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.”
Wait what? Why would valve need to license the music? They’re not making the games…That should be the responsibility of the game studio or developer that makes the game that uses the music.
Yeah, this… doesn’t really make sense, unless the goal is to get Steam to adopt a policy of delisting the specific offending games in the UK.
I am not a lawyer, but… this seems spurrious?
I don’t know, I can’t find a single example of a platform or ‘retransmitter’ being successfully ruled against, in cases where the content itself already had worked out a rights/royalties agreement with the rights holders… unless it can basically be proven that the platform operators / retailers knew that the content itself was not properly liscensed, and sold it anyway.
So basically they would have to prove that Rockstar and EA never had the proper liscensing, and also that Valve knew that.
I am going to go out on a limb and say that Rockstar and EA probably did/do have the proper liscensing.
That being said, the UK leaving the EU… makes all of this exceptionally confusing to my layman self, as to the exact current standards and precedents that are currently in play and relevant.
You always sue starting from deepest to shallowest pockets.
… but that only makes sense if you genuienly believe that Rockstar and/or EA have less cash than Valve, and/or Rockstar and EA never had their own relevant liscensing agreements.
I may be wrong, but as best I can tell, there is no precedent in UK law for a platform/retailer being found liable under the cited Section 20, unless the content being distributed/retransmitted/sold itself did not have proper liscensing arrangements, and it can be proven that the platform/retailer/retransmitter knew that to be the case.
I kind of find it unlikely that Rockstar and EA did/do not have liscensing agreements in place.
My theory?
The entire Publically Traded gaming world seems to be mobilizing and coordinating efforts to get every kind of secondary organization they are connected to, to sue Valve, right now.
Because they are all financially imploding, and they’re trying to do as much damage as possible to Valve, who isn’t a part of their club, as a means of trying to level the playing field.
All these people on the boards of top gaming companies… are also on the boards of other top gaming companies, they know each other, they have people and contacts who sit in all the gaming industry lobbying groups, and the astroturf fake ‘gamer advocacy’ groups, in the IP rights groups, etc etc.
YouTube isn’t responsible for licensing any music either, but they are responsible for keeping it off their platform, and they’ve gone to great lengths to achieve this.