Spotify just can’t seem to catch a break.
The music brand, Ministry of Sound, has brought an action against Spotify for copyright infringement. However, interestingly enough, this time the action is not to do with the copyright of the actual music music, but rather the arrangement of the music.
The issue is not that Spotify has made available the tracks that the Ministry of Sound has on its albums, but rather that they are not doing anything about the playlists available through the service. The main selling point of the Ministry of Sound is that they sell music in a certain playlist which supposedly suits and enhances the party/dance experience. Through Spotify, users can create and share playlists which other users can subscribe to, and it has become apparent that users of Spotify are copying the playlists available in the Ministry of Sounds album and sharing them.
There are two issues here: first of all it is slightly ambiguous whether or not a playlist can be subject to copyright. Before I dwell too deep into the subject, please keep in mind I am still a second year law student who has yet to study the law surrounding intellectual property.
Copyright is there to protect the expression of an idea rather than an idea itself. I’m not really sure that a playlist can be an expression of an idea, but then again I suppose it can be depending on the facts. I’m not exactly sure what precedent has been set on the matter.
Moreover, copyright law exists only to certain categories: music; films; sound recordings; and literature. I’m not exactly sure which category of copyright law a playlist would fall under. Literature, maybe? Again, it depends on what precedent has been set.
I think the more relevant issue, is the fact that even if playlists are subject to copyright protection, Spotify is likely not to be liable. Spotify themselves arn’t creating the playlist and distributing them, but the users are. One only has to look at the landmark decision of Viacom v Youtube, that Youtube could not possibly be held responsible for copyright infringement where the users uploaded copyrighted content. Granted, this was in a different jurisdiction.
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