The Russian Hermitage Museum sent a complaint to the leader of the Rammstein and Lindemann groups, Till Lindemann, about the illegal use of the museum’s name and digital images of works of art when issuing NFT tokens.
In May 2021, Till Lindemann shot a video for the song “Favorite City” in the interiors of the Hermitage. According to the agreement, the museum granted the performer the right to reproduce three images of museum objects in the video. For their further use, it was supposed to conclude a separate agreement.
However, Lindemann included in the clip previously unapproved images, thereby abusing the “guest right”, according to the museum. Subsequently, changing the contractual purpose without an additional agreement, Lindemann and his team made and placed on the NFT Frame Art platform a collection of NFT tokens using both inconsistent images of museum objects and the name of the Hermitage.
Thus, Lindemann, without agreeing with the museum to shoot some of the images and their further tokenization, illegally used the name of the Hermitage for commercial purposes, indicating it in the name of the NFT token “One shot video HERMITAGE EDITION”. Its initial cost is defined as € 100,000 per token. The total circulation has reached 10.
In addition, the museum sent a notice to the NFT Frame Art platform, which allowed counterfeit NFTs for sale.