Dance record
label Ministry of Sound is suing music streaming service Spotify, claiming
Spotify playlists copy its compilation albums.
Ministry of Sound regularly releases collections of
dance hits.
The compilations are not on Spotify, but the label
says Spotify infringes copyright because some users' playlists mirror the
albums' track listings.
Ministry of Sound said "a lot of research goes
into" creating the compilations. Spotify did not comment.
"What we do is a lot more than putting playlists
together," Ministry of Sound chief executive Lohan Presencer told The
Guardian.
"A lot of research goes into creating our
compilation albums, and the intellectual property involved in that. It's not
appropriate for someone to just cut and paste them."
Ministry of Sound launched legal proceedings in the
High Court in London on Monday.
It contends that the law protects "the expertise
and creative effort involved" in curating titles such as The Sound Of
Dubstep Classics and Ibiza Annual 2013.
The company is seeking an injunction requiring
Spotify to remove the playlists in question and to permanently block playlists
that copy its compilations. It is also seeking damages and costs.
Mr Presencer wrote in a
separate article: "We painstakingly create, compile and market our
albums all over the world. We help music fans discover new genres, records and
classic catalogues.
"Millions trust our brands, our taste and our
selection. We give them great listening experiences at a good price."
He said some Spotify users had used the Ministry of
Sound name in the titles of their playlists. He also claimed the service had
refused to remove those playlists when asked.
"Several rounds of legal letters later, this
dispute will now be settled in court," he wrote. "We believe we have
a clear cut case. After 20 years and more than 50 million album sales, the
value and creativity in our compilations are self evident."
Ministry of Sound does not own the copyright to many
of the tracks on its compilations, the majority of which have been licensed
from other record labels.
Chris Cook, business editor with music industry
magazine CMU said he sympathised with Ministry of Sound's position as
"there is an effort and art in curation", adding listings services do
enjoy a degree of copyright protection.
But he added Ministry of Sound risks a PR backlash
over the legal action and could be "portrayed as an old style company
desperately trying to protect its compilation business".
Kieron Donoghue, whose website playlists.net allows
users to explore and share playlists, said he had also been asked by Ministry
of Sound to remove lists from his site.
"As we're only a small company with no budget
for legal expenses we've always complied," he said, but questioned the
wisdom of the label's court action.
"The very fact that users want to have Ministry
of Sound content on Spotify but have to create their own, because it's not
there, is a huge compliment," he said
in a blog post.
"Ministry of Sound need to embrace this and work
with their audience, not against them. This could quite easily turn into a huge
PR disaster."
He noted that rival compilation series Now Music had
"even gone so far as to compile playlists of all of their albums and have
been publishing them on our site since 2011".
However, the Now compilations are a joint venture of
music industry giants Sony and Universal, who own the majority of the tracks on
their playlists, and earn royalties when they are streamed.
Ministry of Sound, whose artists include Example and
Wretch 32, would make significantly less by providing a similar service.
Spotify allows subscribers to listen to the 20
million songs in its catalogue and use them to create their own playlists. The
service, which began in Sweden, now has 24 million users in 28 countries.
A Spotify spokesman declined to comment.
Source: BBC
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