PRS For Music to take legal action against Soundcloud over lack of artist payment

While many artists and labels have been steadily migrating away from SoundCloud for the past few years over various royalties disputes, the streaming service may have just been dealt its hardest blow yet, with the news that the performing rights organisation PRS For Music will be taking legal action against them.

PRS is an organisation which ensures its members are fairly paid the royalties for the use and licencing of their music to other parties. In an email sent out to its members today, the group are claiming that “after careful consideration, and following five years of unsuccessful negotiations, we now find ourselves in a situation where we have no alternative but to commence legal proceedings against the online music service SoundCloud.”

These proceedings apparently come following negotiations with SoundCloud over payment to artists using its platform, after which “the organisation continues to deny it needs a PRS for Music licence for its existing service available in the UK and Europe, meaning it is not remunerating our members when their music is streamed by the SoundCloud platform.”

“This is because it is important we establish the principle that a licence is required when services make available music to users,” explains the email. “We have asked SoundCloud numerous times to recognise their responsibilities to take a licence to stop the infringement of our members’ copyrights but so far our requests have not been met. Therefore we now have no choice but to pursue the issue through the courts.”

SoundCloud are yet to respond to PRS’ announcement.