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Spotify hit with $1.6B copyright lawsuit

504 points by uptown 9y ago

sp332 9y ago
At the bottom of the article is says "SPONSORED". But I can't find who sponsored it? Edit: Ok thanks for the screenshots. I disabled my adblocker but they're still not showing up. Probably just something broken.
- abluecloud 9y ago
  Disable your ad block and you'll see adverts underneath it. https://imgur.com/a/zbvTh https://imgur.com/a/zbvTh
  - HenryBemis 9y ago
    fun fact: the ad was brought to us by "Dianomi" which is the Greek word for "distribution".
- thesagan 9y ago
  Turn off your adblock and reload the page and you'll see it on the right-hand side.
- uptown 9y ago
  Your adblocker is probably removing sponsored posts. It's unrelated to this article.
- connorelsea 9y ago
  With my adblocker on I see the same thing, with it off, that label is moved to a right-hand column as a header for sidebar ads
- likpok 9y ago
  Those are sponsored links a la Taboola. If you reload without a content blocker you'll see them.
- deleted 9y ago
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- deleted 9y ago
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- deleted 9y ago
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- gkoberger 9y ago
  For anyone concerned, there's nothing to worry about! This specific article isn't directly sponsored. It's just a generic ad network at the bottom that's 'SPONSORED'.
  - RIMR 9y ago
    Ah, I see. My ad blocker blocked the ads, but kept the word "Sponsored" just floating around with no context.
KasianFranks 9y ago
Almost as big as SeeqPods multi-billion dollar copyright suit (which we got kicked out of court) https://www.beet.tv/2009/02/seeqpod-gets-hit-with-multibillion-dollar-lawsuits.html https://www.beet.tv/2009/02/seeqpod-gets-hit-with-multibilli...
alehul 9y ago
> In May, the Stockholm, Sweden-based company agreed to pay more than $43 million to settle a proposed class action alleging it failed to pay royalties for some of the songs it makes available to users. This number seems closer to reality. It may be Tom Petty, Neil Young, and the Doors, but they're not worth nearly 10% of Spotify's valuation, and that certainly wouldn't match a compensatory amount in revenue that Spotify failed to pay. Are they aiming for some punitive measure? Or are they going to settle for 5% of this in the near future?
- ggg9990 9y ago
  That's not how damages work though. A factory worth $1 million can create hundreds of millions of dollars of damages with a spill or accident.
  - icebraining 9y ago
    Plus copyright has statutory damages, so they don't even need to prove actual damages.
- brudgers 9y ago
  My guess is that the amount being sought reflects statutory damages for willful copyright infringement. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitol_Records,_Inc._v._Thomas-Rasset https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitol_Records,_Inc._v._Thoma...
- CPLX 9y ago
  > This number seems closer to reality. It may be Tom Petty, Neil Young, and the Doors, but they're not worth nearly 10% of Spotify's valuation Why not? Is there some plausible way to build a $19bn company that lets you listen to music without the works of major globally famous artists? I am willing to agree with you intuitively that this suit is overstating damages as well, but it's definitely not a prima facie argument, you'll have to support that point of view with facts.
  - umanwizard 9y ago
al2o3cr 9y ago
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 Napster == $250k" levels seen in copyright litigation against consumers, but still almost half of Spotify's likely revenue for 2017...
- turc1656 9y ago
  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.
  - AnimalMuppet 9y ago
    It's also an attempt to force negotiation. "You want to negotiate a settlement with us, because if you lose..."
  - dharmon 9y ago
    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.
    - nightcracker 9y ago
      > Nobody wants to go public with a pending lawsuit I'm pretty sure every large company in the world is involved in multiple lawsuits at any point in time (both offensively and defensively).
- wrigby 9y ago
  Yeah, saying HFA is ill-equipped to obtain mechanical licenses doesn't make sense to me. That's exactly the role they play. Maybe they didn't obtain performance licenses though?
- 9y ago
turc1656 9y ago
This doesn't shock me at all. I recall a while back reading how Spotify allegedly started their service with downloads from The Pirate Bay: https://torrentfreak.com/spotifys-beta-used-pirate-mp3-files-some-from-pirate-bay-170509/ https://torrentfreak.com/spotifys-beta-used-pirate-mp3-files...
- cbhl 9y ago
  Spotify cleaned up a lot in 2014. They used to be peer-to-peer, and they'd give "free" service to employees of certain big tech companies because they could take advantage of the upload bandwidth of the big tech offices. They culled the P2P tech in 2014 and went to a standard server-client model. https://techcrunch.com/2014/04/17/spotify-removes-peer-to-peer-technology-from-its-desktop-client/ https://techcrunch.com/2014/04/17/spotify-removes-peer-to-pe...
  - thomastjeffery 9y ago
    It's sad to see that peer to peer is not utilized more, since it scales so well. The overbearing copyright propaganda has given BitTorrent a bad name, even though it has so many other uses.
    - cortesoft 9y ago
      It scales really well for the owner of the service... it does not scale really well for the internet as a whole (sadly).
      - thomastjeffery 9y ago
        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.
        schoen 9y ago
        The original BitTorrent wasn't aware of network topology at all, so it could randomly use a relatively expensive or congested link just as easily as a LAN connection. You could get better use of network resources overall if you usually preferred to get pieces from peers that are closer to you on the network. I think the BitTorrent company and/or community were studying this issue at some point and so they may have come up with alternative algorithms that prefer at least AS-locality or something. As an extreme case, imagine that there are two seeds, one being another computer on your LAN and another being a host in Timor-Leste (which at one point in the 2000s reportedly had a single T1 connection for the entire country). It will be nicer for you and for the Timorese if you can somehow arrange to simply download the file from your LAN seed. Here's one example of someone trying to improve this property: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TopBT https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TopBT
bwang29 9y ago
Added another source to assist discussion for more context: "https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/spotify-hit-16-billion-copyright-lawsuit-tom-petty-weezer-neil-young-songs-1070960" https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/spotify-hit-16-bil... And Quote : "The Settlement Agreement is procedurally and substantively unfair to Settlement Class Members because it prevents meaningful participation by rights holders and offers them an unfair dollar amount in light of Spotify’s ongoing, willful copyright infringement of their works," ... "In reaction, Spotify has been questioning whether Wixen has really been authorized by its clients (including Andrew Bird, Kenny Rogers, and Jim Morrison's heirs) to take its aggressive actions. Songwriters have administrative agreements with Wixen allowing the publisher to negotiate licensing deals, but Spotify has pointed out these agreements are silent about litigation."
