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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

#151

Post by rhizome »

spuz wrote: post #109
agrippanux wrote: post #96

I was one of the original engineers on MP3.com. Shortly after our music locker service debuted, we got sued by all the major labels. I spent 4 months writing tools to pull all the discovery data for their lawsuits. When it was apparent our court case was going south, the major music publishers sued us as well (lead by Harry Fox Agency). I spent another 4 months pulling discovery data for those lawsuits. When those co…

What does "pulling discovery data" mean? Why did MP3.com get sued?

In this context I imagine it's primarily the collection and collation of play logs.

Re: Spotify hit with $1.6B copyright lawsuit

#152

Post by nemothekid »

bogomipz wrote: post #115
agrippanux wrote: post #96

I was one of the original engineers on MP3.com. Shortly after our music locker service debuted, we got sued by all the major labels. I spent 4 months writing tools to pull all the discovery data for their lawsuits. When it was apparent our court case was going south, the major music publishers sued us as well (lead by Harry Fox Agency). I spent another 4 months pulling discovery data for those lawsuits. When those co…

>"we got sued by every 2 bit operation that owned a partial percentage of the country-based rights to a song" Were these these each each country's performing rights societies then? I am confused on why these are partial percentages. I would have though that they would be 100% owned in each country. Does the performing right society divide up 1 pie amongst all its affiliates in each of the countries. Do you have any i…

I worked on a similar system for various music rights holders.

It could be a record label, recording studio or even a song writer that holds a partial percentage of the proceeds from a composition, performance, or recording, and the actual percentage owned could vary by country.

So in Norway, Sony, Mom&Pop Music and your uncle Joe could hold various rights on a song, and in Sweden hold entirely different rights. Based on various revshares, contracts and agreements the amount paid out to each entity could vary as well - in my case sometimes they even varied on the platform it was played on, who played the song, etc.

It's very complicated and there are a ton of edge cases. These edge cases is where a lot of the partial percentages and confusing ownerships come from. And it doesn't help that there's a lot of music out there for which the metadata is really bad. The majors have complicated systems to figure this out (not sophisticated-complicated, more like 1-million lines of business logic complicated), mainly because they have to.

Re: Spotify hit with $1.6B copyright lawsuit

#153

Post by kodablah »

thomastjeffery wrote: post #105
cortesoft wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It scales really well for the owner of the service... it does not scale really well for the internet as a whole (sadly).

How so? There only issue I can think of is upload speed, which is improving for many, and would improve more prevalently if more average users had a clear need.

It usually requires more copies and more uploaders due to the fact that personal devices' uptimes are much more ephemeral.

Re: Spotify hit with $1.6B copyright lawsuit

#154

Post by CamperBob2 »

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.

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...

Re: Spotify hit with $1.6B copyright lawsuit

#159

Post by dharmon »

turc1656 wrote: post #17
al2o3cr wrote: post #13

The pieces don't quite fit together here - Harry Fox handles a LOT of licensing (they're one of the places you can get mechanical licenses for cover songs via self-service) and I'd assume that a big contract for an organization the size of Spotify would include at least some indemnification for any legal issues. And, naturally, the damage amount is wildly unrelated to actual revenues - not quite the "one download on…

It's just a starting point for negotiation. Same way people slip in a store and sue for $1M, even though they end up settling for 50k.

And think about the timing. Just before Spotify wants to go public? Nobody wants to go public with a pending lawsuit, so added pressure to settle.
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