Good news if you’ve been hankering after a music-industry lawsuit that has nothing to do with either AI or the live sector. UK collecting society PRS for Music is taking legal action against Valve, owner of the Steam game-downloads store.
According to the society, Valve has “never obtained a licence for its use of the rights managed by PRS” – said use being the music in soundtracks for games being sold on Steam. Big franchises including EA Sports FC and Grand Theft Auto were cited in the announcement.
Hang on a second. Aren’t the publishers for those games responsible for licensing music rather than the store where the games are sold? Actually, it’s more complicated than that.
The publishers certainly have sync licences, but the legal action focuses on Valve’s role in “making PRS members’ musical works available for streaming and/or download” in the UK via Steam.
‘Making available’ is a different kettle of rights in the UK, and PRS says that it had “sought to license them for many years without appropriate engagement from Valve”. The society hopes the legal action will encourage it to stump up “both retrospectively and moving forwards”.
