Spotify slapped with $1.6B copyright lawsuit over songs by The Doors, Tom Petty, others
Spotify last week was hit with a $1.6 billion lawsuit leveled by Wixen Music Publishing, a music publisher that alleges the streaming music giant is using thousands of songs from its catalog without a license and compensation.
Spotify co-founder and CEO Daniel Ek. | Source: Spotify
Wixen in a lawsuit filed in California federal court claims Spotify failed to obtain proper licenses to distribute tens of thousands of songs, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The publisher seeks damages of at least $1.6 billion plus injunctive relief.
As noted by the report, Wixen administers song compositions by Tom Petty, Zach De La Rocha and Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine, Dan Auerbach of The Black Keys, Steely Dan's Donald Fagen, Rivers Cuomo of Weezer, David Cassidy, Neil Young, Sonic Youth's Kim Gordon and Stevie Nicks, among others.
"Spotify brazenly disregards United States Copyright law and has committed willful, ongoing copyright infringement," the complaint reads. "Wixen notified Spotify that it had neither obtained a direct or compulsory mechanical license for the use of the Works."
The lawsuit stems from a $43 million settlement Spotify agreed to pay to end a 2015 class action led by David Lowery and Melissa Ferrick. Similar to the Wixen case, members of the Lowery and Ferrick class alleged Spotify failed to adequately pay mechanical licenses, or royalties, for streamed song compositions.
Last September, Wixen broke rank and objected to the settlement, a move Spotify questioned in a letter submitted to court on Friday. Lawyers for Spotify note Wixen's administrative agreements allow the publisher to negotiate licensing deals, but the terms do not specifically mention rights to litigate on behalf of the songwriters it represents.
Instead of waiting for a ruling on the matter, Wixen initiated the suit reported on today.
Spotify is no stranger to legal overtures having faced lawsuits ranging from alleged improper media attribution to royalty disputes. Most recently, two suits lodged in July accuse the streaming firm of failing to obtain compulsory licenses under Section 115 of the U.S. Copyright Act. Under current law, streaming firms like Spotify are not required to negotiate royalty deals with publishers, but they must issue a notice of intention to obtain a compulsory license.
Licensing is a sticky wicket for streaming music players including Apple, which markets its own product under the Apple Music banner. With vast catalogs spanning major studios to third-party aggregators, streaming firms must find ways to properly identify and credit songwriters whose works are streamed to paying customers.
Apple last month was slapped with a lawsuit from musician Bryan Eich, who claims the company "engaged in a systematic process of infringement" in streaming two albums. Specifically, Eich alleges Apple failed to serve a notice of intent to obtain compulsory licenses for his recordings as mandated by law.
Spotify co-founder and CEO Daniel Ek. | Source: Spotify
Wixen in a lawsuit filed in California federal court claims Spotify failed to obtain proper licenses to distribute tens of thousands of songs, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The publisher seeks damages of at least $1.6 billion plus injunctive relief.
As noted by the report, Wixen administers song compositions by Tom Petty, Zach De La Rocha and Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine, Dan Auerbach of The Black Keys, Steely Dan's Donald Fagen, Rivers Cuomo of Weezer, David Cassidy, Neil Young, Sonic Youth's Kim Gordon and Stevie Nicks, among others.
"Spotify brazenly disregards United States Copyright law and has committed willful, ongoing copyright infringement," the complaint reads. "Wixen notified Spotify that it had neither obtained a direct or compulsory mechanical license for the use of the Works."
The lawsuit stems from a $43 million settlement Spotify agreed to pay to end a 2015 class action led by David Lowery and Melissa Ferrick. Similar to the Wixen case, members of the Lowery and Ferrick class alleged Spotify failed to adequately pay mechanical licenses, or royalties, for streamed song compositions.
