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Spotify hit with $1.6B copyright lawsuit

reuters.com

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Re: Spotify hit with $1.6B copyright lawsuit

#161

Post by bigbluedots »

basseq wrote: post #65

This article reads like a press release from the plantiff (Wixen) and took a little googling to unwind. Long story short, it sounds like there's disagreement about what type of license Spotify needs. Spotify has previously claimed that streaming is not "reproduction" and is more akin to "performance"... and they (may) have those licenses. What they do not have (in some cases?) is a "mechanical" license[1], which carr…

If a mechanical license was required by Spotify, wouldn't that mean I'd be able to keep copies of the songs forever, even if I stopped paying them?

Re: Spotify hit with $1.6B copyright lawsuit

#162

Post by chriszelazo »

ryanisnan wrote: post #121
spike021 wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you don't mind me asking, is there any particular reason you didn't just leave? I'd imagine this fits the kind of situation where you aren't obligated to stay.

$

Definitely al about the money

Re: Spotify hit with $1.6B copyright lawsuit

#163

Post by IncRnd »

alehul wrote: post #8

> In May, the Stockholm, Sweden-based company agreed to pay more than $43 million to settle a proposed class action alleging it failed to pay royalties for some of the songs it makes available to users. This number seems closer to reality. It may be Tom Petty, Neil Young, and the Doors, but they're not worth nearly 10% of Spotify's valuation, and that certainly wouldn't match a compensatory amount in revenue that Spo…

> 1.Wixen brings this action against Spotify for willfully infringing the copyrights in the musical compositions listed in Exhibit A (each a “Work” and collectively the “Works”). Wixen is an independent music publisher and exclusive licensee of the Works, all of which have either been registered or are pending registration with the United States Copyright Office. Spotify is the world’s most dominant music streaming and limited downloading service. As Spotify has publicly admitted, and as recent lawsuits and settlements confirm, Spotify has repeatedly failed to obtain necessary statutory, or “mechanical,” licenses to reproduce and/or distribute musical compositions on its service. Consequently, while Spotify has become a multibillion dollar company, songwriters and their publishers, such as Wixen, have not been able to fairly and rightfully share in Spotify’s success, as Spotify has in many cases used their music without a license and without compensation.

2.A recent proposed settlement involving rights holders and Spotify inthe class action lawsuit Ferricket al. v. Spotify USA Inc. et al.,No. 1:16-cv-8412(AJN) (S.D.N.Y.)(Dkt. # 167-3 (“Proposed Settlement”))does not adequately compensate Wixen or the songwriters it represents. Wixen has and, to the extent not yet effected, will opt out the Works from the Proposed Settlement.

From the actual lawsuit. https://www.scribd.com/document/368281292/Wixen-Music-Publis...

Re: Spotify hit with $1.6B copyright lawsuit

#164

Post by croon »

Insanity wrote: post #21
turc1656 wrote: post #14

This doesn't shock me at all. I recall a while back reading how Spotify allegedly started their service with downloads from The Pirate Bay: https://torrentfreak.com/spotifys-beta-used-pirate-mp3-files...

Though that was from a beta and in an unsure time of how the service would turn out. Just because a service starts by doing dubious things, does not mean it will continue doing so.

I got in post-beta, but invite-only free version in 2008, and I remember it having a lot of albums where names of which were still scene releases because (I presume) the parsing was off. I also remember specific releases having audio compression artefacts matching what I streamed from Spotify.

They replaced everything in phases, because I remember all the URI:s to songs kept breaking in my playlists before they implemented auto-matching of your songs to new location once a specific album was rendered unavailable.

No affiliation to Spotify, just a long time user.

Re: Spotify hit with $1.6B copyright lawsuit

#165

Post by taneq »

guelo wrote: post #141
basseq wrote: post #65

This article reads like a press release from the plantiff (Wixen) and took a little googling to unwind. Long story short, it sounds like there's disagreement about what type of license Spotify needs. Spotify has previously claimed that streaming is not "reproduction" and is more akin to "performance"... and they (may) have those licenses. What they do not have (in some cases?) is a "mechanical" license[1], which carr…

I would have thought that at this point with so many music streaming services all the legal stuff would have been figured out by now.

"Move fast and break things", remember? Who cares if the legal stuff is a quagmire, just scale your user base and hope someone buys you out before the shit hits the fan.

Re: Spotify hit with $1.6B copyright lawsuit

#167

Post by fnovd »

emodendroket wrote: post #146
QAPereo wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the vast majority of history, musicians were not some of the wealthiest members of society, far from it. Music has traditionally been “near free” and only ceased to be during a brief period necessitated by tech. That period has long since ended. I don’t see that an artificial value placed on music, rather than the previous real value set on its distribution, is necessarily a good thing.

How would you feel if someone were applying this argument to software development? At any rate, rich, world-famous artists are the least harmed by changes in the music industry.

I'm now imagining a disenchanted musician spending 8 hours a day at the cubicle making "business music."

Re: Spotify hit with $1.6B copyright lawsuit

#168

Post by scarface74 »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #154
emodendroket wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would you feel if someone were applying this argument to software development? At any rate, rich, world-famous artists are the least harmed by changes in the music industry.

How would you feel if someone were applying this argument to software development? I'd ask how much FOSS software is running on your machine right now, and how you intend to pay for it...

How much FOSS software is actually funded by big companies that are either trying to upsell support or non free offerings, trying to get others to contribute for free to help them,or by companies who are trying to "commoditize their compliments"?

Most major open source software is not done as a labor of love.

Re: Spotify hit with $1.6B copyright lawsuit

#169

Post by adrianratnapala »

adrianratnapala wrote: post #84
thomastjeffery wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By the way, indenting comments makes them frustrating to read on mobile. The generally preferred method on HN is to begin the line with a > and optionally wrap the quote in * (asterisks) to make it italicized.

> The generally preferred > method on HN is to begin > the line with a > The problem with ">"-style quoting, is that the markup doesn't recognize them. Nor does it preserve the preceding newline. So if you are quoting anything more than a one-liner, you get a mess.

@foota, yes double-line break kinda works. But it forces each line to be a para and that looks ugly. I prefer to use italics in these cases as @akvadrako suggests.

But italics is not great either, because the light-weight syntax with asterisks is really meant for a small bits of text. It gets brittle for long texts which might include asterisks, or other things that confuse the markup.

Re: Spotify hit with $1.6B copyright lawsuit

#170

Post by krallja »

fnovd wrote: post #167
emodendroket wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would you feel if someone were applying this argument to software development? At any rate, rich, world-famous artists are the least harmed by changes in the music industry.

I'm now imagining a disenchanted musician spending 8 hours a day at the cubicle making "business music."

Sounds like session musicians, or maybe the composers of advertising jingles.
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