The Performing Right Society (PRS) has “commenced legal proceedings” against Steam owner Valve over the use of its members’ works on Steam “without permission.”
The organization claims that while games right across the spectrum use music to “transform play into emotional, immersive experiences,” Valve has “never obtained a licence for its use of the rights managed by PRS on behalf of its members, comprising songwriters, composers, and music publishers.”
PRS claims “many game titles which incorporate PRS members’ musical works are made available on Steam,” including “high profile series” such as Forza Horizon, FIFA/EA FC, and GTA.
PRS said that as it had sought to work with Valve about the licensing issues “for many years without appropriate engagement from Valve,” it has now issued legal proceedings under the UK’s s20 Copyright, Designs, and Patents Act 1988 and requires any game that uses PRS’ works to obtain a licence.
“The litigation will progress unless Valve Corporation engages positively with discussions and takes the necessary license to cover the use of PRS repertoire, both retrospectively and moving forwards,” the organization said in a press statement.
Dan Gopal, chief commercial officer, PRS for Music said: "Our members create music that enhances experiences and PRS exists to protect the value of their work with integrity, transparency, and fairness. Legal proceedings are not a step we take lightly, but when a business’s actions undermine those principles, we have a duty to act.
“Great video games rely on great soundtracks, and the songwriters and creators behind them deserve to have their contribution recognised and fairly valued.”
Insanity. It’s like suing a grocery shop for selling the xyz branded milk for using their copyrighted font.
I think it would be reasonable if this was a problem of small indie titles that do not have a publisher and basically wouldn’t exist without Steam. If Valve allows for content on their platform they have an obligation to ensure this content is legal. If a supermarket cooperates with a local farmer to sell their produce directly without middle men, it’s partly their responsible if the produce is made using illegal pesticides.
However, it seems unreasonable when it’s about stuff like Forza and FIFA. Then sue Microsoft and EA, for fucks sake. These games have publishers.
No that’s of how it works…well, anywhere. In your analogy, the supermarket relies on the supplier being truthful with their documentation for their production. That’s as far as their responsibility goes legally, they have no obligation to investigate the suppliers claims any further.
So the supermarket needs documentation and to take precautions, because they are to a certain extent responsible for the legality of the stuff they are selling.
In the real world supermarkets don’t just pick up carrots from some random guy showing up with a trailer full of them. In online markets, this is closer to how it works. Those running and profiting off online platforms should be accountable for what they sell. If Amazon lists electrical products that don’t meet fire safety standards on their website they should be held accountable for selling these products, even if they only act as middle men.
If companies can just take the money without any responsibility we’re fucked.
The seller is only responsible for checking that the product is legal, not whether or not the information and documentation provided by the manufacturer is falsified. In this case, if a game dev accepts that they of course have all the necessary licenseses for game assets (which valve definitely has a clause with), then valve has done their part. If it turns out the manufacturer mislead them, it’s the manufacturer who’s in trouble, not the seller.
I came here to make this exact point.
The real reason they do it of course, is that Steam is big, and they can get more money from Steam if they win.
Juries are very unpredictable in such cases. And that’s what they are playing on.
I mean many of those publishers, like it says in the article, are “high profile” and will have more than enough money to cover a music copyright issue.
But suing Valve means you only need to sue 1 company instead of dozens, and it also makes Valve responsible for keeping the songs out of its entire library of tens of thousands of games.
This is in the UK, except in very rare exceptions, we don’t have juries for civil matters.
Ok thanks, I assumed it was in USA, since Valve is American.
That myth was largely created by McDonald’s after they were sued for giving a lady third degree vagina burns and a fused labia. “Haha, Americans are so frivolous with lawsuits, they’d sue a company for serving coffee hot enough to make you need skin grafts”.
Complete and utterly false, USA has that reputation because it’s true.
USA has that reputation because it happens all the time, because it’s easy to make a lawsuit, even often finding a lawyer that will take the case it without payment, but take the fee as a percentage of the potential winnings. And because USA has insane rules of extremely high compensations.
USA is not known for this because of a single anecdote, but because it’s very common, and because of the insane compensations, which is part of why it is so common to also try with what would be a frivolous suit in any other country.
Point in case would also be the Apple lawsuit against Samsung, where part of the case was as simple as a tablet being a fucking tablet! When even Star Trek of the 60’s realized that it was a convenient form factor.
Apple won on just about all points of the case, but in following years they were completely dismantled, with decisions that the case didn’t have a basis, and the patents were interpreted way to widely.
This was a HUGE case that cost enormous amounts of money for both sides, and the only true winners are the lawyers. The US judicial system in this regard is completely rotten and that is being abused for frivolous cases that would be thrown out in other countries.
You’re right about the effect (lawsuits and the threat of the same are more common in America than Canada or the UK) but not at all about the cause.
The USA has had a decades-long choice to have our industry regulated primarily not through government bureaucracy but instead judicial liability. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulation_through_litigation
The reply that you are replying to is so off base I wonder if it’s Google Gemini trying to pretend to be a real user. So confident, so wrong, includes some real facts, but completely misapplies them.
There’s a reason they have a -6 total score from me… I don’t just downvote all willy nilly either…
I edited the word “myth” to “perception” because the well informed reply to My comment changed My mind about the truth of the facts, but I still think the fact’s prominence in culture is because of McDonald’s. Though, come to think of it, we were talking about frivolous lawsuits, not total lawsuits, so I’m not entirely convinced. It could be that the USA has a completely appropriate number of lawsuits and other countries have too few. After all, the judge in the McDonald’s case awarded the lady an entire day’s worth of profits, which is an absurdly high amount of money, but absurdity was in fact an appropriate response to an ongoing problem of absurd magnitude.
They actually changed their policy on the heat of the coffee in the wake of the lawsuit. Also the lady only sued to have her medical bills covered but thr judge awarded her a bunch of punitive damages.
Omg there is always someone bringing up this McDonald’s case every time like they’re slam dunking some new information and not just repeating comments over and over that they read in the last thread.
McDonald’s McDonalds McDonald’s McDonalds McDonald’s McDonalds.
There are hundreds of examples of real frivolous lawsuits being filed in the US. This case did not create a myth about frivolous lawsuits. This was at one time an example of a lawsuit that seemed like it could be frivolous, but later there was media coverage that told the real story. There do exist many examples of real frivolous lawsuits.
McDonald’s McDonalds McDonald’s McDonalds McDonald’s McDonalds.
Of course there are examples, but the point is it’s not unique to the United States. You’re literally in a thread about it for those lawsuit in a different country. They aren’t unique to anywhere.
On the other hand there is a very real trend of American media manipulation existing to frame anti-corporate lawsuits as frivolous. Also extensive lobbying of elected officials to stop “frivolous lawsuits”. I’ll let you guess as to why.
brb suing VALVe to get 50 million, just so that I can send it back to GabeN and demand a deadline for HL3.
I am pretty sure I saw that HL3 was confirmed. 😜
Stop playing with my feelings.
Theres also the factor of suing steam is like getting to sue all the ofenders at once without actually putting in the work to sue each individual studio that used the music.
Seeing that this is in UK, my guess is that if they try to take it to court, the court will simply throw the case out.
What are the odds that PRS doesn’t represent the rights on the music they claim to?
I’d like to say highly likely but upon reading a bit on what they are, it’s highly unlikely. They’re a union focusing on publishing right of music, so they definitely represent the owner of the music. But still insane.