Music Publishing News Roundup 10.6.15: Swift Lawsuit • Pan-Euro Licensing Hub • Napster To Canada
Taylor Swift is facing a $42 million lawsuit for alleged plagiarism in her song “Shake It Off”. The lawsuit was filed by Jesse Graham, an obscure R&B singer, who alleges that Swift lifted lyrics from his song “Haters Gonna Hate”. Interestingly, Graham is representing himself according to the lawsuit he filed “which contains handwritten content and is clearly not the work of a professional lawyer.”
This week, Pan-European licensing hub ICE was introduced with the purpose of simplifying digital music services for the entire content. After being granted approval from the European Commission, ICE was formed by three of Europe’s largest collection societies: PRS for Music (UK) , STIM (Sweden), and GEMA (Germany). The service is intended to expedite and simplify rights negotiations for digital music services in Europe. Karsten Dyhrberg Nielsen, CEO of STIM, described ICE as having been “Developed to deliver quality solutions to an increasingly international and borderless market.”
Napster has returned to prominence in the music industry by re-launching as a subscription streaming service in Canada. Notorious for transforming the music industry as a file-sharing site over 15 years ago, the company is returning to Canada's already crowded and competitive streaming space by offering a catalog of 35 million songs for CAN $9.99 per month. Napster’s CEO Ethan Rudin released a statement saying “It was important to us that we enter Canada with a personalized music experience that has a complete catalog of local, national and international artists.”
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