- txsh 9y ago
  Bad link. Remove the quotes.
  - breakingcups 9y ago
    Might help if you explained why you think that is the case.
    - hirsin 9y ago
      They mean the formatting of the link is busted by the quote marks.
      - glandium 9y ago
        The link is busted by the double quote at the end of it.
- wrigby 9y ago
  This is a bit confusing. My understanding of how music publishing works is that the copyright is usually assigned to the publisher (for a limited amount of time), so any rights of the copyright holder are rights of the publisher. They wouldn't have to explicitly assign litigation rights to the publisher. Disclaimer: IANAL, and with big artists, publishing deals can be very very different from boilerplate.
geekamongus 9y ago
...and Lars Ulrich is cheering from his grave.
- phaedryx 9y ago
  Why would he do that? He's not dead.
mortenjorck 9y ago
I'm seeing several comments here that assume the lawsuit to be over recordings, but Wixen manages "mechanical licenses" (rights to melody and lyrics), not recordings. Mechanical licenses are governed very differently from recordings. For one, they are subject to compulsory licensing, which allows you pay a statutory rate to license them, as opposed to directly licensing them from the rightsholder. The suit alleges that Spotify did neither in this case.
cbhl 9y ago
Isn't this just another grab by middlemen trying to take a bigger cut of streaming revenue because CD sales are dying? When Spotify was in a spat with Taylor Swift's former label, the two companies couldn't even agree on how much in royalties she was making a year. https://www.theverge.com/2014/11/13/7213775/taylor-swift-spotify-borchetta-royalties https://www.theverge.com/2014/11/13/7213775/taylor-swift-spo...
basseq 9y ago
This article reads like a press release from the plantiff (Wixen) and took a little googling to unwind. Long story short, it sounds like there's disagreement about what type of license Spotify needs. Spotify has previously claimed that streaming is not "reproduction" and is more akin to "performance"... and they (may) have those licenses. What they do not have (in some cases?) is a "mechanical" license[1], which carries requirements for notification and payment that Spotify claims are onerous.[2] Thus, I'd re-write the lede of this story to: Music streaming company Spotify was sued by Wixen Music Publishing Inc last week for allegedly using thousands of songs... without [the right kind of] license and [associated kind of notification and] compensation to the music publisher. [1] https://www.harryfox.com/license_music/what_is_mechanical_license.html https://www.harryfox.com/license_music/what_is_mechanical_li... - Incidentally, this is HFM, the same firm Spotify uses for "third-party" licensing. They define a mechanical license to include the right to "reproduce and distribute copyrighted musical compositions (songs) on ... interactive streams and other digital configurations." Seems a little damning for Spotify. [2] https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/spotify-dont-compare-us-napster-1034247 https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/spotify-dont-compa...
- DrJokepu 9y ago
  It’s kind of a gray area, the whole performing/mechanical rights system was obviously invented before streaming. Radio stations pay for performing rights, so the question arises whether streaming is more like radio broadcast or manufacturing and distributing physical copies (e.g. CDs)? Without further legislation, ultimately only the courts can decide that. My guess is that ultimately streaming rights will end up as their own category, separate from performance, mechanical or sync rights.
  - thomastjeffery 9y ago
    It's also the reason behind ridiculous things like DRM. The idea that there is a difference between broadcasting and copying, and that computers can emulate that difference is a pipe dream; nonetheless shared by most music labels.
huac 9y ago
I hate to be that guy but maintaining records of who owns which license for which song seems like an actual use of blockchain tech.
- duckarmada 9y ago
  Coincidentally: https://techcrunch.com/2017/04/26/spotify-acquires-blockchain-startup-mediachain-to-solve-musics-attribution-problem/ https://techcrunch.com/2017/04/26/spotify-acquires-blockchai... But I know there are a few other startups trying to do the same thing.
- zaphar 9y ago
  It's also an actual use of you know... A database.
  - mortenjorck 9y ago
    Well sure, but who owns the database? Where is it hosted and who vouches for its accuracy? What happens if it goes down or its maintainer goes out of business? Of course, all these questions can be addressed in one way or another with conventional database tech. But blockchain has some undeniable appeal in an application like this.
    - dmitriid 9y ago
      It doesn’t. Because you assume that blockchain will magically identify and attribute every single of 30 million songs in Spotify’s database.
      - dmitriid 9y ago
        Oh. I just realized another thing. 30 million songs can easily fit into a database running on a Macbook Air. Stick it on a medium-sized server, and you can already serve thousands of users. Blockchain meanwhile... something something ... 4 txns/second ... 1 terrawatt per txn ... up to several days to clear a txn when network is congested
agrippanux 9y ago
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 court cases trended badly for us, we got sued by every 2 bit operation that owned a partial percentage of the country-based rights to a song (ie, one company may of owned 4% the rights of a song in the United States and 10% in Mexico and 9.3% in Ireland, with another company owning 1.3%, 40%, .5% respectively). I spent another 4 months pulling discovery data for those lawsuits. Finally, after we where acquired by Vivendi Universal and they took on our liabilities, I spent almost a year writing tools for them to pay these partial percentages. Have you ever had to split 1 cent via check between 3 parties? It's not fun. Moral of this boring story is Spotify better win this fast and clean or they are in a world of pain; I can never get those 2 years of my life back.
- spike021 9y ago
  If you don't mind me asking, is there any particular reason you didn't just leave? I'd imagine this fits the kind of situation where you aren't obligated to stay.
  - amigoingtodie 9y ago
    I am guessing stock options/vesting. I believe Alanis took mp3.com stock as payment. That was a different time. The Beam-it software was pretty cool.
    - ssharp 9y ago
      It was a different time, but probably not that different figuratively. Things like Shatner taking Priceline stock to be their spokesperson played into the dot-com mania narrative of the time, but now that's seen as a shrewd business move. 50 Cent had a $60-100 million exit with Vitamin Water and Lebron had a $30 million exit with Beats.
  - 9y ago
saaaaaam 9y ago
