Music streaming service Spotify faces a new class-action lawsuit in which it is accused of wrongly distributing licensed material.
David Lowery, the frontman for Camper Van Beethoven, a co-founder of the rock ban Cracker and a music business professor at the University of Georgia, filed a lawsuit seeking $150 million in damages from the streaming service.
Lowery, who identifies as an aritst rights advocate, has been critical of the music service for years.
The lawsuit claims that Spotify "knowingly, willingly and unlawfully reproduces and distributes copyrighted compositions without obtaining mechanical licenses," according to Billboard.
The complaint, filed Monday in the Central District Court of California, says Spotify "publicly" admitted to failing to gain licenses and that using songs without the proper license "creates substantial harm and injury to the copyright holders, and diminishes the integrity of the works."
The suit says songs were illegally distributed to over 75 million users, and statutory penalties allow for judgements up to $150 million per song for willful infringement and $750 to $30,000 per infringed work.
In a statement, Spotify global head of communications and public policy Jonathan Prince said in part: "We are committed to paying songwriters and publishers every penny. Unfortunately, especially in the United States, the data necessary to confirm the appropriate rights holders is often missing, wrong, or incomplete. 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."
Pitchfork reports that Lowery previously filed a complaint that led the National Music Publishers' Association (NMPA) to file "take down" notices to 50 lyrics sites for posting copyrighted content in 2013.
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