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Unpaid Royalty Suits Rain Down on Music Streaming Services
Sirius XM Radio's recent clubbing in litigation over the rights to pre-1972 sound recordings has unleashed a series of suits against Google, Apple, Sony and music streaming service Rdio.
According to complaints filed on Jan. 22 in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, streaming music services such as'Google Play Music'and'Apple's iTunes Radio'have been profiting from pre-1972 recordings without paying royalties or licensing fees to the owners of the underlying sound recordings.
The four proposed class actions were filed by Zenbu Magazines Inc., the owner of the copyright to sound recordings including 'Sin City,' a song by The Flying Burrito Brothers. The song had more than 330,000 plays on Spotify as of Thursday afternoon and the album it's on, 'The Gilded Palace of Sin,' had more than 28,500 plays on Rdio.
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