There is a little (understandable) confusion in some of the comments here. The issue here is not that Spotify is infringing copyright (so it’s nothing to do with BitTorrent etc) but rather that Wixen says that it has not been paid correctly for the mechanical exploitation of the copyrights it administers. This is complex for several reasons. First of all: the recordings in question have without doubt been legitimately supplied to Spotify by the record labels of the artists in question. Secondly - a record label controls only one of the two copyrights in a song - the recording copyright. It is impossible to record a song without using the other fundamental copyright in music - which is the song itself. The literal words and music. This is the copyright that the publisher controls - and which Wixen claims has not been properly accounted. Third point: When the words-and-music copyright is reproduced by mechanical means for commercial gain the publisher is due a royalty - this royalty is known as “mechanicals”. In the “old” music business when a label pressed a record they paid out the “mechanicals” to the publisher directly - for every record pressed they owed a set amount. So this was easy to track and it meant that the money flowed directly from label to publisher based on volume of records manufactured and sold. Point number four: Spotify’s licensing regime is complex. They need to pay a royalty for the use of the sound recording. This generally goes direct to the label or artist if they self release often via their distributor). The mechanical reproduction of the words-and-music copyright is much less straight forward in terms of how the money flows. The reason for this is that songwriters and the performers of a song are not always the same person - though they may also be the same person. This is where publishers come into play. If I write a song, I may not be able to record and perform it sufficiently to generate good revenue from that work. So if I can persuade a high profile artist to perform and record it I will probably make much more money from my words and music. A publisher’s job is to maximise the commercial exploitation of my words and music. This can be done in several ways - first of all, they go and shop my song around to labels in the hope that an A&R at a label (basically someone a bit like a product manager in a tech company) will see a good fit between my song and an artist that they work with. The artist records the song and I generate money in two ways - first of all the mechanicals previously discussed, but also from “performance” royalties - which is where my song is performed live to an audience. So a prominent artist performs my song on a tour - the audience in the arena have paid good money for tickets, and the artist would not have any material without my song and other songs. This also needs to be compensated, and this is done through a “performance royalty” which is generally a split of Ickes revenues. There are other revenue streams as well, and a publisher’s job is to manage and administer these revenues as effectively as possible. Now: I mentioned Spotify has a complex licensing model. When you play a song through Spotify it is being mechanically reproduced (the data that makes the audio waveform is being transmitted from one machine to another) but the audio is also being performed by the Spotify application on your computer. So Spotify needs to pay out a mechanical royalty and a performance royalty. It used to be that the mechanical royalty was paid out by the label - but as the label is no longer pressing discs the “replication” of the music has passed to Spotify, and so Spotify is liable. In the “old” music business once you bought the record or CD the revenue flow ended: your CD player manufacturer was not continuing to benefit each time you played a disc. So the “performance” of the music did not have a revenue stream attached to it, assuming that you were enjoying the music in the privacy of your own home. But Spotify can be seen to benefit each time you play a song, because you pay an ongoing subscription for access to the music. So a performance royalty is also due. Now: further complexity. In many territories songwriters and publishers assign the management of performance and mechanical royalties to third parties. In the U.K. for example a songwriter will join PRS - the performing right society, which administers performance copyright for the words-and-music copyright in a song. They should also join the MCPS - the Mechanical Copyright Protection Society - to collect mechanical royalties. These organisations and others like them in other territories are known as Collective Management Organisations or “CMOs”. Spotify has deals with these two organisations (PRS/MCPS) - and generally also with the equivalent CMOs around the world. Spotify says “this song was streamed X times and so we owe Y for mechanical royalties and Z for performance royalties. This money is then paid trough the CMOs to the publishers/songwriters. You cannot - as a publisher or an artist - get this money directly from Spotify. This works on one level because it means that so long as a work is correctly identified in the database of the CMOs and that whoever is performing or mechanically reproducing a song submits accurate data showing how and when hat song was reproduced and what revenue is attached then it all works perfectly. More critically the CMO mechanism makes it possible for services like Spotify to exist (and even for live concerts to happen) because otherwise anyone who wanted to put on a concert would need to obtain the permission of every songwriter individually before their songs could be performed. However - you need to keep in mind that this system was invented when sheet music and clockwork pianos where the main way that words-and-music copyright was mechanically reproduced, and performance was limited to someone standing up and singing the song in a concert hall. So far, so complex. To add a further few layers of complexity: There is no authoratitive database that says “this words-and-music is the copyright of Tom Petty”. Additionally, when a record label ingests music into the Spotify catalogue there is no requirement to specify who wrote the words-and-music. The way it works is that (in essence) Spotify sends the CMOs a list of everything that has been played and the CMOs say “I represent that words-and-music copyright in X territory - so you owe me $X representing Y streams.” It’s a pretty clunky system - but as yet, no one has really come up with a better solution. Technology moved faster than copyright admin. Add into the mix that some artists may not register with the appropriate CMOs; some artists may not have a publisher; some labels may be releasing cover versions of songs where they have not directly obtained the permission of the copyright holder - but this is ok because in theory the words-and-music royalties flow from Spotify through the CMOs to the copyright holders. So it’s a very complex case and hinges on whether the relevant CMOs had been delegated authority by songwriters/copyright holders/publishers to exploit those works and whether Spotify was accurately accounting and paying out for the use of the copyrights. So it’s not about BitTorrent or Spotify having pirated music and is everything to do with how technology, the exploitation of copyright and how money flows through music are all a bit out of sync with each other.
donarb 9y ago
This article adds a bit more context. Spotify claims that Wixen is overstepping their authority as music licensors and suing on behalf of clients who have not given Wixen that authority. https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/spotify-hit-16-billion-copyright-lawsuit-tom-petty-weezer-neil-young-songs-1070960 https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/spotify-hit-16-bil...
