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.”
But the game publishers already had licence, and if they didn’t have a licence then their beef is with the publishers not the storefront.
Anyway I’ve bought GTA V from physical brick and mortar stores in the past, so are they going to start suing the brick and mortar stores as well?
Hopefully they lose this case because copyright law is an absolute joke. It hasn’t been fit for purpose for about 20 years.
Huh? The game studios pay the licenses, the artists etc. Why on earth would you then hold the store accountable? This is double dipping. That’s like charging a CD store for selling your CDs.
This shit is why the music industry is despised.
It seems like an utterly vexatious, and banal one at that, lawsuit by the PRS.
Definitely feels like they were put up to it by the dark money private equity jackels who want to devour Valve.
The price might not be worth it, but would be really funny if Valve just delisted the claimed games in the UK and notified the publishers that they need to remove the claimed music or resolve the licensing issue if they want their game back up. Instead of one tidy lawsuit, suddenly these guys are being contacted by the angry lawyers of hundreds of orgs they have existing contracts with.
Once again reminding people that you can sue anyone for anything. Doesn’t mean it’ll go anywhere
Sounds like they want to get paid twice.
Are they going to sue to operating system owners next? What about the web browser that offers the steam installer download?
why stop there! lets go after keyboard manufacturers for allowing people to type words.
Or the dastardly USB Implementers Forum, who not only creates devices that allows those keyboards to function but a storage protocol commonly used by pirates!
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.
Insanity. It’s like suing a grocery shop for selling the xyz branded milk for using their copyrighted font.
It’s like suing a grocery shop for selling the xyz branded milk for using their copyrighted font.
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.Juries are very unpredictable in such cases. And that’s what they are playing on.
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.
Also frivolous suits tend to happen most in USA.That perception 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.
- making a business decision that selling skin graft hot coffee will save more money than you will have to pay in damages to anyone injured. A decision that ultimately proved correct.
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 the 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.
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.
The point is the studios WEREN’T offending. The music was licenced for the games. PRS wants to double dip by forcing Valve to also pay because they are distributing it.
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.
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 somewhere that HL3 was confirmed. 😜
Stop playing with my feelings.
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.
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.
They do.
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.
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.
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.
relies on the supplier being truthful with their documentation for their production
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.
Yep. They absolutely have such clauses.
That’s the point though, the content IS legal. The game devs paid for the licence. PRS are trying to double dip saying you need a separate licence to distribute it too.
This kind of lawsuit only makes things worse for musicians who are already struggling with making money performing and recording. This will be challenged, beaten and leave a bad image for artists as not everyone is going to draw logical conclusions from it.
It’s not about artists anyway despite their claim, it’s about labels. The artists doing well are doing their own thing recording, touring, selling merchandise and making sure their followers are getting value for money. The traditional labels are losing control the same way the magazines did.
There have been so many lawsuits against Valve recently from so many different angles. I’m not usually one for conspiracy but I wouldn’t be shocked if this is a coordinated campaign to unseat Valve from their monopoly on the PC gaming market so that other games industry corporations can move in. They’ve been trying and failing to break into this market for years because Valve has built so much consumer loyalty.
If it isn’t publicly traded, they can’t take over it, enshitify it, and squeeze it until it’s useless. So of course they hate it.
Microsoft is looking to butt in on the pc gaming market with their new Xbox project I wonder if it has something to do with that.
Microsoft had a game store for a long time and they utterly failed to do anything meaningful with it. I can’t imagine this new attempt is going to be any different.
I’d be surprised if it wasn’t microsoft angry at valve for pivoting to linux. Gaming is the last major stronghold for home computing dominated by microsoft, it’s all been replaced by platform agnostic web apps and mobile devices for 90% of non-gaming use cases
“The litigation will progress until Valve obeys” sounds an awful lot like extortion.
They are clearly trying to double/triple dip on shit that already been paid for and licensed.
Whats next?
Make us individual game owners pay license every time we download and install the game?
Lest we forget, Unity tried to do just that and walked back due to backlash.
Unity never tried that? They wanted to charge the developer using Unity. It was stupid, but they pay for unity one way or another.
And tariffs are for charging the company being imported. They never tried pushing those lost costs onto the customer
They wanted to charge per game sale. It’s not “per download” but it’s close enough for most consumers.
They were changing their pricing model. It doesnt matter if its a flat cost or per download cost or tierd pricing on a range.
