The DJ is facing a class-action lawsuit over his collaboration with MetaZoo as part of the rollout for the 2022 album ‘HiROQUEST: Genesis’
In the instances where I can muster up some optimism about the current situation with AI, I often think of how, a few years ago, NFTs were the hot-button music industry topic du jour. The hype about those cryptocurrency-purchased non-fungible tokens — digital works of art stored via blockchain — has decidedly died down; but, in the aftermath, Steve Aoki is paying the price.
The DJ is now facing a class-action lawsuit over his Instagram posts promoting the now-defunct MetaZoo, an NFT company he became part-owner of in 2021 and collaborated with extensively on the rollout for his 2022 album, HiROQUEST: Genesis. As Billboard reports, the lawsuit filed last Wednesday (January 6) sees false advertising and unfair trade claims against Aoki and DraftKings co-founder Matt Kalish, who also posted about MetaZoo on social media.
To accompany the release of HiROQUEST: Genesis, the DJ released a collectible trading card series, and allegedly failed to disclose that he was receiving payment for promoting them and their virtual counterparts via MetaZoo. A Florida attorney named Evan Berger claims he was influenced by Aoki and Kalish’s posts to buy 26 MetaZoo NFTs, which were apparently valued at $150,000 USD at the time but are now “worthless,” and he wants to represent thousands of others who made crypto purchases from the company.
“Plaintiff and class members purchased the MetaZoo products at inflated prices, exclusively because of the way the MetaZoo products are advertised on social media and the misleading content of the advertisement,” reads the federal complaint.
It continues, “Prior to bankruptcy, MetaZoo had tens of millions of dollars in revenue, a good portion of which can be directly attributed to the undisclosed endorsements on social media by defendants. As a result, the estimated damages in this case are likely in the tens of millions.”
If Aoki’s 2022 comment that he’s made more money from NFTs than from 10 years of music advances is to be believed, they might be right! Buying 26 NFTs because of the DJ’s influence might also be, as sombr would put it, a “skill issue.”