- jeremyjh 9y ago
  That article is discussing several different legal actions. I understood Spotify's comments regarding the artists to be in reference to the class action lawsuite Wixen is (in their opinion) interfering in. In general to have standing you need to show you have been directly harmed. The exclusive licensee of a song would be directly harmed if someone distributed it without paying for a license. So while Wixen may not have standing in a class-action lawsuit filed on behalf of the original artisits, they would have standing in their own action which they have now filed.
- danso 9y ago
  Reminds me of the 2010s, when a company named RightHaven was hired by media companies to sue bloggers/message boards upon finding copies or excerpts of news articles. Ostensibly Righthaven had the authority of the clients, but were ruled as not having the legal standing to sue https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Righthaven https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Righthaven
seibelj 9y ago
Giant lawsuit filed shortly before the IPO to encourage a quick settlement.
- HenryBemis 9y ago
  Shake-down / quick settlement, 100% agree.
ben_jones 9y ago
* Tinfoil hat * Large music labels prefer revenue/relationships with Apple and Apple music and will use their monopoly to hurt or ruin competitors like Spotify.
- favorited 9y ago
  I'm sure most artists do. Apple reportedly pays about 40% more in royalties than Spotify does.
- thomastjeffery 9y ago
  They really don't care who, they only care about squeezing every penny they can out of copyright.
  - wang_li 9y ago
    I would think that the authors/rights holders of the music really should get the majority of the revenue. The underlying technology is of little interest to the end user. Who would really install and pay for spotify if the entire library consisted of a two minute track of street sounds from Los Angeles and thirty seconds of doorbells? Basically no one. Nobody really cares about the technology, what they want is the music, without which even the coolest technology is uninteresting.
    - cortesoft 9y ago
      Yes, but without the underlying tech, there is no way for the end user to access that content. So the question is, which is more scarce? The infrastructure, tools, and millions of paying customers using your streaming service, or the music itself? There are a lot of music producers and publishers. There aren't many streaming services that have a large customer base and the tech to service it.
      - stordoff 9y ago
        > many streaming services that have a large customer base And arguably Spotify only has a large customer base because it has the content people want. It's very similar to a chicken and egg problem.
thomastjeffery 9y ago
US copyright has way too much international authority. Spotify wouldn't even exist without illegal file sharing on the outset.
txsh 9y ago
Let's be clear what this is really about: Spotify is rumored to go public next year.
lavasalesman 9y ago
Where did they even get the songs if they weren't provided by the owner? Bittorrent?
endlessvoid94 9y ago
Isn't every streaming music service basically being sued by major record labels constantly? I was under the impression it was standard operating procedure for them.
SethRich 9y ago
What a headache of an industry to get into. Seeing the direction that Pandora, Soundcloud, and others have gone, I wouldn't touch this vertical with 10-ft pole and a billion in capital.
- jonny_eh 9y ago
  I hope that's your real name and not some political joke.
- semicolon_storm 9y ago
  Got a billion dollars? You can send a person to the moon, but don't even dream about getting into the music streaming industry!
  - SethRich 9y ago
    How many lawyers does it take to shoot somebody into space? A thousand fewer than it takes to operate a music streaming service.
- ghostcluster 9y ago
  maybe this lawsuit is good news for Apple stock then
  - xyproto 9y ago
    And for pirates
- everdev 9y ago
  It is too bad there can't be simpler legal ways to compensate someone for distributing their works. Spotify has allowed me to find and enjoy so much amazing music that I wouldn't have had the budget to pay for via iTunes.
  - sandworm101 9y ago
    >> Spotify has allowed me to find and enjoy so much amazing music that I wouldn't have had the budget to pay for via iTunes. Napster allowed me to find and enjoy so much amazing music that I wouldn't have had the budget to pay for via iTunes.
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groovesharkguy 9y ago
Goodbye music thieves Spotify! We need this piracy to stop.
swiley 9y ago
I hope there's a way to export Spotify playlists.
- KozmoNau7 9y ago
  Not as far as I can tell. My backout plan is to manually copy over all the artists I'm following. It'll take an hour or two, and I'd have to remember which of their albums I liked the most. For custom playlists? Currently you're shit out of luck, you'll have to do it manually.
  - moojd 9y ago
    They have a nice API for working with playlists. Dozens of services would pop up for ripping them if spotify goes EOL.
    - zimpenfish 9y ago
      It's definitely an API. I'm not sure I'd say it was -nice- going off my experiences with it (caveat: they might have changed it since 2013 when it was the bane of my life.) (Horrifyingly crufty playlist backup: https://github.com/rjp/spotify-playlists https://github.com/rjp/spotify-playlists )
  - ergl 9y ago
    You can export the list of albums you saved through the api. A while ago I wrote this using jq: https://gist.github.com/ergl/ae7c56d2a754558bb7b2cf9e98979fa6 https://gist.github.com/ergl/ae7c56d2a754558bb7b2cf9e98979fa... Just grab an auth token from https://developer.spotify.com/web-api/console/get-current-user-saved-tracks/ https://developer.spotify.com/web-api/console/get-current-us... and call the above script with it. Very hacky, but it works.
- propelol 9y ago
  They have to have that functionality in may in EU, because of GDPR.
nurettin 9y ago
So the music "industry" waits for the cow to get big and then starts milking it. A sudden and unexpected turn of events.
- EADGBE 9y ago
  It's more of the people making the milk realizing they're making pennies on the dollar compared to those machines that distribute the milk.
yuhong 9y ago
Thinking about it, part of the reasons music labels got big is for economy of scale when mass producing CDs for example. Of course, such economy of scale was not needed anymore with the move to digital distribution. This didn't work well with the current debt-based economy where shareholders depends on stocks always going up for things like retirements. I assume that Hollywood has similar problems, right?
pers0n 9y ago
I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s found out later Apple helped convince others or fund research for this lawsuit in some hidden deal on the down low
sethgecko 9y ago
You would expect Sean Parker to learn how to avoid this by now.
sdsk8 9y ago
This is the first post on HN that make me want to have downvote powers!
JOnAgain 9y ago
Seems opportunistic. They file for IPO and this lawsuit comes out at the same time? Almost certainly not a coincidence. This is arguably when Spotify is most vulnerable and when they will be most likely to settle -- investors hate uncertainty, so settling, even for a large amount, would probably be good for the IPO.
artur_makly 9y ago
this is one of the reasons why YC doesnt encourage music startups.

