Published
Thu, Aug 27, 2015, 14:23
- The two parties have been unable to strike a deal regarding artist royalties after five years of negotiations.
UK performance rights organisation PRS For Music has begun legal action against SoundCloud.
Founded in 1914, PRS For Music administers the performance rights of about ten million musical works on behalf of its songwriter, composer and publisher members. An email sent out to its members this afternoon explains that PRS has been negotiating with SoundCloud over royalties for its members for the past five years. The issue, according to PRS, is that SoundCloud "continues to deny it needs a PRS For Music licence for its existing service available in the UK and Europe, meaning it is not remunerating our members."
In the mass email, PRS explains that they have sent SoundCloud a list of 4,500 music works available to stream, to give the streaming service an idea of the "the scale of our members' repertoire." SoundCloud responded by taking down 250 of those works, though it's not clear why those tracks in particular were chosen. The email concludes with:
"The streaming market cannot fairly develop unless this happens. We have always been pro-licensing and pro-actively work with organisations in order to propose an appropriate licensing solution for the use of our members' works. We remain hopeful that this matter can be resolved without the need for extended litigation. Members will appreciate that this is now a legal matter and our ability to communicate around it is therefore limited by the legal process. However, we will try to share information and updates whenever we can."