Former file-sharing platform LimeWire has relaunched as a digital collectibles marketplace. The company's COO Marcus Feistl joins Cheddar News to discuss the platform and its Travis Barker NFT collection.

Between Bells

Limewire Relaunches as an NFT Marketplace

Welcome back to Between Bells. Everyone admit it. If you grew up in the age before Spotify, you probably downloaded a track or two through limewire. It was originally a peer to peer file sharing service and then was shut down in october 2011 after several legal battles with the recording industry of America. But now it's relaunched with a new mission to be a digital collectibles marketplace for music enthusiasts. For more. Let's bring in cheddar news is Michelle castello Michelle take it away. Thanks Hannah, I'm joined today by limewire chief operating officer Marcus Faisal. So Marcus, thanks so much for joining us today. Can you tell me a little bit more about lime wire's move towards being a digital collectibles marketplace? Hi Michelle, thanks for having me actually really, really excited to be here. Um Yes, so we're really moving into the digital collectible space for the music and entertainment industry as such. So, so what people can expect from limewire and the platform we not launched today actually, which is quite exciting. It's really unique content, exclusive content from music artists and the broader entertainment industry as such in a digital format. So think of it as like the collectibles back in the day, like limited edition vinyl only now, really in a digital format as as N. F. T. S. Um easy to to get into and and easy to acquire in the online and digital space today. So I know you mentioned kind of like collectibles, kind of like vinyls, but this is the digital version, How can N. F. T. S. Evolve the music industry? That's a very interesting question. I think especially in the music industry and FTS are very exciting um for a couple of reasons. So I think for the artists themselves it really it gives them a new opportunity, a new revenue stream pretty much that they can get into. It also gives them a lot more power on their own content because they can decide how to package it um to whom to sell it. Um And also in a much more exclusive format, right? Because usually N. F. T. S. And collections are with limited editions. So rather than everybody streaming the content, you can really decide how many people should get access and create a very exclusive community around your content. So I think that's the exciting bit for artists around and in the music industry as such. And on the other side I think especially for consumers and super fans, it's quite exciting because you own the content, it's not just listening to the music and the suggestions you get through one of the streaming platforms, it's really owning the content of the artists you really like or you believe in two or sometimes even from emerging artists that you just want to invest into because you believe in them. So I think for both sides it's really an exciting technology. Um and definitely something to look into for the future. Now I know that you said that today is the official day for the N. F. T. Drop. I know there's some big artists that are on board what can fans expect today. So if you go online buy dot com today you can really see the 1st 10 headline or five headline artists including five emerging office that we announced today where you can really see what their collections are or the or the artist pages look like create your account. Um And pretty much get set up for those. Um And those artists include some really big names and interesting projects overall. So we have Travis barker for instance, the famous drama Who is actually releasing three different N. F. T. Collections, one of which includes a virtual drum set including for the actual buyer of that N. F. T. Collection, the physical drum set that he was using for recording his music. So I think really exciting for someone to buy into. We also have the Brandy who is a Grammy award winning music artist who is who is launching an exclusive hefty collection on the platform. In the next weeks we have seven or areas that's the first artist that is launching tomorrow, which is a quite interesting collection with seven unique N. F. T. Art pieces that are equipped also with beads attached to it. He's been working on inspired by the, by the Kanye West documentary actually. So quite interesting content. Always a bit different, very individual depending on the artist. So really come come to line water, come and check it out and you will see in the next weeks which which collections are going to be launched. I'm very familiar with limewire from back in the day and I know you shut down what people know you for which is the file-sharing service in October 2011 because of legal reasons. But why pivot away completely from file sharing or even music streaming? Why is the collectible space the way to go? Yeah. I think what's really important to understand um in in in in in that regard is that the platform we launched today and the line bar today is really completely different to the fire sharing entity and platform that you just mentioned in the early 2000. So it's a new team. It's a new entity also it's a really new setup but what we saw is this great opportunity of taking all the nostalgia as you just mentioned in the introduction. Um So many people use line by back in the day to get to know music to get into the first artists that they really followed as super fans um and use that nostalgia around the music space. And so many users that are aware of line by such and take the whole space into the digital world of today like the web free digital collectibles, the N. F. T. Space. Um So we're really using all that awareness. All that positive connotation and all these positive feelings that people still have with Aymara as a brand as such and we're bringing that into the to the N. F. T. Space today. Now we're going through what some people are calling a crypto winter. It's making Cryptocurrency prices plummet at this time. How is that affecting the marketplace for N. F. T. S. Are people buying more because the prices are so low or are they a little bit more hesitant because you know Cryptocurrency has declined in value so quickly. Yeah very good points admittedly. You can also see obviously in the in the N. F. T. Space. Um that the volumes and prices of many collections have gone down a bit. I think that's not really unexpected to be honest because the market was really heating up in the last months quite enormously. But nevertheless we've really built this platform to be completely open for anybody to use. So it's not really focused only on the crypto community. Of course you can buy U. N. F. T. S. With ethereum with Bitcoin. Um And with cryptocurrencies like you can on many other platforms but we're also completely opening up for the broader mainstream. That's the whole idea behind it. So you will also be able to pay with credit cards um Just in U. S. Dollar as you would purchase on any of the big market places out there that are not N. F. T. O. Krypto related. Um And given that we're really open for the mainstream and and easy to use also with with credit card payments, um I think we're very in a good position to to also be successful during the Crypto winter. Now, real quickly before we go, if people want to buy some of today's N. F. T. Drop, how can they go about doing that online? Wire it is very simple really. You just go online by the com, you can see immediately how to sign up with an email address and password you're setting up. Um And then you can browse through the marketplace. Um You're launching with the first collection starting tomorrow. So you can see all the collections that you can see today, you can see an actual timeline when they are dropping. You can see what the content will be and then just get ready for those collections um when they're dropping in the ones you want to follow. So you can also even sign up for those artists for a notification email if there is a certain artist you really like. Um So it's really really easy to use really straightforward. Um So yeah, just visit it, sign up, get your account and be ready. Well thank you to lie marsico Margaret's faisal