504 points by uptown 9y ago

At the bottom of the article is says "SPONSORED". But I can't find who sponsored it? Edit: Ok thanks for the screenshots. I disabled my adblocker but they're still not showing up. Probably just something broken.

abluecloud 9y ago
Disable your ad block and you'll see adverts underneath it. https://imgur.com/a/zbvTh https://imgur.com/a/zbvTh
- HenryBemis 9y ago
  fun fact: the ad was brought to us by "Dianomi" which is the Greek word for "distribution".
thesagan 9y ago
Turn off your adblock and reload the page and you'll see it on the right-hand side.
uptown 9y ago
Your adblocker is probably removing sponsored posts. It's unrelated to this article.
connorelsea 9y ago
With my adblocker on I see the same thing, with it off, that label is moved to a right-hand column as a header for sidebar ads
likpok 9y ago
Those are sponsored links a la Taboola. If you reload without a content blocker you'll see them.
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gkoberger 9y ago
For anyone concerned, there's nothing to worry about! This specific article isn't directly sponsored. It's just a generic ad network at the bottom that's 'SPONSORED'.
- RIMR 9y ago
  Ah, I see. My ad blocker blocked the ads, but kept the word "Sponsored" just floating around with no context.

KasianFranks 9y ago

Almost as big as SeeqPods multi-billion dollar copyright suit (which we got kicked out of court) https://www.beet.tv/2009/02/seeqpod-gets-hit-with-multibillion-dollar-lawsuits.html https://www.beet.tv/2009/02/seeqpod-gets-hit-with-multibilli...

alehul 9y ago

> In May, the Stockholm, Sweden-based company agreed to pay more than $43 million to settle a proposed class action alleging it failed to pay royalties for some of the songs it makes available to users. This number seems closer to reality. It may be Tom Petty, Neil Young, and the Doors, but they're not worth nearly 10% of Spotify's valuation, and that certainly wouldn't match a compensatory amount in revenue that Spotify failed to pay. Are they aiming for some punitive measure? Or are they going to settle for 5% of this in the near future?

ggg9990 9y ago
That's not how damages work though. A factory worth $1 million can create hundreds of millions of dollars of damages with a spill or accident.
- icebraining 9y ago
  Plus copyright has statutory damages, so they don't even need to prove actual damages.
brudgers 9y ago
My guess is that the amount being sought reflects statutory damages for willful copyright infringement. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitol_Records,_Inc._v._Thomas-Rasset https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitol_Records,_Inc._v._Thoma...
CPLX 9y ago
> This number seems closer to reality. It may be Tom Petty, Neil Young, and the Doors, but they're not worth nearly 10% of Spotify's valuation Why not? Is there some plausible way to build a $19bn company that lets you listen to music without the works of major globally famous artists? I am willing to agree with you intuitively that this suit is overstating damages as well, but it's definitely not a prima facie argument, you'll have to support that point of view with facts.
- umanwizard 9y ago

al2o3cr 9y ago

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 Napster == $250k" levels seen in copyright litigation against consumers, but still almost half of Spotify's likely revenue for 2017...

turc1656 9y ago
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.
- AnimalMuppet 9y ago
  It's also an attempt to force negotiation. "You want to negotiate a settlement with us, because if you lose..."
- dharmon 9y ago
  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.
  - nightcracker 9y ago
    > Nobody wants to go public with a pending lawsuit I'm pretty sure every large company in the world is involved in multiple lawsuits at any point in time (both offensively and defensively).
wrigby 9y ago
Yeah, saying HFA is ill-equipped to obtain mechanical licenses doesn't make sense to me. That's exactly the role they play. Maybe they didn't obtain performance licenses though?
9y ago

turc1656 9y ago

This doesn't shock me at all. I recall a while back reading how Spotify allegedly started their service with downloads from The Pirate Bay: https://torrentfreak.com/spotifys-beta-used-pirate-mp3-files-some-from-pirate-bay-170509/ https://torrentfreak.com/spotifys-beta-used-pirate-mp3-files...

cbhl 9y ago
Spotify cleaned up a lot in 2014. They used to be peer-to-peer, and they'd give "free" service to employees of certain big tech companies because they could take advantage of the upload bandwidth of the big tech offices. They culled the P2P tech in 2014 and went to a standard server-client model. https://techcrunch.com/2014/04/17/spotify-removes-peer-to-peer-technology-from-its-desktop-client/ https://techcrunch.com/2014/04/17/spotify-removes-peer-to-pe...
- thomastjeffery 9y ago
  It's sad to see that peer to peer is not utilized more, since it scales so well. The overbearing copyright propaganda has given BitTorrent a bad name, even though it has so many other uses.
  - cortesoft 9y ago
    It scales really well for the owner of the service... it does not scale really well for the internet as a whole (sadly).
    - thomastjeffery 9y ago
      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.
      - schoen 9y ago
        The original BitTorrent wasn't aware of network topology at all, so it could randomly use a relatively expensive or congested link just as easily as a LAN connection. You could get better use of network resources overall if you usually preferred to get pieces from peers that are closer to you on the network. I think the BitTorrent company and/or community were studying this issue at some point and so they may have come up with alternative algorithms that prefer at least AS-locality or something. As an extreme case, imagine that there are two seeds, one being another computer on your LAN and another being a host in Timor-Leste (which at one point in the 2000s reportedly had a single T1 connection for the entire country). It will be nicer for you and for the Timorese if you can somehow arrange to simply download the file from your LAN seed. Here's one example of someone trying to improve this property: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TopBT https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TopBT

bwang29 9y ago

Added another source to assist discussion for more context: "https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/spotify-hit-16-billion-copyright-lawsuit-tom-petty-weezer-neil-young-songs-1070960" https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/spotify-hit-16-bil... And Quote : "The Settlement Agreement is procedurally and substantively unfair to Settlement Class Members because it prevents meaningful participation by rights holders and offers them an unfair dollar amount in light of Spotify’s ongoing, willful copyright infringement of their works," ... "In reaction, Spotify has been questioning whether Wixen has really been authorized by its clients (including Andrew Bird, Kenny Rogers, and Jim Morrison's heirs) to take its aggressive actions. Songwriters have administrative agreements with Wixen allowing the publisher to negotiate licensing deals, but Spotify has pointed out these agreements are silent about litigation."

