ENTERTAINMENT, TECHNOLOGY
Scooter Braun Abuses OpenSea NFTs Just To Profit Off Taylor Swift’s Hard Work
this is him trying
A shady record label is blasted for trying to milk every last bit of cent from a global superstar? What a shame. There goes the last “great American dynasty”!
Record executive Scooter Braun recently tweeted out the following message on his handle @scooterbraun.
“Individual artists and their labels should decide what an album’s price point is. This is why we’re excited to partner with OpenSea to upload all tracks from Taylor Swift’s first 6 albums! Come join us in the NFT World!”
We reached out to Braun to ask him more about using a non-fungible token platform instead of a streaming service like Spotify to distribute Swift’s masters. Braun shook his head.
“Musicians are getting screwed by streaming platforms like Spotify and SoundCloud. While streaming platforms have bypassed record labels effectively, they are still stingy in compensating artists. While Swift can get by due to her fame, millions of less famous artists are getting screwed for their hard work!”
Braun slammed his fists.
“We knew Spotify was trouble when they walked in. Shame on us for working with them! But they were the de-facto service in the game. We had to swallow our pride until we found a better alternative.”
Braun beamed.
“We found OpenSea to be an incredible service where artists can upload their content easily on the blockchain. This decentralized platform ensures that artists get full control over the monetization and distribution of their work. Non-fungible tokens of their music catalog can make them millionaires overnight!
“With OpenSea’s impressive UI, we already uploaded all of Swift’s tracks from her first 6 albums! Swift will never be stifled from abysmal Spotify earnings, and can digitally auction off her actual work for millions!”
We applauded Braun for giving Swift control of her art. That being said, we asked Braun why we heard the news through him and not through Swift. “Swift is busy at the moment recording her songs, so I’m taking over her social media announcements,” Braun stated.
We asked if Swift even authorized Braun to do such, as Swift is usually vocal on social media for big news like this. “Correct, but Swift and I have a long, rich, professional relationship dating back to 2019. She can trust me to handle such announcements.”
We were confused, as Braun is currently in a public feud with America’s sweetheart. Swift attacked Braun for collaborating with Kanye West on the music video Famous, a video that she saw as “revenge porn.” Following this betrayal, Swift rerecorded the masters of her first six albums, thus reducing the value of her original masters to zero. Since Braun owned those original masters, he will no longer profit from Swift’s music.
We asked Braun why Swift would now suddenly trust him with marketing decisions when she went out of her way to reclaim ownership of her work. Braun got defensive. “Look dude, you need to just stop. Like, can you just not step on my gown? You need to calm down.” Braun then tried to backtrack when we contacted Swift directly.
Upon hearing that Braun uploaded her original masters on an OpenSea account that wasn’t approved by her, Swift angrily jumped on Instagram Live.
“I’ve just been told that Scooter Braun has created NFTs of my first 6 albums with an OpenSea account under my name. This profile is a SCAM. It has not been approved by me! Braun has created a fake account under my name just so he can reap the rewards of my hard work directly! I urge my fans to report him and not buy any of my music on the blockchain platform.”
Braun then hopped onto Instagram to berate the singer live.
“Swift, ever since I bought your label, you have treated me with nothing but contempt. I wanted to work with you, but you gave me the cold shoulder every time! You could have been the next Beyonce, but you decided to get back at me for working with Kanye! Why are you so eager to screw me over?
“I don’t like you little games. Don’t like you tilted stage. The role you made me play of the fool. Dammit Taylor! Look at what you made me do!”
Swift stated she was not surprised by Braun’s shady attempt to profit without consent.
“I think I’ve seen this film before. And I didn’t like the ending. You’re not my manager anymore. So who am I defending now?
“You were my clout, now you’re in exile seeing me out.”
While the two were bickering, we wondered why OpenSea couldn’t remove Braun’s fake account and content directly. We reached out to CEO Devin Finzer to address this during the shouting match between Swift and Braun. Finzer began.
“OpenSea’s primary goal is to guarantee more freedom to the artists. Instead of uploading artists’ content on their behalf, OpenSea relinquishes that control to the artist himself/herself. OpenSea also allows the decentralized network verify that the content uploaded is trustworthy. As long as the network of users can verify that the artist uploading the content is who he/she claims to be, then the artist can upload content freely without fear of illegal copying.
“The downside is that no one, not even OpenSea, can remove content from the blockchain network. Since OpenSea is decentralized, it doesn’t have a centralized data store where it keeps track of all content uploaded by all artists. OpenSea would have to go to the blockchain node hosted on the artist/creator’s own platform to forcefully remove the content.”
We asked Finzer if he had plans to bypass that limitation. Finzer shook his head.
“Nope. Even if we knew how to take them down, OpenSea would be violating what blockchain is designed for: no central control and no changes to existing blockchain data. If OpenSea changes anything on the blockchain, it will be a centralized system and will be no different than Amazon. Trust with our users will erode.
“Braun may not have created Swift’s music, but he did upload the content first. Therefore, he is the owner of Swift’s NFTs.”
We argued that OpenSea’s stubbornness to be completely decentralized is already eroding trust with their content creators. Finzer admitted.
“That is true. We’ve faced many lawsuits for allowing scam artists and bots to steal work from hardworking artists. We are violating the Digital Millennium Copyright Act by allowing these scam artists to bank millions from stolen content. If federal court deems our website as illegal, we will be forced to shut down this NFT marketplace.
“But I ask the frustrated artists. Instead of ruining this place for everyone else, why don’t you just upload your content faster? Once you create something, immediately upload it to OpenSea so that no one can copy your work. Don’t. Be. Slow.”
We have no doubt that Finzer’s philosophy of “fast don’t lie” will be found illegal under federal law. With rampant fraud shutting down many NFT marketplaces, OpenSea may be next.
We relayed this back to Braun, who realized that his window to sell the masters might be cut short. Braun jumped off his Instagram battle and rushed to find a buyer for those OpenSea NFTs. However, investors backed out after realizing that OpenSea would erase all of their hard-owned pixels with the threat of a shutdown.
Braun threw his computer in a fit of rage, with Swift taunting him on Instagram Live. “Don’t you get it Scooter? Can’t you see? These masters. They belong with me.”
Disclaimer: All characters and events in this article, even those based on real people and events, are entirely fictional. It is written to poke fun at the subjects mentioned. It is satire. For now.
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