"Valve sued by The Performing Right Society"

[kane_magus]

Full headline, because Dreamwidth's subject field length is still inadequate: "Valve sued by The Performing Right Society for allegedly using its members' musical works 'without permission'"

IANAL, but let me see if I'm correctly understanding this here. These assclowns are suing Valve because...

...

...Valve sells video games via Steam that happen to have music in them? And they're saying that Valve doesn't have the rights to that music? I mean, they're not talking about games specifically made by Valve, since they mention shit like Forza Horizon and FIFA and Grand Theft Auto. They're saying that for any game sold on Steam that has music associated with The Performing Right Society in them, Valve must pay The Performing Right Society for the right to sell those games?

Does this seem like the stupidest dumbshit ever shat out of a dog's diseased asshole to anyone else?

So...

Are they going to be suing GOG and Epic Games Store and such, too?

Are they going to be suing Walmart, Target, Best Buy, GameStop, etc.? They also sell video games, after all.

Are they going to be suing Apple and Samsung for making smartphones capable of playing music? I mean, I've put video game soundtracks on my phone and listened to them in the car. Speaking of which...

Are they going to be suing Toyota and General Motors and Ford and the rest because they put sound systems in their cars that are capable of playing video game soundtracks? (And heaven forbid I listen to an actual radio station.)

Are they going to be suing Bose and Panasonic and all the other makers of speakers and headphones, as well, since you can potentially listen to video game music through those, and it might be video game music associated with PRS?

Are they going to be suing you and me because we have ears capable of listening to music we may not have paid for the right to listen to, because it's associated with PRS?

Yes, I'm being a wee bit increasingly hyperbolic here, but I hope I'm getting my point across. How much (more) double- or triple- or quadruple- or more -dipping does the PRS want to try to do here?

Also, more relevantly, Valve is not a "streaming service" that specifically contracts creators to make things like TV shows exclusively for their platform, such as Netflix or Disney+ or whatever. Valve is not contracting Microsoft to make Forza for them, nor EA to make FIFA, nor Rockstar to make GTA, nor any of the other games they sell. You, Performing Right Society, already got your fucking money from Microsoft and EA and Rockstar for that shit (or so I would assume). Trying to strong-arm Valve into also paying up, on top of that, seems like a ludicrous attempt at double-dipping to me.

Someone wants to sue Valve for lootboxes in games actually made by Valve? Be my fucking guest. Go right ahead with that. Fuck Valve right in the ass with a dried up corn cob, in that case. (Though I'm not sure how that's even relevant enough to have been mentioned in the above linked article, given that the only connection is "Valve being sued by somebody.") Someone wants to sue Valve because they're selling video games that happen to have music in them, because they (speciously) claim Valve doesn't have the rights to that music (because Valve shouldn't need the rights to the music in video games they sell, because any rights issues should have already been managed and paid for by the people who actually fucking made and published the video games in question), though? Fuck off forever with that asinine dumbfuckery.

Seriously, what subtle nuance am I missing here that would make this make sense? Is Valve actually in the wrong here?

Or is this lawsuit truly as clownshoes bonkers as it seems? How much are they suing them for? All the money in the world?

Comments

Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith]

>>Are they going to be suing GOG and Epic Games Store and such, too? <<

They're probably targeting victims small enough to beat, but big enough to have money worth taking.

A good solution to avoid this would simply be paying musicians to write new music for video games. Some designers have done this. Nowadays, however, I suspect they're more likely to use AI-generated clanktunes. :/

Re: Thoughts

[kane_magus]

I absolutely agree that video game makers should create their own music rather than using licensed music.[1] Most games do use original music, rather than licensed stuff.

However, in this particular case, it's somewhat irrelevant to the issue at hand. Valve didn't create the vast majority of the games that they are selling on Steam. They're not the ones who chose to put licensed music in the games. They're just providing a platform to sell the games (while taking their 30% cut, of course, but that's neither here nor there). Why should they be forced to pay for whatever license it is that PRS is trying to force them to buy, when they had no say in the matter of whether or not licensed music was used in any given game (other than ones they make themselves)?

