The online game platform Roblox has seen quite the boost in recent months. While Roblox players are spending thousands on in-game purchases, the developer Roblox Corporation has received plenty of profits as a result. However, the company might end up losing some of that money as well.
Roblox is being sued by the National Music Publishers' Association for the company's illegal use of music on its game platform. This report comes from Variety, where it states that the NMPA is filing a lawsuit for $200 million and accuses the game company of illegally using songs from many music artists without compensation.
In the report, the NMPA listed some of the musical artists whose songs are being used in the Roblox online game platform. The list includes Ariana Grande, Imagine Dragons, deadmau5, Ed Sheeran and the Rolling Stones, and many others. At the time of writing, Roblox Corporation has not yet commented on the situation or the allegations from the NMPA.
According to the report, the lawsuit was announced by the NMPA's president and CEO David Israelite during the trade association's 2021 annual meeting. Israelite stated that Roblox Corporation was going to great lengths to use artists' music without paying them or the copyright holders. He went on to say that the company is taking advantage of Roblox's player base of millions by having them pay every time they upload music.
Israelite also said that the company is exploiting Roblox's younger players' lack of understanding of copyright infringement without warning its players of the risks. The report also added that Roblox Corporation has a market capitalization of approximately $52 billion, and its stock price had also increased by 31% since its IPO earlier this past March.
The NMPA's lawsuit was filed on the behalf of the music artists and various other publishing plaintiffs including ABKCO Music & Records, Big Machine Records, Concord Music Group with Pulse Music Group, and deadmau5 (Joel Zimmerman). Other artists and labels joining in include Downtown Music Publishing, Hipgnosis, Kobalt Music Group, MPL Music Publishing, Peermusic, Reservoir Media Management, Spirit Music Group, and UMPG.
The report states that the NMPA's lawsuit is seeking monetary damages for "Roblox's unabashed exploitation of music without proper licenses" for use on Roblox. The purpose of the suit is to make sure the songwriters are properly paid in full for their work getting used on the online game platform. Also, that Roblox Corporation takes the music creators seriously for their works contributing to its platform's popularity and profitability.
Roblox is available now on Android, iOS, Mac, PC, and Xbox One.
Source: Variety