OpenSea has decided to block sales of music NFT of the artist Rihanna on the secondary marketplace. The collection was launched by co-producer Deputy and offers royalties on the song “Bitch Better Have My Money”
OpenSea blocks Rihanna’s music NFT collection over royalties
The most popular Non-Fungible token marketplace, OpenSea, has rattled its traders by deciding to block NFT collection of Rihanna music .
Specifically, this is the collection launched by co-producer Jamil “Deputy” Pierre of the song “Bitch Better Have My Money” that accompanied Rihanna in her Super Bowl performance.
And indeed, Web3 music platform AnotherBlock has split 0.99% of the song’s total royalties into 300 NFT on Ethereum. This is the percentage of Deputy’s royalties that was brought onto the blockchain.
According to reports, this collection would guarantee music NFT holders a percentage of future royalties from streaming the master recording, which, with last week’s sell-out, would generate $63,000 in revenue.
Two days before Rihanna’s Super Bowl performance, AnotherBlock CEO Michel “bigmich” Traore said on the project’s Discord that OpenSea had blocked trading of these NFTs.
OpenSea flags and deletes Rihanna’s NFT collection on its marketplace
In general, according to the AnotherBlock team, OpenSea would automatically flag Rihanna’s music NFT project description, and then delete it without notifying anyone.
The thing AnotherBlock also points out is that they had used the same or similar language before, but that the marketplace had not blocked any collections.
A few days later, OpenSea responded by explaining that sales of the collection were blocked on the marketplace are not allowed NFTs that “appear to promise fractional ownership and future profit based on that ownership.”
Hence, the issue raised by OpenSea is purely about royalties. These restrictions might somehow affect the “floor” (minimum) price of the collection.
Currently, Rihanna’s NFT collection is still on the same marketplace as AnotherBlock and on Blur. According to data on AnotherBlock, the current price of the collection is 0.55 ETH ($867), a 330% increase from the mint price of 0.128 ETH, or $210 at the time
Royalty strategies for NFT creators
Speaking of royalties, last December, OpenSea reportedly revised its strategy for NFT creators, launching version 2 of the dedicated tool.
Basically, the marketplace would put its Operator Filter Registry tool under the supervision of CORI – Creator Ownership Research Institute, which is a business group involving Manifold, Zora, Nifty Gateway, SuperRare, Foundation and others. CORI will use a multi-signature portfolio to make changes to the registry.
This was a way to protect royalties for NFT creators that seem to have been banned by many marketplaces.
And indeed, the goal of OpenSea is to incentivize the entire industry to return to respecting creator fees universally, so that on-chain enforcement tools can become an option for some, but not a requirement for all.
The first version of the on-chain tool for NFT creator royalties was launched last November and was a simple code snippet that could be added to future NFT contracts.
It is something that is always optional for NFT creators, but which, on the one hand, protects creator fees and, on the other hand, ties such NFTs to marketplaces where they are not listed at zero or optional royalties.
