Roblox Hit With $200 Mln Lawsuit By Music Publishers For Copyright Infringement

(RTTNews) - Roblox Corp. (RBLX) said that the National Music Publishers Association or NMPA filed a lawsuit against the company in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, alleging that the company engaged in copyright infringement by using certain musical compositions on the Roblox platform without necessary licenses.

The NMPA said its lawsuit, filed on behalf of publisher plaintiffs including ABKCO Music & Records, Big Machine Records, Concord Music Group with Pulse Music Group, deadmau5 (Joel Zimmerman), Downtown Music Publishing, Hipgnosis, Kobalt Music Group, MPL Music Publishing, peermusic, Reservoir Media Management, Spirit Music Group, and UMPG, will seek damages in the amount of no less than $200 million for Roblox's unabashed exploitation of music without proper licenses.

Roblox said it plans to vigorously defend itself against the claims set forth in the complaint, and given the recent filing, the company cannot predict the ultimate outcome of such litigation and has not come to a view on the value of any ultimate outcome at this time.

Additionally, the National Music Publishers Association said it officially launched a major ramp-up of its takedown campaign against Amazon-owned Twitch, a video creation and gaming platform with over nine million active streamers. Twitch's users have paid the price for the platform's failure to license music, and until they do, NMPA will continue removing music which Amazon refuses to pay for.