Ministry of Sound sues Spotify for intellectual property infringement

Earlier in September, Ministry of Sound, the London-based record label, filed a lawsuit against digital music streaming service Spotify. Ministry of Sound accused Spotify of copyright infringement by "allowing users to create and share playlists that mirror Ministry of Sound's compilation albums," according to a report on the Intellectual Property Brief.

How does that work? If you're familiar with Spotify, you know that users of the service have access to a large library of songs that they can stream from their computer, tablet or smartphone. These can be listened to in any order, whether they follow an album's track list or are arranged by the user.

The question at hand is whether the order of a track list can be copyrighted. Ministry of Sound, which produces compilation albums of house music, believes that its work is protected. The U.S. Copyright Office agrees to some extent, saying that certain preexisting works can be copyrighted "if the materials are selected, coordinated, or arranged in such a way that the resulting work as a whole constitutes a new work."

Lohan Presencer, the Ministry of Sound CEO, told The Guardian that "what we do is a lot more than putting playlists together … a lot of research goes into creating our compilation albums, and the intellectual property involved in that. It's not appropriate for someone to just cut and paste them."

Of course, it is highly likely that Spotify users can make playlists while being completely unaware of the copyrighted material. This is a problem with an older law being enforced in an era of new technology. The question must be settled in court, and the defending party should work with a Phoenix business attorney to achieve the best outcome.

Categorised in: Entertainment Law

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