Ministry of Sound has leveraged a lawsuit against Spotify citing repeated instances of copyright infringement. The record label is displeased with playlists posted on the popular streaming service that mirror the tracklistings of their many compilation albums — some of which include “Ministry of Sound” in the title. Ministry of Sound CEO Lohan Presencer claims they’ve been attempting to remedy the situation with removal of the playlists since 2012, but to no avail. “It’s been incredibly frustrating: we think it’s been very clear what we’re arguing, but there has been a brick wall from Spotify,” he said.

The issue at hand is not the legality of streaming the individual tracks as Spotify has the rights to them. The courts will instead be faced with having to decide whether the selection and arrangement of compilation albums tracklists is subject copyright infringement. “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,” said Presencer. For Ministry of Sound, whose business model relies on compilation album sales — up 30% this year — this is particularly problematic.

Presencer further explains, “There are other services that have playlists, and when we have seen this happening – playlists using Ministry of Sound’s name – when we have notified them, they have willingly taken them down. It’s only against Spotify that we’ve hit this brick wall.”

Via: The Guardian

Tags: legal, Ministry of Sound, spotify

Categories: Music