Spotify faces a 1.6 BILLION DOLLAR copyright lawsuit

[mankeez]

Spotify has been hit with a 1.6 billion dollar lawsuit for streaming songs from artists like Tom Petty, Neil Young and many more without a license and compensation. As reported in WhatHiFi:

Quote

Wixen, who filed a lawsuit in California federal court in December, claims Spotify has streamed tens of thousands of songs – from artists including Tom Petty, Neil Young, Rage Against the Machine’s Tom Morello and many more – without a license and compensation.
Read more at https://www.whathifi.com/news/spotify-faces-16bn-copyright-lawsuit#VmmGk0GXVwGwdTS2.99

Apparently, this isn't the first time the big green S has been sued for streaming unlicensed content. Only last year a group of songwriters and publishers filed a 43 million dollar settlement for streaming unlicensed content in their platform. And it was also in 2016 that it had to pay a 30 million dollar settlement to the NMPA for unpaid royalties.

It sure looks like Spotify has hit the lawsuit jackpot and I wouldn't be surprised if another settlement was filed against them.

 

Sources (2):

What HiFi: https://www.whathifi.com/news/spotify-faces-16bn-copyright-lawsuit

Reuters: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-spotify-lawsuit/spotify-hit-with-1-6-billion-copyright-lawsuit-idUSKBN1ER1RX

[Brehohn]

This is huge news! 1.6 BILLION dollars? Millions was easy before. But billions? How are they going to respond to this is my question. They need to just get permission. How hard is that? 

[mankeez]

10 minutes ago, Brehohn said:

This is huge news! 1.6 BILLION dollars? Millions was easy before. But billions? How are they going to respond to this is my question. They need to just get permission. How hard is that? 

I'm noticing some sarcasm around here.

[mr moose]

I foresee a future where it will go beyond spotify/first party infringes, I foresee a future where the laws will be change that make accessories of any party who make it possible.  That includes data centres, facebook etc.

[Hiya!]

Oh my Billion dollar? i hope they wont go down.

Cause i got my epic EDM playlist stored in spotify.

[ItsMitch]

Oh so just some pocket change then, nothing massive, just 1 billion united states dollars, brb lemme pull that out from the side of my sofa

wtf was they thinking.

[Crunchy Dragon]

All the more reason for me not to use Spotify

[Tech_Dreamer]

i get the anger of not being aware of your work being used but dayum!,  1.6 billion dollars? were they singing cure for cancer or something to demand such big overhaul?

[Misanthrope]

Quote

Rage Against the Machine’s Tom Morello

Oh wow really? I'd expect several people except him to become Lars 2.0 suing in full support of the RIAA.

 

On second thought, yeah I actually do expect rockstars to be quite hypocritical when they start talking revolution and socialism.

[christianled59]

Ah shit. I hope this doesnt do too much damage to them, I love Spotify.

[dizmo]

Haha, surpriiiiiise. Interestingly, Spotify only pays out an average of $0.006 per stream. They should have just signed them...or perhaps they refused because of the minuscule amount of money they'd get in royalties.

I can see both sides of the coin though. I mean, this is how these people make a living. It's how they put food on the table. If they keep finding ways to avoid paying the artist, soon we won't have nearly as many artists to enjoy.

At least not until universal wage kicks in

 

1 hour ago, mr moose said:

I foresee a future where it will go beyond spotify/first party infringes, I foresee a future where the laws will be change that make accessories of any party who make it possible.  That includes data centres, facebook etc.

What makes you think that? I mean, I get where you're coming from, but at the same time I don't see it becoming reality.

1 hour ago, Hiya! said:

Oh my Billion dollar? i hope they wont go down.

Cause i got my epic EDM playlist stored in spotify.

I think you'll be fine, it seems like a large figure, but it'll likely get reduced, and while a large sum, should be manageable for them.

34 minutes ago, SC2Mitch said:

Oh so just some pocket change then, nothing massive, just 1 billion united states dollars, brb lemme pull that out from the side of my sofa

wtf was they thinking.

For a company that brings in 2 billion a year + in revenue, it's not that bad. It's not like they pay it out all at once.

