Pro Music Rights Announces Mass Copyright Infringement Suits Against Internet Giants

Pro Music Rights

PRO MUSIC RIGHTS has filed 10 separate copyright infringement actions against music streaming services, arising out of the unauthorized public performance of its members’ copyrighted musical works. Lodged with the U.S. DISTRICT COURT FOR THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK, the bundle of lawsuits names APPLE, GOOGLE, YOUTUBE, AMAZON, SOUNDCLOUD, PANDORA, DEEZER, 7DIGITAL, IHEARTRADIO and RHAPSODY as defendants. The organization previously filed a suit against SPOTIFY last month.                                                                               
PRO MUSIC RIGHTS claims to have made numerous attempts to offer a license and educate the defendants about their obligations under federal copyright law. Despite these efforts, they say, that music streaming services have repeatedly refused to take or honor a license. Instead, they have continued to perform the copyrighted musical works of PRO MUSIC RIGHTS songwriter, composer and music publisher members for the entertainment of their listeners without obtaining permission to do so.

PRO MUSIC RIGHTS CEO JAKE P. NOCH commented, “Each of the music streaming services sued has made a business decision to use music without compensating songwriters. By filing these actions, PRO MUSIC RIGHTS is standing up for songwriters whose creative works bring great value to all streaming services who publicly perform their music. PRO MUSIC RIGHTS will not give up the fight, no matter how long it wages."

PRO MUSIC RIGHTS is a public performance rights organization in the U.S. with an estimated 7.4% of the market share, right behind BMI and ASCAP.  It has rights to license about two million works from top artists including A$AP ROCKY, WIZ KHALIFA, PHARRELL, YOUNG JEEZY, JUELZ SANTANA, LIL YACHTY, SOUJA BOY, NIPSEY HUSSLE,2 CHAINZ, MIGOS, GUCCI MANE and FALL OUT BOY, among others.

Added NOCH, “We want to pay the people who create and bring our favorite songs into the market 5X more than BMI and ASCAP pay them, and that’s why PRO MUSIC RIGHTS is trying hard every day to secure licensing agreements for $0.01 per usages (instead of the fraction of a penny the other PROs pay)."

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