Last September, Wixen broke rank and objected to the settlement, a move Spotify questioned in a letter submitted to court on Friday. Lawyers for Spotify note Wixen's administrative agreements allow the publisher to negotiate licensing deals, but the terms do not specifically mention rights to litigate on behalf of the songwriters it represents.
Instead of waiting for a ruling on the matter, Wixen initiated the suit reported on today.
Spotify is no stranger to legal overtures having faced lawsuits ranging from alleged improper media attribution to royalty disputes. Most recently, two suits lodged in July accuse the streaming firm of failing to obtain compulsory licenses under Section 115 of the U.S. Copyright Act. Under current law, streaming firms like Spotify are not required to negotiate royalty deals with publishers, but they must issue a notice of intention to obtain a compulsory license.
Licensing is a sticky wicket for streaming music players including Apple, which markets its own product under the Apple Music banner. With vast catalogs spanning major studios to third-party aggregators, streaming firms must find ways to properly identify and credit songwriters whose works are streamed to paying customers.
Apple last month was slapped with a lawsuit from musician Bryan Eich, who claims the company "engaged in a systematic process of infringement" in streaming two albums. Specifically, Eich alleges Apple failed to serve a notice of intent to obtain compulsory licenses for his recordings as mandated by law.
Comments
So they are saying every single Spotify user has ONLY been playing their small handful of artists 24/7/365 for years and years...
Ok then... have fun with that and proving damages.
When the greedy music execs and artists are done cannibalizing their fans and tech companies... how much are they going to make when everyone just starts pirating their music again? Or listening to local music, or one of the hundred thousand other ways to enjoy free music that they get zero profit from...
Gotta laugh at all the big headlines "Artist X is making a statement and pulling their music from streaming service X"... then a few months and missing hundreds of thousand bucks later - the library suddenly shows up again.
@Bitmod, they always have to start off with a huge number and then settle for less. That's standard.
Again, I fail to understand how a company, whose only business is streaming licenced music can screw up on getting the adequate clearances.
Perhaps the guys running the company had a model of build a company that pays really well until it is found out that it’s not sustainable?
I hadn’t even thought about the songwriters. Like most people I assume that the artists write their own songs, but of course, that’s not always the case.
Streaming is complicated.
I guess those days are long gone now in the age of "Despacito".
Decades ago you transformed the music industry by digitizing music into MP3's when you created iTunes. The transformation had less to do with its technical achievements than with its social and legal ones -- because you enabled users to stop stealing musician's product and enabled them to collect it legally.
Apple Music, (generally) maintains that standard of honesty and integrity. Yes, occasionally there are complaints, even legitimate ones. But, for the most part, it's an honest, above board set-up that does the right thing the right way.
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"Wixen notified Spotify that it had neither obtained a direct or compulsory mechanical license for the use of the Works."
What's strange is that a mechanical license is usually obtained when you are looking to produce a "mechanical" copy of the work like a CD. For instance, we produced a CD a few years ago that featured "cover" songs and we needed to obtain licensing for those songs. Typically you would pay a few cents per CD copy you intend to make. I believe it was like 50 cents a CD per song.
It sounds like instead of accepting streaming revenue through a streaming license (similar to radio), that Wixen is requiring a mechanical license and then suing Spotify for mechanical licenses for all it's users for all the songs in their catalog. The logic is probably that Spotify is providing direct access to those songs and creating a virtual CD library so it's not streaming in the sense that you may or may not hear the song when you want. Spotify has basically replaced CDs with instant access to any song and that's probably where the "beef" is.
Music was insanely expensive as a hobby, probably was buying the equivalent of $1500 per year of cd's by the mid 1980s.;
People complaining about spending $120 a year is really annoying in this context.
Apple Music/iTunes provides album artwork, while streaming I can view the lyrics and I can sit down to listen to entire albums.
On that topic, something I always wished for was that Apple allow the iTunes LP files be viewed on iOS devices.
They made a big deal of it when it was released, but didn't follow through with the logical step of letting it be viewed on the iOS devices.