18 minutes ago, Tech_Dreamer said:

i get the anger of not being aware of your work being used but dayum!,  1.6 billion dollars? were they singing cure for cancer or something to demand such big overhaul?

Breaking laws revolving around copyright etc often carry very heavy penalties to make others think twice. Otherwise, if you make enough money (sort of the case here), the penalties can just be paid off.

[Drak3]

2 minutes ago, dizmo said:

At least not until universal wage kicks in

Would rather kill myself, actually.

 

Being dead is 10,000,000,000,000,000,000x better than being extremely poor in a world where everyone's monthly wages barely buys a loaf of stale bread.

[dizmo]

2 minutes ago, Drak3 said:

Would rather kill myself, actually.

 

Being dead is 10,000,000,000,000,000,000x better than being extremely poor in a world where everyone's monthly wages barely buys a loaf of stale bread.

Actually it's not that bad. In the cities they're testing it in here, it's ~$27k a year. More than minimum wage.

Granted it's not great money, but it's not meant to do anything more than have you live comfortably.

The world's going to have to transition sooner than later, as more and more jobs disappear due to automation.

[Drak3]

Just now, dizmo said:

Actually it's not that bad. In the cities they're testing it in here, it's ~$27k a year. More than minimum wage.

Granted it's not great money, but it's not meant to do anything more than have you live comfortably.

That's my first problem with it. If one lives comfortably doing jack shit, they have no motive to work harder. That then just drags down the moral of the nation.

 

Second, prices of everything just goes up, and currency becomes less valuable. In systems that rely heavily on share the wealth or universal wages, it quickly translates to everyone is in poverty. There's a reason the ruling elite in Communist countries don't abide by the same wealth redistribution as the people.

 

So, I'd rather kill myself.

[thorhammerz]

6 minutes ago, Drak3 said:

That's my first problem with it. If one lives comfortably doing jack shit, they have no motive to work harder.

With regards to the eventual state of AI and automation though: the vast majority of humans will no longer have a need to work "harder" when a technological entity can do it better, faster, and cheaper than what a human can ever output. Working "harder" for.... the sake of "working harder"?

 

[dizmo]

Just now, Drak3 said:

That's my first problem with it. If one lives comfortably doing jack shit, they have no motive to work harder. That then just drags down the moral of the nation.

 

Second, prices of everything just goes up, and currency becomes less valuable. In systems that rely heavily on share the wealth or universal wages, it quickly translates to everyone is in poverty. There's a reason the ruling elite in Communist countries don't abide by the same wealth redistribution as the people.

 

So, I'd rather kill myself.

That makes sense now, when there are still jobs to be had. What happens when those disappear? And I'm not talking about the distant future, either. Look at McDonald's and how the kiosks have taken away the most basic entry level job. When self driving cars kick in, there goes a huge amount of careers. Taxis, bus drivers (which is a very well paying profession), personal drivers, then the jobs connected to those; security, maintenance personnel, etc.

 

It's true. But, if you really dig deep, the entire monetary system isn't really based on anything. We've long surpassed the amount of physical gold for the currency that's being thrown around. It will eventually collapse as well.

 

Anyway, it's a very interesting debate/topic, but let's not derail the thread

[mr moose]

3 minutes ago, dizmo said:

Haha, surpriiiiiise. Interestingly, Spotify only pays out an average of $0.006 per stream. They should have just signed them...or perhaps they refused because of the minuscule amount of money they'd get in royalties.

I can see both sides of the coin though. I mean, this is how these people make a living. It's how they put food on the table. If they keep finding ways to avoid paying the artist, soon we won't have nearly as many artists to enjoy.

At least not until universal wage kicks in

 

What makes you think that? I mean, I get where you're coming from, but at the same time I don't see it becoming reality.

 

 

Because the fat has been trimmed from the industry so much that labels and producers are now concentrating on manufactured shows/talent (that they can control).  Sure the monkey's is where it started so not new, but you can't listen to the radio, the top 40, watch the tv without seeing 80% of the music come from manufactured celebrities.    With that in mind anything that takes further control away from the labels is going to be in their sights,  obviously they failed with piracy and now they are starting to fail to control the streaming industry.  If that happens they will be replaced by smaller outfits like bandcamp, patreon and distrokid.  This might be a win for independent talent (smalls bands like the ones I do sound for can get their share of the action), but while the record industry still has lobby power left I can see it going for the ultimate grab. 

