22/06/2021 An NFT of Jay-Z’s first album has sparked a record label lawsuit

Roc-A-Fella Records (RAF), co-founded by hip-hop mogul Jay-Z, has sued fellow co-founder Damon Dash for allegedly hawking a non-fungible token of Jay-Z’s 1996 debut album Reasonable Doubt.

The lawsuit claims Dash partnered with platform SuperFarm to auction an NFT of Reasonable Doubt, following a well-trodden path of selling art ownership via NFT. It quotes a purported SuperFarm press release calling the sale “one of the most significant NFT auctions to date,” since it would transfer “the rights to all future revenue generated by the album from Damon Dash to the auction winner.” That’s an unusually sweeping promise for an NFT. “Selling the copyright to Jay-Z’s Reasonable Doubt as an NFT is a groundbreaking landmark — both for the crypto space and the broader music industry,” the statement apparently continued.

But Roc-A-Fella’s lawyers say this wasn’t Dash’s product to advertise. Dash owns a minority share in RAF, but the suit says that gives him “no right to sell a company asset” as an NFT or otherwise. SuperFarm canceled the auction at RAF’s request, but the label claims Dash is trying to find a substitute venue. RAF wants Dash to hand over any NFTs he’s minted based on Reasonable Doubt, plus monetary damages. “There is only one Reasonable Doubt — the rights to it are irreplaceable,” the complaint notes. “The bottom line is simple: Dash can’t sell what he doesn’t own.”

According to TMZ, which first reported the lawsuit, Dash has called the lawsuit inaccurate — saying he’s trying to sell his share in RAF rather than the album itself. “Under the terms of the deal with a potential buyer, the buyer would buy my share of Roc-a-Fella Records and Jay-Z will have exclusive administration rights” to the album, he told TMZ. Dash also told the New York Post’s Page Six that “I’m not running around to different places trying to auction off Reasonable Doubt. I’ve been working with one platform and that’s SuperFarm.” He called the suit a scare tactic intended to make him sell his stake in the company.

The case is unrelated to another recent lawsuit where Jay-Z accused Reasonable Doubt cover photographer Jonathan Mannion of exploiting his likeness.

As NFTs have blown up in popularity, related lawsuits are starting to appear in court. This suit seemingly hinges on the nebulous description of Dash’s NFT. You can parse SuperFarm’s alleged product description to fit Dash’s claim, for instance: if you buy this NFT, you’ll get any revenue that Dash himself would have earned from the album copyright. But you can also interpret it as a full-fledged sale of the copyright, and the press release’s title promotes an “auction for Jay-Z’s iconic album Reasonable Doubt.” In any case, NFTs are supposed to confer a sense of airtight ownership and exclusivity — and auctioning off a partial stake in an iconic album doesn’t have quite the same ring to it.
Arts

https://www.theverge.com/2021/6/21/22543753/jay-z-nft-lawsuit-reasonable-doubt-roc-a-fella-damon-dash

Interesting NFTs
Right Place & Right Time (bitcoin hourly price offset)
Each day, a new composition for the Master is generated autonomously using a data feed of Bitcoin's last 24 hours of price action. Each hour's price programmatically controls rotation, scale, and position of a correlating layer. Astute viewers will surmise the day's price volatility simply by examining the artwork. While the daily image generation is the result of autonomous API calls, utilizing an algorithm the artist wrote, the artist has chosen to retain a control token. This token allows him to fine-tune variables associated with his algorithm, in addition to addressing aesthetic concerns within the life-cycle of the artwork. Layer state, alpha, hue, saturation, and brightness are elements the artist has retained control of in order that this artwork remain a living work-in-progress. An earlier iteration of this artwork was featured as a nightly projection mapping video on the face of the Daniels Fisher Clocktower, as part of ETH Denver 2020. Access to this and additional exclusive content awaits the master token owner at the artist's NFT Portal: https://collect.mattkane.com/minted-works/right-place-right-time-bitcoin-hourly-price-offset/
The Harvest
An anthropomorphic figure stands, wide eyed, staring at the viewer; its body masculine, muscular, and humanoid. Its “mind” dissociates into a conglomerate of structures resembling feathers, grain, teeth–as well as a radial flower “node”, casting linear rays throughout the composition. To his left, a vat of bodies gesture and writhe in a kind of amniotic soup, attended by a video game robot. The bot's red display reads “uWu”. Behind the robot and filling the left side of the composition is an archaic figure composed of a variety of vintage objects and symbols. Among them are a hardbound book with ancient cuneiform scripts, indicating barley, beer, bread, ox, house, and sky, behind which is a grimacing, salivating jagged toothed maw; and an old Commodore floppy drive. The figure’s head tilts toward an illuminated crescent moon, suggesting the Egyptian Sacred Bull. The archaic figure is composed of a variety of mutating cells, which shift in color, and pattern; eventually breaking free into an ephemeral broadcast of bubbles which move across the background. The work came into being against a psychological introspection, which included associations to pop culture such as alien abduction and pod people, as well as quite a bit of reflection on grains as a symbol of civilization, agriculture, sustenance, life, and imbibing (mainly whiskies).
#51552
By OthersideDeployer
No Future #3/15
None.
The Wired || Heterochromia
Part 2 of The Wired series; drawn from inspirations such as Serial Experiments Lain and Wonder Egg Priority. Ghost Girl explores dualities in personality and different transition techniques in this piece. By owning it you gain access to the download link with the 2k version, 4k version, and MP4 audio loop by emailing info@ghostgirldxv3.com or messaging on twitter. Made in C4D, Octane, Daz3D, Zbrush, and the Adobe Suite. Visual by @ghostgirldxv3 Audio by @variendarkgirl