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And Finally Artist News Business News Digital Legal
Museum says Rammstein frontman’s NFT sale breaches agreement
By Andy Malt | Published on Tuesday 17 August 2021
The Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg, Russia has accused Rammstein frontman Till Lindemann of breaching a previous agreement by selling NFTs featuring images of the building and its artworks.
Lindemann was given permission to film at the museum for the music video for his solo single ‘Beloved Town’ earlier this year. Last week, however, he launched a collection of NFTs – or NFTills as he’s billing them – featuring images and footage gathered during the video shoot. This, says the museum, is not something covered by their agreement.
“The use of images of objects from the collection and interiors of the museum in the token collection, furthermore with the designation ‘Hermitage Edition’, was not and could not have been agreed upon with the museum”, it says in a statement.
“A warning about a violation of the museum’s licensing policy, sent to Mr Lindemann at the announcement stage of his project ‘NFTill’, was not reciprocated – and the illegal tokens have been uploaded to the marketplace”, it goes on. “Now the Hermitage – probably one of the first museums in the world – has been confronted with the unfair use of its name and works in the NFT sphere”.
“One could refer to the lack of global legislation in this area or trivial ignorance”, it muses. “But the fact is that Mr Lindemann personally signed a contract with the Hermitage, which clearly states permission to use images of the Hermitage and all the materials prepared exclusively in the music video”.
The NFTs range in price from 299 euros to 100,000 euros. Ten purchasers of the 100,000 euro digital artworks will also be able to join Tillmann for dinner in Moscow. Maybe Hermitage Museum reps will show up at said dinner to express their frustration face to face. Which would certainly make the proceedings more entertaining (though still not worth 100,000 euros).