[dizmo]

Just now, mr moose said:

 

Because the fat has been trimmed from the industry so much that labels and producers are now concentrating on manufactured shows/talent (that they can control).  Sure the monkey's is where it started so not new, but you can't listen to the radio, the top 40, watch the tv without seeing 80% of the music come from manufactured celebrities.    With that in mind anything that takes further control away from the labels is going to be in their sights,  obviously they failed with piracy and now they are starting to fail to control the streaming industry.  If that happens they will be replaced by smaller outfits like bandcamp, patreon and distrokid.  This might be a win for independent talent (smalls bands like the ones I do sound for can get their share of the action), but while the record industry still has lobby power left I can see it going for the ultimate grab. 

Yeah that's a good point. Apparently a lot of contracts now take a cut of the artists merch sales, something that they never did before. There was a pretty good Joe Rogan Experience podcast about it, listened to it just the other day. Record Labels are very quickly becoming irrelevant.

[mr moose]

1 minute ago, dizmo said:

Yeah that's a good point. Apparently a lot of contracts now take a cut of the artists merch sales, something that they never did before. There was a pretty good Joe Rogan Experience podcast about it, listened to it just the other day. Record Labels are very quickly becoming irrelevant.

Merch makes as much if not more than the actual music these days.  Look at the Jonas bro. and one direction.  John bonham would frog stomp beiber with talent any day of the week, but how many lunch boxes was his face on? 

[dizmo]

2 minutes ago, mr moose said:

Merch makes as much if not more than the actual music these days.  Look at the Jonas bro. and one direction.  John bonham would frog stomp beiber with talent any day of the week, but how many lunch boxes was his face on? 

Aye. That, and there's few places you can find $45 cheaper quality tee shirts other than a concert

As old man as it'll make me sound, at least there will always be the oldies. When music was real.

[mr moose]

9 minutes ago, dizmo said:

 

As old man as it'll make me sound, at least there will always be the oldies. When music was real.

Amen to that, may Jimmy Page, Bonham and Ringo star never have their music die.

[captain_to_fire]

Now, why didn’t Taylor Swift did this back in 2014 when she pulled out all of her songs from Spotify due to flaky monetary compensation as well? ?

 

Now look at what those people do. ?

[AlTech]

Kk. Spotify, you do you.

 

The ungrateful people at Spotify are still not respecting their paying customers as much as they should be.

 

I am among the paying customers and I can tell you that I wouldn't be surprised if an artist gets paid 2-3x more money from Spotify per PAYING customer than a regular AD Supported customer.

 

Spotify barely pays shit to artists when they do get paid. And frankly it's cos Consumers don't want to pay how much artists should really be paid.

 

In a perfect world, you would owe money to the artist and Spotify every time you listen to a song. And then at the end of the month you'd be billed for how much you listened to. The pay per play would increase a fair amount to provide reasonable salaries to artists. And Spotify would take a small cut from each play.

[mr moose]

12 minutes ago, AluminiumTech said:

Kk. Spotify, you do you.

 

The ungrateful people at Spotify are still not respecting their paying customers as much as they should be.

 

I am among the paying customers and I can tell you that I wouldn't be surprised if an artist gets paid 2-3x more money from Spotify per PAYING customer than a regular AD Supported customer.

 

Spotify barely pays shit to artists when they do get paid. And frankly it's cos Consumers don't want to pay how much artists should really be paid.

 

In a perfect world, you would owe money to the artist and Spotify every time you listen to a song. And then at the end of the month you'd be billed for how much you listened to. The pay per play would increase a fair amount to provide reasonable salaries to artists. And Spotify would take a small cut from each play.

Or just go back to the go old days where people paid $20 for the CD and the radio station paid a reasonable royalty per play.  That was enough to keep everyone happy.

 

If spotify can't pay royalties then its business model is flawed.  

[RefresherMan]

Good. Takes 1.6 billion to kill an Electron based app. Finally!