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Spotify Hit With $1.6 Billion Copyright Lawsuit (spin.com)
The Wixen Music Publishing company, which administers song compositions by Tom Petty, Dan Auerbach, Rivers Cuomo, Stevie Nicks, Neil Young, and others, has hit Spotify with a copyright lawsuit seeking $1.6 billion in damages. The publishing company filed the lawsuit on December 29, alleging the streaming giant is using Petty's "Free Fallin" and tens of thousands of other songs without license or compensation. SPIN reports: Back in September, Wixen objected to a $43 million settlement Spotify had arranged over another class action lawsuit brought by David Lowery (of Cracker and Camper van Beethoven) and Melissa Ferrick, stating it was "procedurally and substantively unfair to Settlement Class Members because it prevents meaningful participation by rights holders and offers them an unfair dollar amount in light of Spotify's ongoing, willful copyright infringement of their works." A judge has yet to rule on that settlement, and in the meantime, Wixen has moved to file its own lawsuit, which purports "as much as 21 percent of the 30 million songs on Spotify are unlicensed," according to The Hollywood Reporter.
"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. For these reasons and the foregoing, Wixen is entitled to the maximum statutory relief."
"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. For these reasons and the foregoing, Wixen is entitled to the maximum statutory relief."
I doubt they can afford it now...
Somehow I'm guessing a billion dollars won't be anywhere near the eventual settlement on this.. ;)
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
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If you listened to these artists while you did anything, their reasoning is that you not only owe them for the music, but you also owe them for what you did while listening to them. They set your brain waves straight!
--
Born on the run
Nice: Spotify has about 10x the number of pirated tracks I do. I"ve got work to do. Spiders to send etc.
How do they manage and dedup their collection?
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
...frEEEEEE ballin
now my balls are free, I'm free ballin
Once those words got in my head, that Tom Petty song was so much more comfortable.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
thats wonderful news, all the children born to music in the background should now be eligible for child support from these artists.
It is well known spotify started off sharing pirated music before trying to go legit. Just like napster, Hollywood, the fall of the western Roman Empire to barbarians, microsoft and the islamic conquests - they all started out by stealing from bigger fish.
It appears Spotify has not been able to put together a sustainable business model and they are unable to pay their suppliers. I am not really sure why there are people here that think it is ok for Spotify to sell a product they are not paying for. There are streaming services that have agreements for every track they stream. I don't know if they're profitable. It doesn't really matter to me as long as they are paying the artists. Sure in some cases there are other companies getting paid too, but that is only because artists entered into business deals with those other companies.
I lost all my fortune, and my house was foreclosed because I was listening to this shit called music.
I want justice, where is my reimbursement from these stupid record labels?
Hopefully this will spur copyright reform that takes away the fiction that art is created in a vacuum.
They're always likely to get hit with things like this and you're always likely to wake up one morning, play your favourite playlist only to realise most of it isn't there.
They seem to want people to stop listening, well fuck em.
Why? You don't have a right to listen to any music you like, any way you want. If they don't want to deliver music to you on your terms, that is their right.
If you don't like that, vote with your wallet. Or go bang two rocks together and stomp your feet to make music.
He said he doesn't care.
Is suing Spotify for $10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.63
Actually, you do have a right to listen to any music you want, any way you want. Copyright is supposed to be a limited period where your right is suspended, so the creator can seek compensation. It was never envisioned or expected to be a perpetual lock on artistic works and has been greatly abused by the music industry.
Stevie Hick, Leroy Petty, Mario Cuomo, Beethoven!, and Sweet sweet Connie who was always doing her act. D.O.A.
Thanks for your views on copyright. I support your views. I use *TONS* GPL'd code without concern for the copyright at all, after all, cod just wants to be free, and so the GPL is illegitimate.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
What the actual hell was Spotify thinking? Just use it without permission and settle the lawsuit later? Was it a technical error where they thought they had the license? Did someone misrepresent ownership of it? There has to be another side of this other than they downloaded a high bitrate copy off the pirate bay and then streamed it knowingly illegally.
no one wants fucking CDs anymore
Speak for yourself.. I still buy CDs and blu rays. And paper books. And these things called "records," played by dragging a stone down a groove made of dead dinosaurs and plant decay at 33 1/3rd RPM.
Streaming for the convenience, physical for the permanence.
The "Civilized World" jumped the shark ca. 1973.
