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I’m referring to songs that the other apps also have. As an example, both Spotify and TIDAL have licenses for - and will happily play - the vast majority of the
by troydavis 6y ago
I’m referring to songs that the other apps also have. As an example, both Spotify and TIDAL have licenses for - and will happily play - the vast majority of the North American catalog. Spotify has more user-created public playlists, but not a ton more music.
- Closi 6y agoI mean collections of songs (ie playlists) are themselves copyrightable. Even if they have the songs licenced, they cannot copy playlists from Spotify without risking legal action. See: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_in_compilation https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_in_compilation Spotify actually got sued after some users uploaded playlists that copied ministry of sound playlists, so there is some history of actual litigation in this area.
- troydavis 6y agoThanks, that's fascinating. At least from a cursory search (https://www.google.com/search?q=are+public+playlists+copyrighted https://www.google.com/search?q=are+public+playlists+copyrig...), conclusive case law doesn't seem to exist in the US. In the UK, the one case I found was settled (https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/feb/27/spotify-ministry-of-sound-lawsuit-settlement https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/feb/27/spotify-m...) and didn't address an app/company attempting to enforce a copyright license received when a user created a playlist. It's not clear in either jurisdiction, but like you said, litigation is definitely possible.