Record Industry Sues Stream-Ripping Site -- WSJ
September 27 2016 - 3:03AM
Dow Jones News
By Hannah Karp
The record industry sued one of the most popular sites for
converting YouTube music videos into permanent audio files, a
fast-growing form of music piracy known as stream ripping.
Labels owned by the three major music companies -- Vivendi SA's
Universal Music Group, Sony Corp.'s Sony Music Entertainment and
Access Industries' Warner Music Group -- sued the German operator
of the site YouTube-mp3.org in a federal court in Los Angeles
Monday for alleged copyright infringement. The labels are seeking
damages from the German company, PMD Technologie UG, and its owner,
Philip Matesanz, that include $150,000 for each alleged
infringed-upon song or sound recording.
The defendants didn't respond to a request for comment.
YouTube-mp3.org has tens of millions of users and accounts for
about 40% of the world's stream-ripping activity, according to the
suit. Users are prompted to enter a link to a YouTube video and can
click a button to remove any ads and create an audio file.
"This site is raking in millions on the backs of artists,
songwriters and labels," said the Recording Industry Association of
America's president, Cary Sherman, in a statement.
Though stream ripping violates YouTube's terms of service and
parent company Alphabet Inc. says it has worked to demote such
platforms in search results and remove them from its Android app
store, the practice has nonetheless become increasingly popular
lately as music-streaming services have grown.
Record companies have licensing agreements with YouTube that
permit it to stream much of their music to users in exchange for a
cut of associated advertising revenue. But the agreements don't
allow YouTube to offer the kind of permanent, ad-free downloads
that stream-ripping sites help users create. While streams can be
ripped from other music services and sites as well, YouTube's free
site is the most popular source given its sheer scale, with more
than 1 billion monthly users.
The music industry worries that fans who stream-rip have little
reason to buy the songs or sign up for subscription music services
on which it's become increasingly dependent such as Spotify AB and
Apple Inc.'s Apple Music, which charge $10 a month for unlimited
ad-free, offline listening. Streaming services generated $1.6
billion for record labels in the U.S. alone in the first six months
of 2016 -- amounting to about half of their domestic revenue.
Record companies' revenues are down 60% from 2000, despite nascent
growth in recent years.
Write to Hannah Karp at hannah.karp@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
September 27, 2016 02:48 ET (06:48 GMT)
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