No matter what, unity is getting paid when usage reaches a limit, it was never entirely free at scale.
Customers were ALWAYS paying for unity one way or another, it wasn’t anything new.
Make us individual game owners pay license every time we download and install the game?
This is how it’s been done for decades now? Every game you purchase off of Steam, Xbox, PlayStation is just a license to play that game.
Really?
I don’t recall having to pay a fee every time I redownload or reinstall my game…ever
Suggest reading into software licensing and understand the different types of licenses that could be used.
Every time a company tries to restrict the number of downloads/reinstalls for a game that you buy a license for, it has backlashed so catastrophically that they’ve walked it back.
So it has happened, yes, but there is no situation currently with game distributors where you pay a license for a single download. They’re all pay once, download in perpetuity.
Don’t get me wrong here, I understand the pushback from the community in this regard and i’m not try to defend proprietary software licensing.
I’m more of letting the original commenter know that they actually don’t own the game or game files they purchase from common store-fronts, they simply own a license to download and play the game.
they actually don’t own the game
This is a fact that has been made apparent repeatedly. We know.
However, you were replying to this:
Make us individual game owners pay license every time we download and install the game?
With this:
This is how it’s been done for decades now?
…which is patently false.
Sure buddy.
Username checks out.
People don’t like being proven wrong, and often try to dismiss it with some variation of “Im not gonna sit here and be told the whatfer by some random idiot”
Sounds like you’re describing yourself here.
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Refused to accept documentation from a valid source.
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Instead of having a discussion, you proceed with a pointless “Sure, buddy” at an attempt to deflect from the topic.
So when it came to registering on Lemmy, that popped up in my head and bobs your uncle.
Real nice honeypot too, every time someones wrong and backs themselves into a corner instead of admitting they are wrong, they inevitably give some variation of “living up to your user name, huh”, which just continues to prove that the actual idiot is the one lashing out like that.
You chose to make the two comments above, I simply humoured your ignorance and lack of understanding of the subject.
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Yeah, like isn’t this steam’s schtick? You give up a third of the purchases for them to just handle this kinda shit? I’m not defending them, just stating.
Edit: hive mind activated.
Steam is a game Plattform, not a game publisher
Half life 3 fans in shambles.
real disappointed all that HL3 hype a month or 3 back ultimately ended up being a big fat fart of nothing.
First time?
nope. Just a frustrated, blueballed gamer sick and tired of shit ending in clifhangers with no finish.
Doent help that valve have openly admitted in the past that they have little interest in making games outside of experiments to play with new technologies, who cares about the players invested in the narratives they’ve created and refuse to bring any conclusion too.
3 back
Confirmed!
With Game publisher I meant that Steam neither published GTA, nor any other games listed there
What’s the VPN uptake in the UK these days, considering the state of government restrictions and surveillance lately? If Valve just said fuck it and pulled out of the market, would they even take a financial hit? Or would most of that revenue magically shift to other countries/currencies?
Meanwhile, big AI vacuums up the entirety of music produced by everyone from piracy sites for profit and noone bats an eye
Even if you only get your news from here, you can’t possibly have missed that AI companies are getting sued…
Abolish piracy!!!1
I feel like by this logic Amazon and Walmart would also need to obtain lisences to sell video games that have music in them…
That or I’m too tired and bread dead to understand the stupid shit I just read.
The only way I can see this being different is steam shows preview videos of the game which have music.
Amazon often only shows the box it sells in and pictures.
Its still stupid because the game developer has the rights and that page is their place.
If I remember correctly, Walmart does have televisions up in the tech department displaying advertisements and trailers for movies and games.
And Amazon often has a video in the image caroussel
Yeah but isn’t there a bunch of fine print when you put your game on steam saying “you allow us to ADVERTISE AND PLATFORM YOUR FUCKING GAME SO THAT IT SELLS”
As a general rule of thumb if something sounds stupid then it’s probably been reported badly with some key information missing. I’m betting the music industry press reporting will be very different from that of a site called “gamesindustry.biz”.
I’ve seen a lot of stupid patent and copyright trolling over the years.
I bet 100€ that they’re trying to double dip and get valve to also pay for licensing songs that the individual game publishers already licensed.
Literally my entire point was that people are offering some strong opinions without having read the complaint, and here you are demonstrating exactly that.
deleted by creator
Here’s a music news site: https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/gaming-giant-steam-faces-legal-action-from-the-uks-prs-over-alleged-unlicensed-use-of-music-in-games/
It sounds every bit as stupid there, if not more so because it’s apparently a normal aspect of distribution licensing in the UK.
