The music service known as Spotify is being hit with a $1.6 billion lawsuit that affects over 10,000 songs on their platform. The company was sued on Jan. 3, 2018 by Wixen Music Publishing who holds licenses for artists such as Neil Young, Rage Against the Machine and The Doors.

“I think Wixen is doing a money grab, but it personally doesn’t affect my views on the company or the platform,” senior Adam Klausmeyer said. “They (Spotify) should recognize where the songs come from and pay the royalties to the artist, but the pursuit of $150,000 per song, the maximum under U.S. copyright laws, seems outrageous to me, especially when it affects over 10,000 songs. I think it’s a money grab because they are pursuing the maximum amount they can for the type of case they have.”

Spotify currently faces three other lawsuits from publishers and song writers, but a new legislative bill could change that.

On Dec. 21, 2017, the Music Modernization Bill of 2017 was introduced and is intended to allow streaming services to more easily gain rights for songs. This bill led Wixen to file the lawsuit against Spotify because, as it is currently written, the bill would keep copyright holders from pursuing past payments from streaming services like Spotify.

In USA Today Wixen was quoted in having said “We are very disappointed that these services will retroactively get a free pass for actions that were previously illegal. Neither we nor our clients are interested in becoming litigants, but we have been faced with a choice of forfeiting rights and damages, or taking action at this time.

“We regret that this otherwise admirable proposed bill has had this effect, and we hope that Spotify nonetheless comes to the table with a fair and reasonable approach to reaching a resolution with us.”

There are so many copyright laws on music that it’s hard to understand them senior Autumn Hohmann said.

“I will for sure continue using Spotify,” Hohmann said. “It’s the best platform to listen to what you want when you want without ads at a low cost. Spotify did get certain rights to the affected artists music, but had rights to the sound recording and not the actual composition.”

18drooney@usd489.com