3 Count: Tidal Forces

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1: Jay Z, TIDAL Allegedly Not Artist Friendly According to New Lawsuit

First off today, Jon Niles at Music Times reports that music streaming service TIDAL has been sued by Yesh Music and musician John Emanuele of the band The American Dollar over allegations that the service has failed to pay royalties to artists.

TIDAL, which is owned by rapper Jay Z, has pitched itself as being more musician-friendly than competing services such as Spotify. However, the lawsuit claims that TIDAL has not been paying or complying with required mechanical royalties even though TIDAL, in a statement, claims that it is fully caught up with such royalties and that the issue lies elsewhere. The lawsuit seeks to receive class action status.

Spotify was recently sued twice by musicians over similar allegations and those lawsuits are also seeking class action status. Spotify claimed that the issue was metadata that made it difficult to determine who to pay such royalties to and that they’ve set aside the needed royalties for when the matter is sorted.

2: Record Labels Sue Radionomy Over DIY ‘Pirate’ Internet Radio

Next up today, Ernesto at Torrentfreak writes that a collection of record labels including Sony Music Entertainment, have filed a lawsuit against Radionomy, a service that enables users to create their own online radio stations.

According to the lawsuit, Radionomy operates the service in such a way that users can not only choose from the tracks the licensed Radionomy library but also upload their own music, even though Radionomy does not have the licenses to perform most of those tracks. The record labels claim that hundreds of tracks have been streamed illegally over the service and that Radionomy is encouraging the infringement by rewarding popular stations.

The labels further contend that they reached out to Radionomy, which admitted that they had not paid royalties to SoundExchange since 2014, but that the talks did not result in an agreement.

3: ​PRS for Music Launches New Anti-Piracy Tool MAPS

Finally today, Music Business Worldwide is reporting that PRS for Music, a performing rights organization that works out of the UK, has announced it is partnering with The Publishers Association, a trade organization representing UK publishers, to release MAPS, a new anti-piracy tool.

According to the announcement, MAPS will be an automated tool that will be able to detect pirated content and send automated takedown notices, including removing links from Google. Though the announcement is vague on the details, PRS claims that the system uses “cutting edge” technology and will be able to handle a far greater number of infringements than previous systems.

The system is rolling out this month and will initially be available to select number of publishers. Other publishers will be able to contact PRS to have them initiate takedowns on their behalf.

Suggestions

That’s it for the three count today. We will be back tomorrow with three more copyright links. If you have a link that you want to suggest a link for the column or have any proposals to make it better. Feel free to leave a comment or send me an email. I hope to hear from you.

The 3 Count Logo was created by Justin Goff and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License.