It was probably only a matter of time before someone actually did something about the fact that Roblox is and has largely always been a vehicle for copyright infringement since players can upload content into their custom maps largely unfettered. As it turns out, that time is now, and the someone is the National Music Publishers’ Association, which represents a whole slate of music publishers that are mighty ticked off that Roblox isn’t respecting young players adhering to the law compensating artists paying publishers their cut.
“They’ve made hundreds of millions of dollars by requiring users to pay every time they upload music onto the platform – taking advantage of young people’s lack of understanding about copyright – and then they take virtually no action to prevent repeat infringement or alert users to the risks they are taking,” NMPA President & CEO David Israelite alleged. The lawsuit seeks $200M in compensation for Roblox hosting the organizations’ artists’ songs illegally.
We’ve been covering Roblox’s curious business foibles in the lead up to and aftermath of its IPO earlier this year; as we’ve noted, the company is worth something like $50B but is nevertheless losing piles of money every quarter.
