inclementimmigrantValve sued by The Performing Right Society for allegedly using its members' musical works "without permission"
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.
This has “I’m throwing my lawsuit at everything and I hope it sticks” energy
To me it looks like, “It’s cheaper to sue this company rather than the individual companies even though we know we don’t really have a leg to stand on”.
Yeah, I’m not a lawyer, let alone a UK lawyer, but this seems insane. Why not sue Amazon, Walmart, and Best Buy for selling games that use their music, too, while they’re at it. The license to use their music is, presumably, licensed by the game creator. And, if it’s not, you go after them, not the storefront that’s selling the game, right?
If this case holds water, then didn’t that mean storefronts are liable for validating the licenses of all assets used by all products they stock? That would be insane. (“Prove you own the copyright to your packaging, design, layout, copy, music, textures, models, SFX, …”)