The National Music Publishers’ Association is suing Roblox for at least $US200 ($257) million, claiming that the platform’s games are “illegally using songs from numerous artists”.
As Variety report, the NMPA’s president David Israelite says Roblox is making “hundreds of millions of dollars by requiring users to pay every time they upload music onto the platform — taking advantage of young people’s lack of understanding about copyright — and then they take virtually no action to prevent repeat infringement or alert users to the risks they are taking.”
The NMPA points out that some of the major artists affected include Ariana Grande, Imagine Dragons, deadmau5, Ed Sheeran, and the Rolling Stones. Some of the publishers suing include ABKCO Music & Records, Big Machine Records and Concord Music Group, while some individual artists (like deadmau5) are also claiming damages.
The NMPA’s suit is looking for damages “for Roblox’s unabashed exploitation of music without proper licenses”, and “will ensure songwriters are fully paid for their works on the platform and that Roblox takes seriously its obligations to those who have made its service so popular and profitable.”
Israelite announced the lawsuit during the NMPA’s annual meeting, during which he also called out Twitch for similar practices, and said the group would be “stepping up its copyright-takedown campaign against Twitch”, despite Twitch’s DMCA takedown program already working overtime.
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