What Happened?
In 2017, Wixen Music Publishing filed a lawsuit against Spotify for $1.6 billion. Wixen Music Publishing stated in the paperwork that was filed, which was obtained by ABC News, that Spotify was using songs that the Wixen administered without license and compensation. Some of the songs that Wixen are responsible for include Mariah Carey’s “All I Want For Christmas Is You” and Tom Petty’s “Free Fallin”. Spotify is being accused of committing copyright infringement for the streaming of songs that were published under Wixen Music Publishing. Some of the artists that Wixen represents include Tom Petty, Missy Elliot, Stevie Nicks and Neil Young. Wixen sought for $150,000 for each work (a song) infringed which totaled at $1.6 billion.
The Copyright law
As a quick overview, the copyright law states that a copyright, a form of intellectual property law, protects original works of authorship including literary, dramatic, musical, and artistic works, such as poetry, novels, movies, songs, computer software, and architecture. Copyright does not protect facts, ideas, systems, or methods of operation, although it may protect the way these things are expressed.
The Response
When reached by ABC News, no representative of Spotify responded with a comment. Spotify encountered a similar case a year prior to this case in which they reached a settlement with songwriters that were sued for copyright infringement and set up a fund worth $43.3 million to compensate. Wixen would not agree on any settlement in this case, to which an attorney representing Spotify responded with a memo saying
“The act of streaming does not reproduce copies of sound recordings or musical compositions, and equally does not distribute copies of either sound recordings or compositions.”
The Outcome
In court, Wixen responded to settlement, calling it
“grossly insufficient to compensate songwriters and publishers for Spotify’s actions, as well as procedurally unjust.”
The president of Wixen, Randall Wixen, stated that his company was simply looking for to be “treated fairly”. The financial terms of the settlement were not disclosed but Spotify did not file a disclosure to shareholders with the SEC indicating that the $1.6 billion was not awarded. Spotify and Wixen would go on to agree on a joint statement saying they agreed on a final dismissal of the lawsuit. Spotify would follow up with the launch of their new songwriter credits feature which basically to track who deserves credit for the songs they stream on their platform. In November of 2018, Spotify launched an analytics service for music publishers to track their artists’ streaming stats.
References
https://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-protect.html
https://techcrunch.com/2018/11/08/spotify-debuts-an-analytics-service-for-music-publishers/
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