Geez, I think this is going to end badly. These aren't hotel chains or cab drivers that Spotify is up against. Just deciding not to ask for permission first doesn't work well in this particular arena.
Completely unlicensed or there are multiple parties they need to license from for the songs? Multiple parties always get dicey as to paper trail is burred some where. You can have non-stakeholder claim they own part of the license even though they sold it long time ago or didn't get the license they think they got when they bulk purchase.
Seems like the best course of action. Let's run the companies who actually make it easy for people to pay to listen to music into the ground.
Taking away these avenues of listening to music is a surefire way to eliminate piracy.
Well, of course they do considering they are based in Sweden. They would follow the copyright law of Sweden.
The music industry is pure scum. Never give a penny to those cockroaches and the washed up has-beens they purport to represent. No one deserves ongoing compensation for work they did decades ago.
For those who are brave and upstanding patriots, the best thing is to share - download, upload, and liberate as much music as possible. CULTURE BELONGS TO EVERYONE.
For those like me who live in fear of our repressive regime and their jack booted thugs, the best thing is simply not to listen to any non-free music. Never subscribe. Never login. If an ad starts to play, closer the stream. Most of it is garbagey pap anyway. This course also provides a convenient occasion to spit at snobby consumerist music scenesters.
And the GPL people would certainly have no problem if you had no problem with people down stream doing the same to your work.
If people keep infringing on copyright, Tom Petty won't record any more music.
Sorry. Everybody but you doesnâ(TM)t want them.
s/born/recieved/r
"Oh my God. This is terrible. This is the end of my Presidency. I'm fucked."; ~ Donald J. Trump
*conceived... godsdamnit
38 seconds since you successfully posted.
I don't think the comment traffic on /. is high enough for any of those little half-measures to be useful today...
"Oh my God. This is terrible. This is the end of my Presidency. I'm fucked."; ~ Donald J. Trump
after all, cod just wants to be free
Those pesky fishing nets...
umm the GNU GPL is a distribution license not a use license. You are free to utilize the code without agreeing to the GNU GPL. The GNU GPL is largely a social standard than a legally enforced action. The effectiveness of enforcement of the GNU GPL has had close to zero benefit and this is a summary of the words handed directly to me by the primary person heading up the only organization which is pursuing enforcement action.
The principles of the GNU GPL exist with or without copy"right". I object to copy"right" and support the principles of the GNU GPL.
I also am probably in the top dozen of people whose direct action is funding 100% free software to a significant degree on top having started and am heading up a company that is leading a project which has secured about $64 million to go toward funding solution to engineer our way out of various proprietary crap in the hardware realm.
The $64 million or so is just to design chips and the like which are completely libre. There is another $40 million or so beyond that which will eventually need to be secured. The point is we're doing the seemingly impossible no thanks to government or copy"right". The value of copy"right" is significantly overvalued. You need a workable business model, not copy"right". Copy"right" is not the reason businesses succeed or fail. It's business models. There are both successful free software businesses and unsuccessful. The same applies to proprietary software businesses.
Permanence? I've used vinyl records more than enough to know how poorly they degrade. Bring a record over to a friend's house, and his record player has an old stylus? It'll permanently scratch your record, degrading its quality. Play a record a bunch of times? The stylus gradually wears away the vinyl, degrading its quality. Accidentally drop the arm onto the record? I've done it tons of times, on players that don't have a lever/button that moves the arm into position. Degrades the record's quality. The same doesn't happen with lasers on CD players.
Old records seem to degrade just from age. Bitrot does happen with optical discs etc. but you can use checksums to verify that it is NOT happening, and easily make verifiable 1:1 identical backups and infinite backup copies, whisked away by the internet within seconds to offsite backup locations around the planet. Making backup copies of vinyl to another vinyl disc with a guarantee of an identical copy? Not so easy for a consumer.
Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
Actually, you do have a right to listen to any music you want, any way you want. Copyright is supposed to be a limited period where your right is suspended, so the creator can seek compensation.
Yes, you are free to listen to "any music you want" as long as any music you want is past the copyright protection period. That's a rather limited definition of "any".
When I make music, I control it, in perpetuity unless I choose to publish it. There are songs in my recording studio you will never hear, and never have the right to hear either.
If I choose to publish it, I retain control for the copyright period in exchange for donating the music to the public domain at the expiry of the copyrights. Until then, you have no rights to it unless I (or someone acting on my behalf) grants you a right, whether it be through purchase, rental or otherwise.
