More-featured online gaming and creative platform Roblox finds itself at the heart of a music rights case that could cost it big if the National Music Publishers’ Association (NMPA) charges are proven.
It is as a real spearhead that the CEO of the national association of music labels, David Israelite, announced legal action against Roblox Corporation, the company behind the platform, because of its “shameless exploitation of music without a proper license“.
Also according to David Israelite, the game would have pocketed hundreds of millions of dollars by taking advantage of the lack of awareness of its young audience on the subject of copyright.
Likewise, the company behind Roblox would not even bother to alert its public about it and be lax about enforcing penalties for repeated breaches.
As a result, songwriters are not paid for works broadcast on the platform. Among them would be artists such as Ed Sheeran, the Rolling Stones, Imagine Dragons or Ariana Grande.
This is why the association is demanding, at a minimum, $200 million in damages to compensate, rightly, the artists injured in this case. The association believes that the platform must take seriously the obligations that bind it to those who have allowed its phenomenal success.