The National Music Publishers Association has filed a $200 million lawsuit on behalf of multiple music publishers
Roblox Corporation is a popular video game developer that is currently being sued for “actively encouraging” its players to use music from high profile artists including Imagine Dragons, Ed Sheeran, deadmau5, and others without having to pay for licensing fee’s associated with the tracks. According to the lawsuit and CBS News, Roblox has been actively encouraging its users to upload and share popular music so that the game would appear more appealing to younger audiences. The online gaming platform allows its users to manually download and upload audio files onto the platform without proper licensing which is often referred to as ‘pirating.’
According to CBS News, the lawsuit states that “more than a thousand human moderators have been hired to review each uploaded audio file in the system, and that searching for artists names in game is prohibited.” Back in 2018, Roblox implemented a procedure that encouraged its users to stay away from uploading copyrighted material, however, the platforms users were able to get around these procedures, which is why the National Music Publishers Associated has filed a $200 million lawsuit against Roblox.
Plaintiffs within the lawsuit include music labels such as ABKCO Music & Records Big Machine Records, deadmau5, Kobalt Music Group, MPL Music Publishing, Reservoir Media Management and Spirit Music Group. In response to the lawsuit, Roblox publicly commented that,
“As a platform powered by a community of creators, we are passionate about protecting intellectual property rights – from independent artists and songwriters, to music labels and publishers – and require all Roblox community members to abide by our Community Rules. We do not tolerate copyright infringement, which is why we use industry-leading, advanced filtering technology to detect and prohibit unauthorized recordings.”
The lawsuit is currently ongoing.
Sources: CBS News & mxdwn Music