txsh 9y ago
Bad link. Remove the quotes.
- breakingcups 9y ago
  Might help if you explained why you think that is the case.
  - hirsin 9y ago
    They mean the formatting of the link is busted by the quote marks.
    - glandium 9y ago
      The link is busted by the double quote at the end of it.
wrigby 9y ago
This is a bit confusing. My understanding of how music publishing works is that the copyright is usually assigned to the publisher (for a limited amount of time), so any rights of the copyright holder are rights of the publisher. They wouldn't have to explicitly assign litigation rights to the publisher. Disclaimer: IANAL, and with big artists, publishing deals can be very very different from boilerplate.

geekamongus 9y ago

...and Lars Ulrich is cheering from his grave.

phaedryx 9y ago
Why would he do that? He's not dead.

mortenjorck 9y ago

I'm seeing several comments here that assume the lawsuit to be over recordings, but Wixen manages "mechanical licenses" (rights to melody and lyrics), not recordings. Mechanical licenses are governed very differently from recordings. For one, they are subject to compulsory licensing, which allows you pay a statutory rate to license them, as opposed to directly licensing them from the rightsholder. The suit alleges that Spotify did neither in this case.

cbhl 9y ago

Isn't this just another grab by middlemen trying to take a bigger cut of streaming revenue because CD sales are dying? When Spotify was in a spat with Taylor Swift's former label, the two companies couldn't even agree on how much in royalties she was making a year. https://www.theverge.com/2014/11/13/7213775/taylor-swift-spotify-borchetta-royalties https://www.theverge.com/2014/11/13/7213775/taylor-swift-spo...

basseq 9y ago

This article reads like a press release from the plantiff (Wixen) and took a little googling to unwind. Long story short, it sounds like there's disagreement about what type of license Spotify needs. Spotify has previously claimed that streaming is not "reproduction" and is more akin to "performance"... and they (may) have those licenses. What they do not have (in some cases?) is a "mechanical" license[1], which carries requirements for notification and payment that Spotify claims are onerous.[2] Thus, I'd re-write the lede of this story to: Music streaming company Spotify was sued by Wixen Music Publishing Inc last week for allegedly using thousands of songs... without [the right kind of] license and [associated kind of notification and] compensation to the music publisher. [1] https://www.harryfox.com/license_music/what_is_mechanical_license.html https://www.harryfox.com/license_music/what_is_mechanical_li... - Incidentally, this is HFM, the same firm Spotify uses for "third-party" licensing. They define a mechanical license to include the right to "reproduce and distribute copyrighted musical compositions (songs) on ... interactive streams and other digital configurations." Seems a little damning for Spotify. [2] https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/spotify-dont-compare-us-napster-1034247 https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/spotify-dont-compa...

DrJokepu 9y ago
It’s kind of a gray area, the whole performing/mechanical rights system was obviously invented before streaming. Radio stations pay for performing rights, so the question arises whether streaming is more like radio broadcast or manufacturing and distributing physical copies (e.g. CDs)? Without further legislation, ultimately only the courts can decide that. My guess is that ultimately streaming rights will end up as their own category, separate from performance, mechanical or sync rights.
- thomastjeffery 9y ago
  It's also the reason behind ridiculous things like DRM. The idea that there is a difference between broadcasting and copying, and that computers can emulate that difference is a pipe dream; nonetheless shared by most music labels.

huac 9y ago

I hate to be that guy but maintaining records of who owns which license for which song seems like an actual use of blockchain tech.

duckarmada 9y ago
Coincidentally: https://techcrunch.com/2017/04/26/spotify-acquires-blockchain-startup-mediachain-to-solve-musics-attribution-problem/ https://techcrunch.com/2017/04/26/spotify-acquires-blockchai... But I know there are a few other startups trying to do the same thing.
zaphar 9y ago
It's also an actual use of you know... A database.
- mortenjorck 9y ago
  Well sure, but who owns the database? Where is it hosted and who vouches for its accuracy? What happens if it goes down or its maintainer goes out of business? Of course, all these questions can be addressed in one way or another with conventional database tech. But blockchain has some undeniable appeal in an application like this.
  - dmitriid 9y ago
    It doesn’t. Because you assume that blockchain will magically identify and attribute every single of 30 million songs in Spotify’s database.
    - dmitriid 9y ago
      Oh. I just realized another thing. 30 million songs can easily fit into a database running on a Macbook Air. Stick it on a medium-sized server, and you can already serve thousands of users. Blockchain meanwhile... something something ... 4 txns/second ... 1 terrawatt per txn ... up to several days to clear a txn when network is congested

agrippanux 9y ago

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 court cases trended badly for us, we got sued by every 2 bit operation that owned a partial percentage of the country-based rights to a song (ie, one company may of owned 4% the rights of a song in the United States and 10% in Mexico and 9.3% in Ireland, with another company owning 1.3%, 40%, .5% respectively). I spent another 4 months pulling discovery data for those lawsuits. Finally, after we where acquired by Vivendi Universal and they took on our liabilities, I spent almost a year writing tools for them to pay these partial percentages. Have you ever had to split 1 cent via check between 3 parties? It's not fun. Moral of this boring story is Spotify better win this fast and clean or they are in a world of pain; I can never get those 2 years of my life back.

