Sunday, January 10, 2016

Streaming, Statutes, and Spotify

Spotify is definitely under fire because of copyright infringement right now. What a way to start off 2016, right? David Lowery and others are suing Spotify for not being paid while their work is streaming. Spotify has opened up to state that they bank the money for the royalties for the music until they figure out who the artist is, which is still copyright infringement, apparently. The lawsuit is for up to $150 million, and is to represent other artists as well. This is not the first time that Spotify has been under fire for the same sort of thing, but a change was not made.
Spotify is one of the top streaming services today. Though I’m not a huge fan of it and only utilize it when I’m on my PlayStation, I feel for them. One would think that they’d have more precautionary steps set into place and they’d have someone look for the artist prior to streaming their music. In my honest opinion, after reading a few articles, it seems as though they didn’t really care and weren’t necessarily seeking out these artists whose music they had been streaming.
This situation has opened up my eyes to the industry a little bit more. Of course there will be legal issues, but if a company as large as Spotify can get away with this for periods of time, there is a lot to look out for. It almost puts the idea in my head that there will need to be searches for our artists’ music across the internet to make sure it isn’t being used without our permission. I wish Spotify luck, as they have been successful, however, I hope they get it together, as it would be nice to be able to stream our music on the site in the future.






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