Game developers and publishers typically secure sync licences to cover the embedding of music in their titles.
However, in the UK, those sync deals do not extend to the making available of that music when games are subsequently distributed via download or streaming platforms.
The ‘communication to the public’ right — i.e. the making available right — sits with PRS, not individual music publishers, meaning Valve requires its own separate licence as the platform operator distributing games that contain PRS members’ works.So remove all those games from Steam, the largest game market on the planet. I’m sure that will get more people wanting to use PRS stuff if they can’t distribute on Steam.
… fucking shakedown assholes.
Big bread over here psyoping me into eating toasted and buttered crispy steamy salty spurdough chewy bread
bread dead
… Wha?
I can assure you that I’m still alive and do not currently hunger for brains of the living.
My hate of the copyright-ownership side of Hollywood / Nashville / Atlanta, etc. has been burning white hot since the days that the RIAA was suing people using P2P networks. But, I had to admit that at least they could probably make a valid claim for copyright infringement. But this?!
It’s interesting how it’s the “Performing Right Society” (which I’ve never heard of). The “performing” part of that suggests that maybe they have an issue with people sharing clips containing music, or live streaming games where they share music. But, again, why Valve? Sure, people can share clips with friends. And, occasionally you see developers streaming their games. But, nobody is really “performing” live streams on Steam. I suspect they just think Valve is rich and so they can strong-arm them and Valve will settle to make them go away. I hope they bit off more than they can chew. Valve is indeed rich, and they have a tendency to be stubborn. I think they might well fight, and fight hard.
I wish a possible outcome was that the PRS ceased to exist. But, I suspect they’re like a flea or something, and even if you knock them off from this attempt to suck someone’s blood, you can’t kill them, and they’ll just find another victim.
Isn’t this kind of like suing blockbuster over music in the films they rent? Seems a bit daft, but there must be a reason they think it might succeed.
It seems similar to the idea that you could sue Google for copyright infringement because it serves a website that infringes copyright. Like… valve just serves the content and facilitates sale, right? The act of infringement wasn’t committed by them, it was committed by the game developers. Am I mistaken?
From what I understand, the music was used under licence by the game developers. The plaintiffs want Steam to also pay them for a licence to offer the game, which is already legally using the music, on their store, which is absurd.
Interesting, but I can see how this might play into their favor too. If the developers license to the music doesn’t cover resale/relicense, and maybe they’re arguing that the music (by extension of the game) was licensed to Valve in a manner that isn’t covered by the original license? Effectively meaning, valve can’t profit off the music by any means; developers had a non-extendable license to it, allowing only for distribution to consumers who don’t resell?
But you still wouldn’t sue Valve over that, would you? You’d sue the developers for damages due to breach of contract?
If the games are using the music in violation of copyright and valve acquired it and is selling it, the distribution rights part of copyright law allows the copyright owner to sue anyone in the supply chain. If the music was originally licensed properly, then PRS is just looking for a settlement.
Once you purchase a legally distributed work, you are protected by the first sale doctrine, which allows you to do pretty much whatever you want with your single copy.
But with Steam you haven’t purchased a copy. First sale doctrine isn’t likely to apply. You’ve purchased a license for access.
That’s the relationship between consumer and Valve though. I’m thinking what’s more relevant is whether or not the relationship between the game developer and Valve is in breach of contract between PRS and the game developer.
Any idea if Valve technically only has access licenses as well? Or did they buy a copy to license out themselves?
I think the issue here is that the game developers may not have any contract with PRS. Historically they wouldn’t have had to - they’d license the music from the big music labels, stamp their game onto a CD and sell a product. Now they’re not just selling a product - they’re licensing access to a “performance” of it. Valve is the playing an active part in this by “performing” the works on demand. It seems stupid to me, but that’s the world of content licensing.
I don’t really understand this, but that’s exactly what it seems like.
If they win, they set a precedent and then start suing everyone. If they lose, they don’t lose much.
From what I’ve read elsewhere, precedent is already set. Other game storefronts providers, including Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo, do make such payments to PRS. Valve is the odd one. I’d love it if someone here could confirm or deny this.
There is also the question of it that was set by court precedent, or settling. I would assume that settling doesn’t effect precedent.
Correct.
