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Trax Records Sued

Iconic Chicago House Label Trax Records Sued For Decades of Illegal Business Practices

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When house music emerged from Chicago in the Eighties, it was a global phenomenon, helping sire rave scenes in the UK and Europe, and blueprinting the global club and EDM-festival scene. A large number of Chicago’s early house classics came out on Trax Records—songs like Phuture’s “Acid Tracks,” Mr. Fingers’ “Can You Feel It,” Frankie Knuckles and Jamie Principle’s “Baby Wants to Ride” and “Your Love,” Adonis’s “No Way Back,” and On the House feat. Marshall Jefferson’s “Move Your Body.”  Read more

Music Streaming Giant Spotify Faces $1.6 Billion Copyright Infringement Lawsuit

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Spotify is facing its biggest lawsuit yet as the music streaming company was hit by a lawsuit from Wixen Music Publishing Inc last week for allegedly featuring thousands of songs, including those of famous acts such as Tom Petty, Neil Young, The Red Hot Chili Peppers and the Doors, without an approved license and compensation to the music publisher.

Wixen, who holds the exclusive licensee of songs such as “Free Fallin” by Tom Petty, “Light My Fire” by the Doors, “(Girl We Got a) Good Thing” by Weezer and works of singers such as Stevie Nicks, is seeking damages of $150,000 per song, the maximum award possible under the U.S. Copyright Act. This brings the total damages requested by the lawsuit to $1.6 billion along with injunctive relief.

According to the aforementioned act, there are two separate copyrights for every recorded song: one for the sound recording and one for the musical composition (the song’s words and musical notation).

According to Wixen, Spotify “took a shortcut” by obtaining necessary rights to the songs’ sound recordings, but failing to obtain the equivalent rights for compositions.

According to the lawsuit, which Qixen filed in a California federal court last week, Spotify failed to get a direct or a compulsory license from Wixen that would allow it to reproduce and distribute the songs.

This isn’t the first time Spotify has fallen in such troubles. Back in May the Sweden-based company agreed to pay more than $43 million to settle a proposed class action alleging it failed to pay royalties for some of the songs it makes available to users.

Currently Spotify is valued at $19 billion, a 20 percent increase in value in the past few months. The company is planning a stock market listing this year.

“Oops, We Take That Back”: SoundCloud Mixes Could Still be Taken Down

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SoundCloud copiright

Mere days after DJs around the world rejoiced, SoundCloud clarified its stance and specified that mixes could still be taken down at the request of track’s original creators.

Originally the statements by SoundCloud’s Founder, Eric Wahlforss, seemed to indicate that the music streaming and hosting platform would no longer hit DJs with copyright infringement for mixes that feature other’s music (as most DJ sets and recorded mixes do). Now, a blog post from SoundCloud has gone on record with more detailed information on how it will behave on matters concerning this:

“There have been a number of incoming questions this week from our community around creativity and content on SoundCloud. Today, through a number of agreements with labels, publishers and other partners, there are far fewer takedowns of various forms of content – including DJ sets – shared on SoundCloud. It’s clear from our conversations and agreements with the industry and creative community as a whole, that enabling a place for all forms of creativity to live is important, and that SoundCloud can be that place.

With that, it’s important to note takedowns are at the request of creators. While the agreements we have in place across the industry have greatly lessened the likelihood of takedowns, as a creator driven platform, we respect all creators, and therefore we respect the rights of all creators who request to have their content removed.

As always, SoundCloud’s aim is to continue building a unique ecosystem where all forms of expression can live and thrive. The community of creators who gather, share their work and collaborate on SoundCloud is hugely important to us. Creators on SoundCloud continue to be a driving force in pushing culture forward in the world, and we are honored to be the place to help amplify the millions of creative voices who call SoundCloud home.”

Essentially, what SoundCloud has done is reduce the number of takedowns resulting from record labels and publisher agreements, but will have to listen to track creators should they lodge a request for content to be removed.

H/T: Pitchfork