Spotify, the groundbreaking streaming music service, is facing a class-action lawsuit alleging that it violates the copyrights of thousands of independent musicians.
If the songwriters prevail it could cost Spotify tens of millions of dollars in unpaid royalties. And according to experts in the music industry, this may be only the beginning, because other streaming services reportedly commit the same violations.
The named plaintiff in the lawsuit, filed on Monday in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, is David Lowery, an outspoken musicians’ rights advocate and frontman of rock bands Camper Van Beethoven (Santa Cruz) and Cracker (Redlands). He says his songs have been streamed hundreds of thousands of times without his permission.
Lowery, who also teaches music business at the University of Georgia, alleges that Spotify streams his songs without getting licenses from him to do it or paying him accordingly.
In a statement, Spotify says it has tried to find rights holders, but “the data necessary to confirm the appropriate rights holders is often missing, wrong or incomplete.” Spotify says it has set aside a fund to pay songwriters when they are identified. Earlier this month, it announced that it would invest in “a comprehensive publishing administration system” to better track royalty information.