One evil is becoming another — admittedly less funny — evil, with fraudster Billy McFarland now reportedly having sold the intellectual property of the infamous Fyre Festival, which is set to become a music streaming service for some reason.
As per Deadline, less than a week after Fyre Festival 2 was postponed indefinitely following not one, but two supposed host locations denying the event's very existence, McFarland has "sold off some of the IP of the event, including two trademarks." The buyer? Shawn Rech, a documentary director and producer who co-founded a streaming platform called TruBlue with former To Catch a Predator host Chris Hansen.
"Music networks are all just programming now and I have no interest in watching people slip on bananas," Rech told Deadline. "It has nothing to do with music. I needed a big name that people would remember, even if it's attached to infamy, so that's why I bought these [trademarks] to start the streaming network."
A website is already up for FYRE Music Streaming, which plans to launch this November as "both a subscription Video on Demand (SVOD) app and a Free Ad-Supported Television Network (FAST)." The SVOD app will apparently work similarly "to well-known subscription services like Netflix" and cost less than five dollars per month, with a focus on fan curation.
Artists will be able to upload and submit their work for free, and once it clears copyright checks and is live on the platform, users can upvote it to get it featured on the FAST network. While the website's FAQ page claims the service is not affiliated with the music festival, Deadline's report alleges that McFarland is expected to have a presence on the network — and that he still owns the event itself, and continues to search for a Fyre Festival 2 location.