What funny news...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-42548356Spotify has been hit with a lawsuit that accuses the streaming service of infringing the rights of songwriters and publishers.
Wixen Music Publishing is seeking damages of at least $1.6bn (£1.18bn) - $150,000 for more than 10,000 songs.
The California company represents artists that include Janis Joplin, The Black Keys and Tom Petty.
Spotify declined to comment. The firm has been trying to settle a class action lawsuit brought by songwriters.
That lawsuit, which deals with similar copyright issues, was on course to being resolved in December.
But a group that included Wixen objected to the terms of the roughly $43m settlement, which they argued could yield less than $4 per song.
In its new lawsuit, filed at the end of December in a federal court in California, Wixen said Spotify failed to also address the claims of songwriters and publishers, which have separate rights to the compositions.
Wixen said: "As a result Spotify has built a billion dollar business on the backs of songwriters and publishers whose music Spotify is using, in many cases without obtaining and paying for the necessary licenses."
As the recording industry actually own a massive stake in Spotify you'll all notice that that its mainly composers and songwriters whom are at war with Spotify in this action, in the normal chain of events those folks get royalties from radio plays etc but in the case of spotify it might be that they believe they are entitled to use the tracks royalty free due to the deals struck by the labels with them ( should that be themselves folks
), this might however be wixen making usage of the old "last minute hiccup" negotation strategy to grab a better deal so watch this space
Old link to shareholders list from 2009.
https://techcrunch.com/2009/08/07/this-is-quite-possibly-the-spotify-cap-table/And for the bored amongst you see the near "whitewashed" offering
here of a more recent vinatge that tells you less than little.
