spotify sued for copyright infringement in case that accuses it of failing to license songwriting rights mediadavid lowery sues spotify for copyright infringement dangelo for the new york timesdec 29 2015spotify has been sued for copyright infringement in a case that accuses it of failing to properly license songwriting rights in the united states the suit highlights an escalating fight over the complex system of royalties for online musicdavid lowery the leader of the rock bands cracker and camper van beethoven and an outspoken advocate for musicians rights in the digital age filed the suit on monday in federal court in california it contends that the company makes many songs available on its service without properly securing or paying for mechanical rights which date back to the era of piano rolls but are still a major kind of music copyrightmechanical rights refer to a copyright holders control over the ability to reproduce a musical work mr lowerys suit contends that spotify copies and distributes versions of his songs on its service which streams music to some 75 million people around the world 20 million of whom pay for monthly subscriptionsin his suit filed in united states district court in los angeles mr lowery applied for classaction status arguing that spotify has failed to handle the mechanical licensing for a huge but unspecified number of songs by many songwriters citing statutory damages for copyright infringement which range from 750 to 30000 or 150000 for each instance of willful infringement mr lowerys suit says that spotify could be liable for up to 150 millionwe are committed to paying songwriters and publishers every penny jonathan prince a spokesman for spotify said in a statement unfortunately especially in the united states the data necessary to confirm the appropriate rights holders is often missing wrong or incompleteas streaming has grown the songwriting rights which are handled separately from those of recordings have become more valuable and their licensing increasingly contested songwriters like mr lowery often complain of low royalty rates or of not being paid at all while online outlets and music publishers alike say that incomplete or conflicting data often hampers proper accountingin october spotify removed from its service thousands of songs from victory records an independent punk and metal label after the labels publishing arm complained that spotify was not paying for millions of streams spotify said it did not have enough data to resolve the issue but victory and audiam a company that administers its royalties disputed this saying they had provided data with years worth of informationvictorys songs were quietly restored to spotify a few weeks later but the issue has continued to simmer the national music publishers association estimates that 25 percent of the activity on interactive streaming services like spotify is not properly matched to the right data to let songwriters and their publishers get paidlast week spotify announced that it would create a comprehensive publishing administration system to fix the problem of faulty royalty information