spike021 9y ago
If you don't mind me asking, is there any particular reason you didn't just leave? I'd imagine this fits the kind of situation where you aren't obligated to stay.
- amigoingtodie 9y ago
  I am guessing stock options/vesting. I believe Alanis took mp3.com stock as payment. That was a different time. The Beam-it software was pretty cool.
  - ssharp 9y ago
    It was a different time, but probably not that different figuratively. Things like Shatner taking Priceline stock to be their spokesperson played into the dot-com mania narrative of the time, but now that's seen as a shrewd business move. 50 Cent had a $60-100 million exit with Vitamin Water and Lebron had a $30 million exit with Beats.
- 9y ago

saaaaaam 9y ago

There is a little (understandable) confusion in some of the comments here. The issue here is not that Spotify is infringing copyright (so it’s nothing to do with BitTorrent etc) but rather that Wixen says that it has not been paid correctly for the mechanical exploitation of the copyrights it administers. This is complex for several reasons. First of all: the recordings in question have without doubt been legitimately supplied to Spotify by the record labels of the artists in question. Secondly - a record label controls only one of the two copyrights in a song - the recording copyright. It is impossible to record a song without using the other fundamental copyright in music - which is the song itself. The literal words and music. This is the copyright that the publisher controls - and which Wixen claims has not been properly accounted. Third point: When the words-and-music copyright is reproduced by mechanical means for commercial gain the publisher is due a royalty - this royalty is known as “mechanicals”. In the “old” music business when a label pressed a record they paid out the “mechanicals” to the publisher directly - for every record pressed they owed a set amount. So this was easy to track and it meant that the money flowed directly from label to publisher based on volume of records manufactured and sold. Point number four: Spotify’s licensing regime is complex. They need to pay a royalty for the use of the sound recording. This generally goes direct to the label or artist if they self release often via their distributor). The mechanical reproduction of the words-and-music copyright is much less straight forward in terms of how the money flows. The reason for this is that songwriters and the performers of a song are not always the same person - though they may also be the same person. This is where publishers come into play. If I write a song, I may not be able to record and perform it sufficiently to generate good revenue from that work. So if I can persuade a high profile artist to perform and record it I will probably make much more money from my words and music. A publisher’s job is to maximise the commercial exploitation of my words and music. This can be done in several ways - first of all, they go and shop my song around to labels in the hope that an A&R at a label (basically someone a bit like a product manager in a tech company) will see a good fit between my song and an artist that they work with. The artist records the song and I generate money in two ways - first of all the mechanicals previously discussed, but also from “performance” royalties - which is where my song is performed live to an audience. So a prominent artist performs my song on a tour - the audience in the arena have paid good money for tickets, and the artist would not have any material without my song and other songs. This also needs to be compensated, and this is done through a “performance royalty” which is generally a split of Ickes revenues. There are other revenue streams as well, and a publisher’s job is to manage and administer these revenues as effectively as possible. Now: I mentioned Spotify has a complex licensing model. When you play a song through Spotify it is being mechanically reproduced (the data that makes the audio waveform is being transmitted from one machine to another) but the audio is also being performed by the Spotify application on your computer. So Spotify needs to pay out a mechanical royalty and a performance royalty. It used to be that the mechanical royalty was paid out by the label - but as the label is no longer pressing discs the “replication” of the music has passed to Spotify, and so Spotify is liable. In the “old” music business once you bought the record or CD the revenue flow ended: your CD player manufacturer was not continuing to benefit each time you played a disc. So the “performance” of the music did not have a revenue stream attached to it, assuming that you were enjoying the music in the privacy of your own home. But Spotify can be seen to benefit each time you play a song, because you pay an ongoing subscription for access to the music. So a performance royalty is also due. Now: further complexity. In many territories songwriters and publishers assign the management of performance and mechanical royalties to third parties. In the U.K. for example a songwriter will join PRS - the performing right society, which administers performance copyright for the words-and-music copyright in a song. They should also join the MCPS - the Mechanical Copyright Protection Society - to collect mechanical royalties. These organisations and others like them in other territories are known as Collective Management Organisations or “CMOs”. Spotify has deals with these two organisations (PRS/MCPS) - and generally also with the equivalent CMOs around the world. Spotify says “this song was streamed X times and so we owe Y for mechanical royalties and Z for performance royalties. This money is then paid trough the CMOs to the publishers/songwriters. You cannot - as a publisher or an artist - get this money directly from Spotify. This works on one level because it means that so long as a work is correctly identified in the database of the CMOs and that whoever is performing or mechanically reproducing a song submits accurate data showing how and when hat song was reproduced and what revenue is attached then it all works perfectly. More critically the CMO mechanism makes it possible for services like Spotify to exist (and even for live concerts to happen) because otherwise anyone who wanted to put on a concert would need to obtain the permission of every songwriter individually before their songs could be performed. However - you need to keep in mind that this system was invented when sheet music and clockwork pianos where the main way that words-and-music copyright was mechanically reproduced, and performance was limited to someone standing up and singing the song in a concert hall. So far, so complex. To add a further few layers of complexity: There is no authoratitive database that says “this words-and-music is the copyright of Tom Petty”. Additionally, when a record label ingests music into the Spotify catalogue there is no requirement to specify who wrote the words-and-music. The way it works is that (in essence) Spotify sends the CMOs a list of everything that has been played and the CMOs say “I represent that words-and-music copyright in X territory - so you owe me $X representing Y streams.” It’s a pretty clunky system - but as yet, no one has really come up with a better solution. Technology moved faster than copyright admin. Add into the mix that some artists may not register with the appropriate CMOs; some artists may not have a publisher; some labels may be releasing cover versions of songs where they have not directly obtained the permission of the copyright holder - but this is ok because in theory the words-and-music royalties flow from Spotify through the CMOs to the copyright holders. So it’s a very complex case and hinges on whether the relevant CMOs had been delegated authority by songwriters/copyright holders/publishers to exploit those works and whether Spotify was accurately accounting and paying out for the use of the copyrights. So it’s not about BitTorrent or Spotify having pirated music and is everything to do with how technology, the exploitation of copyright and how money flows through music are all a bit out of sync with each other.

donarb 9y ago

This article adds a bit more context. Spotify claims that Wixen is overstepping their authority as music licensors and suing on behalf of clients who have not given Wixen that authority. https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/spotify-hit-16-billion-copyright-lawsuit-tom-petty-weezer-neil-young-songs-1070960 https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/spotify-hit-16-bil...

jeremyjh 9y ago
That article is discussing several different legal actions. I understood Spotify's comments regarding the artists to be in reference to the class action lawsuite Wixen is (in their opinion) interfering in. In general to have standing you need to show you have been directly harmed. The exclusive licensee of a song would be directly harmed if someone distributed it without paying for a license. So while Wixen may not have standing in a class-action lawsuit filed on behalf of the original artisits, they would have standing in their own action which they have now filed.
danso 9y ago
Reminds me of the 2010s, when a company named RightHaven was hired by media companies to sue bloggers/message boards upon finding copies or excerpts of news articles. Ostensibly Righthaven had the authority of the clients, but were ruled as not having the legal standing to sue https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Righthaven https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Righthaven

seibelj 9y ago

Giant lawsuit filed shortly before the IPO to encourage a quick settlement.