An LP and optical media are anything but permanent. Books certainly can last a while, but as i discovered when I pulled a box of my old books a year or two ago, a few years stored in less than optimal conditions, and you won't want to keep them.
My solution is digital, but stored in multiple places are reduplicated in one way or another once or twice a year. Still a risk of small amount of loss, but that's made up for by convenience. I have ebooks I bought a decade ago that I can still read; the file is still intact, stored on multiple media, and yes, the evil "cloud". I have MP3s that are much older than that.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
When I make music, I control it, in perpetuity unless I choose to publish it.
Being that the topic at hand is about Spotify and WB, we are referring specifically to US copyright laws.
In the USA what you say is not at all true. The Government has removed that right from you back in 1978.
While I agree this should never have been made into law, but the moment any part of your song left your head and was written down or recorded, the Government forces that into copyright protection against your will. Unfortunately they no longer give you this choice.
Since everything anyone writes down or records is forced into copyright protection, that means all of that work is destined to the public domain, which is true even if you didn't wish it to ever have copyright protection in the first place.
If you do not live in the USA then of course the above doesn't apply to you, but being that the USA is the topic of discussion you'll have to forgive the assumption.
And if someone's raping children, by GOD I have the RIGHT to call the police!
Oh. No one's listening to me but my own strawmen.
music in games has issues with let's plays over music rights.
Arcades / bars had issues with the BMI and ASCAP saying you need have jukebox licensing for your site so we don't sue you.
"Raises pinky finger", give us 1 billion dollars or else!
As an independent artist who is not a mainstream artist, yea some people do want cds and physical as well as digital. Itunes and most are thieves. Spotify has sent me bogus "notifications" claiming myself as other artists cipyright holder in a major scam. Anyone who uses spotify is a creep. I love all these propaganda messages from spotify and music marketing associates who have and continue to scam illegally, sending improper licensing notices to wrong people and copyright, and who have funnelled and stolen billions off of people like me and fellow artists who dont make a dime, and yes do sell cds, vinyls and digital to REAL MUSIC fans. Itunes, Spotify are for people who don't listen, respect or care about the concept of an actual "music album" or piece of art, they are services for people who want a quick tune ir whatever the mainstream is serving at the moment, or a piece of novelty. Sad that I saw this article, relieved that another major lawsuit is taking place. I don't or want anything but for Spotify, total thieves, exactly as this lawsuit and article claims to burn and people wake up to NOT support these immoral criminals and bogus royalty (BANKS) agency funneling illegal funds to Spotify, why do you that Swefish/NY got so big in billions so fast, off the ouright thievery and exploitation of hundreds of thousands of artists' work stolen, streamed, collectors. Thanks public. Grow a conscious and some taste. Try listening to an album. PS I hardly care if someone downloads my album and enjoys btw, as long as some jerk and million or billion dollar corporations are exploiting and profiting from its ubauthorised SALE. Keyword, creep
And yea streaming a continual stream or collection of royalty aka via streaming service. The only people who collect are the corporate scumbag streamers, by hook and by crook as proven by thieves Spotify. The only persons worse are the people paying for that service or attemptimg to make any excuse or justification for using. OR the music marketers commenting asap in reaction to the article as a form of propaganda and damage control - slime of the Earth.
Pardon the spelling.
last correction: NOT exploiting or prifitting of course. Burn Spotify burn. I only hope subscribers drop and cancel their paid subscription. Hmm. I wonder if they will? The only reason it goes on is because people don't care. And ps, redefine "piracy" in the music piracy witchhunts, the large portion of shared music WAS generally by #s outside the mainstream or with no legal claim by the old big 3 record companies who pursued and promoted the term for their own deceptive purposes. Wake up call, their are billions of people and hundred of thousands are artist in the past and today who are not Maroon Five, Lady Gago, or Sia. They represent the few and itunes world. Spotify stole and continues to lie and steal from hundreds of thousands, culminating in billions of revenue from the real musician not corporate raised and marketed.
A quick chime in.. all media is valid, ehether CD, CDR, DVD, vinyl or even cassette, which all have their collectors and users. All valid, whatever you enjoy.
I have all, have not gotten back into cassettes like some, have plenty of vinyl, dont wear out my records playing exclusive. After decades, very much appreciate cd, cdrs for a variety of reasons and purposes, especially as a great affordable method to support and collect from musicians and artists + easy to digitize in any format for computer or phone etc.
