In late 2017, days before Spotify allegedly planned to commence its initial public offering, Wixen Music Publishing filed a $1.6 billion lawsuit for copyright infringement against the streaming service giant. The suit seeks damages stemming from Spotify's alleged use of thousands of songs without appropriate licenses, and also seeks injunctive relief which would require Spotify to implement procedures for identifying and properly licensing songs.

Benjamin Semel, a partner in  Pryor Cashman's Music Litigation practice who has spoken extensively on the lawsuit, recently told IPPro the Internet, "this suit speaks to the risk for music services like Spotify of a strategy to seek forgiveness rather than permission." He noted, "The law sets out a very specific process that must be followed to compel [songwriters and publishers to license their songs]. Failure to follow the process in good faith...can leave a music service like Spotify asking for forgiveness from an awful lot of people."

Semel went on to say that "the complaints in the Wixen lawsuit are part of what the proposed Music Modernisation Act is meant to address. Among other things, the Act would establish a music collective paid for by services and managed by copyright owners. The collective would provide blanket licenses to services that cover all musical works for which the compulsory license is available. Spotify could pay royalties to the collective to cover all available works and be insulated from lawsuits like the one by Wixen."

Semel added, "the Music Modernisation Act is the most promising music copyright reform yet proposed to address these concerns, and has the support of major trade organizations on both sides of the industry."

To read the full interview, please click here.

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