Spotify Faces Second Lawsuit Over Mechanical Licenses Dispute

Spotify is facing a second class-action lawsuit claiming the company isn’t obtaining needed mechanical licenses on copyrighted music. Independent musician Melissa Ferrick filed her $200 million suit in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles Friday, claiming Spotify has streamed her songs about 1 million times without obtaining a license. Spotify chose to outsource its licensing to the Harry Fox Agency, which has been “ill-equipped to obtain licenses for all of the songs embodied in the phonorecords distributed by Spotify,” Ferrick alleged. “Neither Spotify nor HFA directly licensed or timely issued NOIs for many of the musical compositions embodied in phonorecords that Spotify was reproducing and distributing on a daily basis,” Ferrick said of notices of intent required to be sent to copyright owners before content is used. Spotify is “committed to paying songwriters and publishers every penny,” a spokesman said in a statement Monday. “We are working closely with the National Music Publishers Association to find the best way to correctly pay the royalties we have set aside and we are investing in the resources and technical expertise to build a comprehensive publishing administration system to solve this problem for good.” Ferrick’s suit follows a similar $150 million lawsuit that David Lowery, a songwriter and University of Georgia music business lecturer, filed in December in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles. Lowery, who leads the bands Camper Van Beethoven and Cracker, claimed Spotify is illegally distributing four Cracker songs (see 1512290048).