Streaming is weak imo. Its scenarios like this, i dont. Not to hard to dump 300+ mp3s or albums on any device and stream anyway on dirtcheap storage. But if one does stream.. screw spotify!! I like to support my artist direct and yes i do prefer full album experiences or at least random on a music player like proamp
not a good name for german speaking countries. :)
People don't care because copyright law is absurd. If it was 5-10 years, no problem. But the media industries see the public domain as direct competition and has lobbied again and again to ruin it as much as possible.
Copyright should be permanent. No one should be entitled to use another man's work without the appropriate compesation.
That's fine. The GPL doesn't impose any restrictions on the use of the code, so use it however you want.
Bit rot happens with burned discs as the dye decays. Mass produced CDs are molded. They should last forever if your player isn't scratching them up.
No one should be entitled to use another man's work without the appropriate compesation.
A limited copyright gives you appropriate compensation. Nobody else gets compensated in perpetuity for their work.
Books last for decades and centuries if you aren't a dumbass. Why would you not be able to read a book or an ebook from 10 years ago?
thats wonderful news, all the children born to music in the background should now be eligible for child support from these artists.
No that's the wrong way round, babies born to music have to pay the listening fee, and the parents and anyone else within 100m radius.
Wanna buy a shirt?
https://www.redbubble.com/people/stealthfinger/shop?asc=u
Every entity that purports to provide large catalog of digital content definitely has some copyright problems in their service. The reason is that strictly following copyright rules will cut down the size of the service you can provide, and limit it to the work you can do yourself, or what you have money to license. Digital content licensing isn't cheap, so every player who has millions of content items in their service are somehow dubious in their copyright story.
Why do these companies think they can build a catalog of millions of content items? It's simply illegal operation completely. Only pirates have large collections of copyrighted works.
Good companies that are strictly following copyright rules can only build small services, and they still need to compete against these illegal services who don't want to follow the rules. This market phenomenon that services must absolutely include every copyrighted work on the planet to their catalog to be successful should be killed. End users should notice the illegality of the service when the service starts offering too many copyrighted works. Every service with large catalog has the same problem.
End users are supposed to jump from one service to another constantly to find the best content online. This approach that one portal must contain access to large collections of content is illegal by definition.
So this is where the Patent Trolls got their business model from.
Now when the Patents aren't as lucrative as it used to be I wonder if you can't find the same actors in these suits...
It is just disgusting that you can earn your living on the back of creative people just by suing everybody that may have come in contact with the results of these creative souls labour...
Should have wished that for a New Years resolution...
In the US you are not completely correct. If you publish music, you give up part of your rights. You can thank radio (mostly) for that. See:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compulsory_license#United_States
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Performance_Right_in_Sound_Recordings_Act
I'm just curious: besides music, what other types of your creative output do you think you should control? And concerning music, what exactly are the aspects of your music that you think you should control: melody? rhythm? accompaniment? tonality? arrangement? choice of instruments? feel? style?
If they don't want to deliver music to you on your terms, that is their right.
Thing is, they don't have to deliver the music. It exists. It's out there.
What the fuck gives them the right to stop me making the air move?
Or go bang two rocks together and stomp your feet to make music.
That's exactly what Spotify are doing, and being sued for. See how fucking stupid the current situation is?
Copyright should be permanent. No one should be entitled to use another man's work without the appropriate compesation.
It is permanent. Just keep the work to yourself. The rest of the world doesn't need it.
You wouldn't even need copyright if you didn't have a desire to control what people do with their own computer in their own home.
They did setup shop, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
thats wonderful news, all the children born to music in the background should now be eligible for child support from these artists.
You've got that backwards, not only do the parents owe the artist, the child being the product of said music must forfiet a portion of all their earnings for life +70... because copyright uber alles.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Also known as rent-seeking behavior. That's a term you really need to familiarize yourself with if you live in a country where corporations control the government.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
You're actually wrong to an extent.
I refuse to 'buy' digital music which some company might later decide I no longer am allowed to play. I have no fucking interest in streaming the music I already own from the cloud or paying the data required to do so. I'm not buying some fucking subscription service to play music. And I'm not signing up to a bunch of different websites for different things.
I consume music in one (and only one) way ... I buy the CD, I rip the CD, and then I do whatever the fuck with the DRM-free MP3s, whenever the fuck I want to, on whatever fucking device I want to.
I'm not interested in the pop flavor of the month, and I'm not paying into a service which most heavily rewards shitty artists on the assumption I'm listening to them.
