.

Not to mention they’re environmentally irresponsible. To put it simply, the amount of energy and electricity required to process NFTs, verify them, and add them to the blockchain is extremely high. They contribute massively to our emissions – which isn’t ideal when we’re supposed to be aiming for net zero.

They also further worsen the wealth gap between celebrities and common traders. The most in-demand NFTs, the ones that you see plastered all over Twitter, are too expensive for most of us to invest in.

Nearly nobody can afford to dump hundreds of thousands into minted pictures of monkeys, unless you’re Jake Paul or Eminem. There are more sellers than buyers currently and prices can fluctuate suddenly and violently. It’s a risky business that only those with tons of disposable income can afford to take part in.

This HitPiece situation fuels these fires even more so, and cements the idea that NFTs are bad news for creators and artists, regardless of their original intention. Instead of a musician owning and distributing NFTs of their own work, money is instead going to scammers and fraudsters – at least for now.

How does this demonstrate that NFTs can be problematic?

Theft is rife within the NFT marketplace, even outside of HitPiece. Lil Yachty has just filed a lawsuit against NFT seller Opulous, accusing the company of deliberately using his likeness to generate over $6 million USD in sales.

VICE reported on stealing within the market all the way back in March and the problem has continued to grow since. You can even use services designed specifically to tokenise other people’s content. This one, for example, encourages users to mint tweets or memes they like ‘before it’s too late’.

The main issue with NFTs currently is that there’s little regulation or government intervention. There are no caps, no limits, or any concrete rules that keep things from spiralling out of control. Despite being a fairly young market, NFTs are absolutely booming. In 2021 the market surpassed $40 billion USD in value.

HitPiece demonstrates how easy it is to steal and bank off other people’s work. It’ll take more than just a wait for the bubble burst to sort things out properly and prevent widespread theft. Just don’t expect any state intervention for a long while yet.