The way I see it, Valve has three options here. One, they can try to fight the lawsuit and possibly even win, because it really does seem like a cruddy lawsuit to begin with. Two, they can cave in and buy whatever license, which seems like a really bad precedent to set. Or, three, they can go the nuclear option and mandate that any games sold on the Steam platform simply cannot have music associated with the Performing Right Society (or any other similar entity that may come along in the future) in them or else they will be banned from being sold on Steam at all.

Best outcome probably would be option one, fighting the lawsuit and winning it, but even if they tried that and lost, I kind of hope that instead of option two, they'd actually go option three. If the biggest, by far, digital storefront on the Internet suddenly refused to sell any games that contained licensed music, you can bet that would have a massive impact on the number of games that were created using licensed music. It may not stop the practice entirely, but it would almost definitely put a huge dent in it. If the licensed musicians suddenly lose work/money because of that, well, that would be just too damn bad. World's smallest violin and all that.

[1] - Licensed music in games was already a bad thing even before this current situation, due to all the games that have been unceremoniously delisted and, essentially, ceasing to exist in this age of digital-only media, due to those licenses inevitably expiring.

Re: Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith]

>> Why should they be forced to pay for whatever license it is that PRS is trying to force them to buy, when they had no say in the matter of whether or not licensed music was used in any given game (other than ones they make themselves)? <<

They shouldn't. It is the game designer's responsibility to manage rights. But going after individual designers is a useless game of whack-a-mole because few have much money. A distributor has more, which makes them a more attractive target. The legality is largely irrelevant -- it's about who can hire a better lawyer (or bribe a judge).

>> One, they can try to fight the lawsuit and possibly even win, because it really does seem like a cruddy lawsuit to begin with.<<

That largely comes down to money.

>> Two, they can cave in and buy whatever license, which seems like a really bad precedent to set. <<

It is a bad precedent, and may be unaffordable. But the license would have to be rewritten because, historically, it's been aimed either at broadcast (e.g. radio) or at people creating things with the music in it. A game is different than just playing the music.

>> Or, three, they can go the nuclear option and mandate that any games sold on the Steam platform simply cannot have music associated with the Performing Right Society (or any other similar entity that may come along in the future) in them or else they will be banned from being sold on Steam at all.<<

That's probably cheaper, and honestly, what PRS deserves.

Another option, instead of commissioning new music, would be using music that is in public domain already -- hence why classic cartoons used classical music.

>> Licensed music in games was already a bad thing even before this current situation <<

Agreed.

Re: Thoughts

[kane_magus]

"They shouldn't. It is the game designer's responsibility to manage rights. But going after individual designers is a useless game of whack-a-mole because few have much money. A distributor has more, which makes them a more attractive target. The legality is largely irrelevant -- it's about who can hire a better lawyer (or bribe a judge)."

Companies like Microsoft, Sony, Electronic Arts, etc. (who are typically the ones most likely to be using licensed music in their games in first place) have plenty of money (each, individually, has more than Valve does, anyway). Moreover, they would have already used some of that money to pay any licensing fees for using the music. My point is that, by going after Valve/Steam, these PRS people are trying to double-dip on something they should've already been rightfully paid for.

(Tangentially speaking, while some "little guy" one/two-person indie operation typically wouldn't have enough money to pay for a music license, let alone defend themselves in a lawsuit over it, I don't doubt for a second that the rights holders, such as PRS or a similar entity, e.g. the RIAA, would still absolutely go after them if they used music in a game without having the actual license for it, and the PRS/RIAA/whoever found out about it. The RIAA, for example, has gone after individual people, just for sharing mp3s on Napster/Kazaa/Limewire/whatever back in the old days when those were still a thing, and even if they don't do that as much anymore, they do still go after individuals by leveraging ISPs to punish suspected infringers. Hell, PRS itself once sued a grocery store clerk for singing to herself while stocking shelves. They would definitely go after some small game company trying to sell a game without a license for the music in it, regardless of how much or little money the rights holders think they might get out of it. It's as much about intimidation as it is about making money, if not even more so.)

