June 10th, 2021
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The National Music Publishers Association (NMPA) has filed a $200 million lawsuit against Roblox for allowing the illegal use of songs in streams, the organization said in a press release. It has also launched a major ramp-up of its takedown campaign against Twitch for the Amazon platform s failure to license music.
In a keynote speech, NMPA President David Israelite said that Roblox, with 42 million daily active users, has taken virtually no action to prevent copyright infringement. The group added that songs by Ariana Grande, Imagine Dragons, deadmau5, Ed Sheeran, and the Rolling Stones are all being utilized without compensating their writers and copyright holders. The lawsuit was filed on behalf of publishers including Big Machine Records, Hipgnosis and Joel Zimmerman (deadmau5).
Games platform Roblox is being sued for $200 million in a new lawsuit filed by The National Music Publishers Association.
As reported by Variety, the lawsuit accuses Roblox of illegally using songs by popular artists on the platform without consent from the copyright holders.
The NMPA claims that tracks from artists such as Ariana Grande, Ed Sheeran and The Rolling Stones, among others, require compensation for their use inside Roblox.
In the filing, NMPA president David Israelite commented on how the platform is making hundreds of millions of dollars by requiring users to pay every time they upload music onto the platform taking advantage of young people s lack of understanding about copyright and then they take virtually no action to prevent repeat infringement or alert users to the risks they are taking .
The music publishers also called out Twitch on June 10, 2021, 10:02
What just happened? Roblox, one of the most popular gaming platforms in the world, has been hit with a $200 million lawsuit from the National Music Publishers Association (NMPA) for illegally using music uploaded by users.
Variety reports that NMPA president/CEO David Israelite announced the lawsuit at the trade group s 2021 annual meeting, highlighting Roblox s millions of daily active players and alleging that it goes to great lengths to avoid paying artists for using their music. Roblox has earned hundreds of millions of dollars by requiring users to pay every time they upload music onto the platform taking advantage of young people s lack of understanding about copyright and then they take virtually no action to prevent repeat infringement or alert users to the risks they are taking, Israelite said.