Would David Bowie be doing NFTs if he were still alive? It’s a fine pub conversation: he was famously keen to experiment with new technologies, but he also had a well-tuned bullshit radar, so who knows! What we can say is that the David Bowie Estate *is* doing NFTs, in partnership with marketplace OpenSea. Nine visual artists will be launching “Bowie-inspired” NFTs on 13 September, with the profits going to charity.
Elsewhere, MetaSolare is the latest startup exploring music NFTs, founded by musician Steve Aoki and Masato Matsuura, founder of Japanese music giant Avex. They’ll be working across music, anime and games.
Meanwhile, NFTs “super-app” OP3N is raising a $35m Series A funding round, following a previous seed round that included Warner Music Group among the investors. Gaming firm Animoca Brands and web3 syndicate Wagmi Ventures are among those getting their wallets out for the Series A.
Another company raising money is Reveel, which helps NFT artists (and musicians) to share their revenues between collaborators. It’s pre-seed funding was $1.3m.
Finally, a couple of developments around NFTs and copyright: TorrentFreak reports on an EU ‘blockchain anti-counterfeiting’ initiative that’s launching in the next year, while VC firm Andreessen Horowitz’s crypto arm has launched a set of ‘Can’t Be Evil’ licences designed to do for NFTs what Creative Commons licences have done for existing media.
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