[goldpseudo]

Without seeing either the actual claims made in the lawsuit or any of the licensing details between Valve, the devs and PRS, they probably do have a case here.

This sort of bullshit isn't new, you see it a lot in older media that can't get redistributed because the original license for the music only covered a particular case (e.g. physical media) and didn't account for digital downloads.

I don't know what sort of license Forza or FIFA or GTA or whatever have that lets them use PRS music, but from the sounds of it it seems likely that that license doesn't cover digital downloads on just any platform (they have, or at least had, deals with e.g. Sony and XBox to allow publishing on those platforms).

Is it Valve's responsibility to ensure that they have a license to distribute everything they distribute? Absolutely. So if Valve doesn't have the license to distribute the music in that game via Steam, yeah, that's a problem.

That said, I'd be shocked if Valve didn't have something in their publishing agreement that blah blah blah legalese you grant us the right to distribute this product in the form provided including all music and content and blah blah blah also you acknowledge that you are the rights holder and have the legal authority to make this agreement; in which case they've just been distributing everything in good faith because they actually asked for the rights and were given them (by someone who may or may not have had the authority to provide said rights). In that case, I feel the onus would clearly have been on Microsoft or whoever developed the game to either know they had the rights to make that agreement in the first place, or to remove the music from their game before distributing it; either way there's probably some severe breach of contract issues to worry about there that are absolutely not Valve's fault.

Should Valve be expected to pay extra for this license if if they've been distributing everything in good faith and the developers are the ones who have been withholding the actual license fees? I doubt it. Would paying this license fee increase the number of games that can legally be sold on the Steam platform, and thus increase Valve's profits? Maybe. Should Microsoft or EA or RockStar or whoever get off the hook for not understanding their own licensing situation before selling their games? Absolutely not. Is PRS the same organization that sued a woman for letting her horses listen to the radio? Absolutely.

tl;dr Copyright is bullshit

[kane_magus]

I wonder if this is actually a case of some game publisher(s) not properly paying the license fees (in which case, yeah, that's not great), or if it's just PRS trying to double-dip on something that's already been paid for by the games' actual creators/publishers. I had just knee-jerk assumed it was the latter, but I guess it could be the former in some fashion or another. Guess we'll find out soon enough, probably. Either way, unless Valve was knowingly complicit in some way in the former, it should still be the responsibility of the publishers (or the creators, if they self-published) to pay any licensing fees, not Valve's. Valve isn't "making available" the music, Valve is selling the games, which just happen to include the already licensed (and, presumably, paid for) music. (Or not, if the games just used originally created and/or public domain music rather than third-party licensed shit.)

In any case, if this does blow up in Valve's face(s), as I said in a prior comment, I think they should flip the table over and say okay, fine, we're just going to outright ban any games that use licensed music from being sold on Steam at all, period. Games already get pulled off Steam and elsewhere (by the creators/publishers of the games) and basically disappear when these shitty music licenses expire anyway, so this would just be an expansion of that. Just don't let them on there at all in the first place. Plus, that would be a nice thumb in the eye to PRS. (And, more importantly, PRS's clients, whose rights PRS is ostensibly "protecting" here, would be super happy about that, right? The video game industry as a whole deciding to no longer license any mainstream music for their games at all, anymore, because Valve said fuck off. I'd certainly get a kick out of that, at least, which is probably why it's a good thing I'm not in charge of running Valve. *eye roll*)

Would Valve actually go that far, though? Almost assuredly not.

(Or, hell, it's probably more likely that Valve might end up implementing some equivalent to Youtube's horrendous Content ID crap because of this horseshit. Honestly, I'd prefer just an outright blanket ban on games with licensed material to some half-assed aLgOrItHm trying to suss out illicitly used copyrighted material in newly released or already available games, though. Damn it, I can already picture it now... games getting yanked off of Steam with the same absurd frequency that Youtube videos get removed based on copyright strikes. What fresh blue hell that would be.)