HenryBemis 9y ago
Shake-down / quick settlement, 100% agree.

ben_jones 9y ago

* Tinfoil hat * Large music labels prefer revenue/relationships with Apple and Apple music and will use their monopoly to hurt or ruin competitors like Spotify.

favorited 9y ago
I'm sure most artists do. Apple reportedly pays about 40% more in royalties than Spotify does.
thomastjeffery 9y ago
They really don't care who, they only care about squeezing every penny they can out of copyright.
- wang_li 9y ago
  I would think that the authors/rights holders of the music really should get the majority of the revenue. The underlying technology is of little interest to the end user. Who would really install and pay for spotify if the entire library consisted of a two minute track of street sounds from Los Angeles and thirty seconds of doorbells? Basically no one. Nobody really cares about the technology, what they want is the music, without which even the coolest technology is uninteresting.
  - cortesoft 9y ago
    Yes, but without the underlying tech, there is no way for the end user to access that content. So the question is, which is more scarce? The infrastructure, tools, and millions of paying customers using your streaming service, or the music itself? There are a lot of music producers and publishers. There aren't many streaming services that have a large customer base and the tech to service it.
    - stordoff 9y ago
      > many streaming services that have a large customer base And arguably Spotify only has a large customer base because it has the content people want. It's very similar to a chicken and egg problem.

thomastjeffery 9y ago

US copyright has way too much international authority. Spotify wouldn't even exist without illegal file sharing on the outset.

txsh 9y ago

Let's be clear what this is really about: Spotify is rumored to go public next year.

lavasalesman 9y ago

Where did they even get the songs if they weren't provided by the owner? Bittorrent?

endlessvoid94 9y ago

Isn't every streaming music service basically being sued by major record labels constantly? I was under the impression it was standard operating procedure for them.

SethRich 9y ago

What a headache of an industry to get into. Seeing the direction that Pandora, Soundcloud, and others have gone, I wouldn't touch this vertical with 10-ft pole and a billion in capital.

jonny_eh 9y ago
I hope that's your real name and not some political joke.
semicolon_storm 9y ago
Got a billion dollars? You can send a person to the moon, but don't even dream about getting into the music streaming industry!
- SethRich 9y ago
  How many lawyers does it take to shoot somebody into space? A thousand fewer than it takes to operate a music streaming service.
ghostcluster 9y ago
maybe this lawsuit is good news for Apple stock then
- xyproto 9y ago
  And for pirates
everdev 9y ago
It is too bad there can't be simpler legal ways to compensate someone for distributing their works. Spotify has allowed me to find and enjoy so much amazing music that I wouldn't have had the budget to pay for via iTunes.
- sandworm101 9y ago
  >> Spotify has allowed me to find and enjoy so much amazing music that I wouldn't have had the budget to pay for via iTunes. Napster allowed me to find and enjoy so much amazing music that I wouldn't have had the budget to pay for via iTunes.

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groovesharkguy 9y ago

Goodbye music thieves Spotify! We need this piracy to stop.

swiley 9y ago

I hope there's a way to export Spotify playlists.

KozmoNau7 9y ago
Not as far as I can tell. My backout plan is to manually copy over all the artists I'm following. It'll take an hour or two, and I'd have to remember which of their albums I liked the most. For custom playlists? Currently you're shit out of luck, you'll have to do it manually.
- moojd 9y ago
  They have a nice API for working with playlists. Dozens of services would pop up for ripping them if spotify goes EOL.
  - zimpenfish 9y ago
    It's definitely an API. I'm not sure I'd say it was -nice- going off my experiences with it (caveat: they might have changed it since 2013 when it was the bane of my life.) (Horrifyingly crufty playlist backup: https://github.com/rjp/spotify-playlists https://github.com/rjp/spotify-playlists )
- ergl 9y ago
  You can export the list of albums you saved through the api. A while ago I wrote this using jq: https://gist.github.com/ergl/ae7c56d2a754558bb7b2cf9e98979fa6 https://gist.github.com/ergl/ae7c56d2a754558bb7b2cf9e98979fa... Just grab an auth token from https://developer.spotify.com/web-api/console/get-current-user-saved-tracks/ https://developer.spotify.com/web-api/console/get-current-us... and call the above script with it. Very hacky, but it works.
propelol 9y ago
They have to have that functionality in may in EU, because of GDPR.

nurettin 9y ago

So the music "industry" waits for the cow to get big and then starts milking it. A sudden and unexpected turn of events.

EADGBE 9y ago
It's more of the people making the milk realizing they're making pennies on the dollar compared to those machines that distribute the milk.

yuhong 9y ago

Thinking about it, part of the reasons music labels got big is for economy of scale when mass producing CDs for example. Of course, such economy of scale was not needed anymore with the move to digital distribution. This didn't work well with the current debt-based economy where shareholders depends on stocks always going up for things like retirements. I assume that Hollywood has similar problems, right?

pers0n 9y ago

I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s found out later Apple helped convince others or fund research for this lawsuit in some hidden deal on the down low

sethgecko 9y ago

You would expect Sean Parker to learn how to avoid this by now.

sdsk8 9y ago

This is the first post on HN that make me want to have downvote powers!

JOnAgain 9y ago

Seems opportunistic. They file for IPO and this lawsuit comes out at the same time? Almost certainly not a coincidence. This is arguably when Spotify is most vulnerable and when they will be most likely to settle -- investors hate uncertainty, so settling, even for a large amount, would probably be good for the IPO.

artur_makly 9y ago

this is one of the reasons why YC doesnt encourage music startups.