Rammstein singer Till Lindemann accused of illegal NFT sale
It was big news, Rammstein singer Till Lindemann selling 10 non-fungible tokens of an unreleased music video for €100,000 including a dinner with him in Moscow on top, with flights, accommodation and visas for two people included. In the video he interprets the Russian song “Lubimy Gorod” (Beloved City), which he recorded in May 2021 at the Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg.
The Hermitage granted permission for the video shoot, however, by offering the video as an NFT, the singer violated the agreement for its use, according to the Hermitage. The same applies to other animations Lindemann is offering that show him at the Hermitage.
The museum says that “the use of images of objects from the museum’s collection and furnishings in the collection was not agreed with the museum,” adding that the singer “personally signed a contract with the Hermitage allowing him to use images of the Hermitage and all prepared materials exclusively for the music video.”
Lindeman has so far not responded to a notice pointing out the violation of the museum’s licensing policy. The NFTs on offer, the museum argues, are completely illegal.
Here’s a version of the video that is for sale.
And this is another version featuring also footage from the “Devyatayev” movie.
About the song “Lubimy Gorod”
“Lubimy Gorod” is a Soviet song from the 1930s originally composed for the 1939 film “The Fighters”. Lindemann ‘s version is being used in the 2021 Russian prison action thriller war biopic film “V2. Escape from Hell” aka “Devyatayev” by Timur Bekmambetov.
The film stars Thure Riefenstein, Pavel Priluchny, Pavel Chinarev and Daria Zlatopolskaya and is based on a true story of the Soviet Union pilot Mikhail Devyatayev. The film will be released in English with a different opener showing the Luftwaffe raids against London.
Former GDR resident Lindemann has an intricate history with the song ever since he heard of it as a child during the Soviet Union times while living in the city of Rostock. The song is used in the opening credits and in the film itself.
The scandal not told in the film….
What the film doesn’t say is that seven of the escapees were sent to serve in a penal military unit when they arrived in the Soviet Union. Five died in action over the following months, while three officers including Devyataev spent time in prison during prolonged investigation.
It probably didn’t fit the narrative of a glorious Russia so was left out of the film…
His classification remained that of a “criminal”, and so he was unable to find a job for a long while. Soviet authorities cleared Devyataev only in 1957, after the head of the Soviet space program Sergey Korolyov personally presented his case, arguing that the information provided by Devyataev and the other escapees had been critical for the Soviet space program.
Here’s a trailer of the film with English subtitles.
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