Musician David Lowery, frontman for alt-rock bands Camper Van Beethoven and Cracker, sued Spotify in California District Court (PDF) this week for alleged copyright infringement. Lowery’s complaint accuses Spotify of failing to license the musicians’ works before putting them up for streaming.
"Spotify reproduces and/or distributes the Works despite its failure to identify and/or locate the owners of those compositions for payment or to provide them with notice of Spotify’s intent to reproduce and/or distribute the Works," Lowery's complaint alleges.
According to Billboard, the music-streaming service is in settlement negotiations with the National Music Publishers Association over its alleged practice of pre-emptively placing artists’ work on Spotify before obtaining licenses for it, then using a fund to pay for the music when the company makes contact with the licensee. "Spotify has created a $17 million to $25 million reserve fund to pay royalties for pending and unmatched song use,” Billboard’s sources say.
In a statement e-mailed to Ars, Spotify’s global head of communications and public policy, Jonathan Prince, said, "We are committed to paying songwriters and publishers every penny. 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. We are 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.”
Lowery, for his part, is asking the court for permission to bring a class-action lawsuit against Spotify. In his complaint the musician says that, once he is joined by other musicians who have been wronged by Spotify, the damages would exceed $150 million. Lowery is also asking for injunctions against Spotify to prevent the company from playing music for which it does not have a license.
A long-time critic of music streaming companies, Lowery, who also teaches at the University of Georgia, spoke to Salon last year about how Pandora would crush musicians. And, on the Trichordist, an author named davidclowery wrote a critical post just last week about Spotify’s recent post that said it would set up a database to deliver royalties to artists.
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