When I can no longer buy CDs, my music collection will likely cease to grow.
For the same reason those damned Ultraviolet digital copies made me stop getting digital downloads I used to be able to get from iTunes, I'm not signing up for 10 or 20 different fucking websites for the privilege of listening to music I've already bought. The problem is the content industry wants to directly and personally associate me with every piece of digital content I have, and force me to ask permission to play it. And I'm not doing that.
Sorry, no, fuck off ... my relationship with the publishing company ends the moment I walk out the store with the CD, and they can kiss my ass. I'm not willing to be tracked, analyzed, monitored, or beg permission to play something I own.
Spotify's argument seems to be that streaming isn't the same as downloading. This is kinda bad distinction. Technically streaming has two parts: 1) downloading the data (in pieces), 2) Playing the downloaded data when the data is available. What streaming does not have is permanent storage of the end result, assuming that their service does not provide "save" feature that results in mp3 files to be available to end users.
But spotify tries to separate streaming and downloading, and it is clear that streaming has downloading as one part of the operation. Whether this downloading is legally distribution or reproduction should be left for lawyers to decide.
Anyway, if spotify's paperwork is accurate and they paid billions of money to copyright owners, they're in much better shape than many of the other copyright lawsuit defendants. Once the money moves between the parties, there must be something that spotify bought with the money. Billions of money means it needs to be something significant, and this makes the lawsuit a whole lot more interesting than your ordinary copyright fight.
What GP meant, essentially, is that you have the natural right to listen to any music you want. We have created a *legal* right in the creators of artistic works to control distribution and enjoyment of those works for a limited time in order to promote their creation.
This is the view with which copyright was created and is how it's taught in first year property classes in law school. You've been around here long enough to have been exposed to this already; shame on you for trolling.
I refuse to 'buy' digital music which some company might later decide I no longer am allowed to play.
You'll be glad to know that Amazon and iTunes both sell music in DRM-free formats now. Still, for the price, I can get a physical media backup if I buy on CD instead. And depending on the age of the album, getting that physical backup is either free or lowers the price.
You don't have magic eyes and ears. Double blind trials have already shown people can't tell a difference. You aren't special.
Evidently you're not one of the many out there that are embracing the return to Vinyl.
I'm not yet one of them, but man ... vinyl on a good phonograph with a good needle and good speakers ... it's a different, richer, sound than digital. I think, anyway. Too bad I only ever owned three vinyl albums.
Frammin' on the jim-jam, frippin' at the krotz!
I still buy CDs, it's usually cheaper than buying MP3s.
youtube does this too, but no one sues them.
That is true, but as usual: it's equally true that nobody has the right to prevent me from listing to any music I like, any way I want (once the music has been published).
The only way to secure the right to prevent people from listening to your music, is to keep your music a secret. You do have the right to abstain from ever playing or recording your music. But once you put it out there, that didn't just magically give you special powers over what other people are allowed to do.
These entitled babies who want the advantages of secrecy plus the advantages of publishing, apparently have never stepped out into the real world, where everything else works different from their fantasy.
Why shouldn't Spotify work like Netflix? If Netflix can't negotiate to buy a particular series, it doesn't show it to its customers. It is as simple as that. For instance, the last time I checked (six months ago, for all I know things may have changed by now), but Game of Thrones or South Park wouldn't stream on Netflix. So that left users forced to watch either show on HBO/Comedy Central (or if they're not in the right world region, forced to watch illegal streams).
Doesn't Spotify obey DMCA requests? What about if you're Howard Stern or Dave Chappelle? What if you negotiate an exclusive deal with satellite radio or HBO? What gives Spotify the right to break those agreements? If Spotify refuses to follow the law, why can't a judge just give their domain name away to the rights owners (like they did with AllOfMP3.com)?
We need to stop this, quadruple copyrights for every album.
If an artist doesn't write their own lyrics, and they create and release a song. It shouldn't be the listener who has to pay for the rights of those lyrics. That should be all handled by the artist.
For many, the music industry was better organised than the video industry. Most music was available on Spotify. I understand where the rights holders are coming from, but they should carefully consider the risk of fragmentation.
However, the music industry has a vested interest in me listening to music. If they make it more awkward or difficult or expensive, fewer people will listen to the music and their revenues go down. If they make it easy to buy legit copies of music, they'll make more money. GP feels that the music industry doesn't want him or her listening, and may well be driven away from buying music.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes