Sony Music launches multi-million dollar lawsuit against Napster
Sony Music has launched a huge multi-million dollar lawsuit against the streaming service Napster, over massive debts of unpaid royalties to the company.
According to Pitchfork, Sony Music filed a lawsuit against Rhapsody International, the parent company that owns Napster, for £9.2 million in unpaid royalties and licensing fees and $36 million in damages for copyright infringement.
The case, which is taking place in Manhattan, New York, relates to unpaid debts from Rhapsody International that date back over a year.
Rhapsody International came into new ownership in March this year, having been bought by the startup Infinite Reality for $207 million. At the time, the company owed Sony Music over $6.5 million in costs, which the latter stipulated in a fresh agreement should be repaid in instalments over the subsequent months.
However, the lawsuit has now been filed as Rhapsody International have allegedly not made any of these payments to Sony Music in the ensuing time, “all while Defendants continued to collect subscription fees from their millions of paying users,” per details of the case.
It comes after Sony Music sent a letter to the parent company in May, informing them that they were in breach of contract, before following this up the next month by terminating its licensing agreements with Napster.
Despite this, Napster has kept songs from Sony Music’s back catalogue – including by artists such as Michael Jackson – available to stream for users on its platform, hence the additional lawsuit for damages for copyright infringement.
This is the second time Sony Music has had to become involved in a lawsuit with a streaming service in recent years, after it also sued Triller for similar charges back in 2022. In that case, the latter company admitted liability and were forced to pay damages of $4.5 million.
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