Spotify Faces $150 Million Lawsuit Over Alleged Failure To Obtain Mechanical Licenses
University of Georgia music business lecturer David Lowery filed a $150 million class-action lawsuit against Spotify Monday in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, claiming the company knowingly and illegally distributes copyrighted music without obtaining necessary mechanical licenses. Lowery, who…
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Export Compliance Daily combines U.S. export control news, foreign border import regulation and policy developments into a single daily information service that reliably informs its trade professional readers about important current issues affecting their operations.
leads the bands Camper Van Beethoven and Cracker, claims the songs Spotify is illegally distributing include four Cracker songs -- “Almond Grove," "Get On Down the Road," "King of Bakersfield" and "Tonight I Cross the Border.” Spotify has distributed copyrighted music to more than 75 million users without properly obtaining needed mechanical licenses, Lowery said in the lawsuit. Spotify's publicly admitted failure to obtain the mechanical licenses “creates substantial harm and injury to the copyright holders, and diminishes the integrity of the works,” Lowery said in the lawsuit. “We are committed to paying songwriters and publishers every penny," a Spotify spokesman said in a statement. "Unfortunately, especially in the United States, the data necessary to confirm the appropriate rightsholders is often missing, wrong, or incomplete. When rightsholders are not immediately clear, we set aside the royalties we owe until we are able to confirm their identities.” Spotify is working “closely” with the National Music Publishers Association to “find the best way to correctly pay the royalties we have set aside and we are investing in the resources and technical expertise to build a comprehensive publishing administration system to solve this problem for good,” the spokesman said.