Sonos and Napster are said to owe millions of license fees

Napster and Sonos were sued for unpaid license fees in the millions. The lawsuit refers to the Sonos radio service and demands over $3.4 million. The payment problems started in 2022.

The non-profit organization Sooundexchange has filed a lawsuit against Napster and the audio hardware manufacturer Sonos. The accusation: The two companies are said to have not paid for license fees of more than $ 3.4 million. The lawsuit was submitted to a federal court in California and refers to unpaid copyright taxes in connection with the Sonos radio service.

The dispute began in 2022 when the payments for the Sonos Radio music streaming service suddenly failed to fail. Sonos Radio started in April 2020 and used Napster’s music catalog. At first everything went smoothly – Napster acted as an authorized representative and transmitted the necessary license reports and fees to Soundexchange. But from May 2022 the payments stalled.

How Digital Music News reported (via Torrent freak), this time fell together with the takeover of Napster through the risk capital companies Hivemind and Algorand. The new owners increasingly rely on Web3 technologies such as cryptocurrencies and blockchain. According to the application, this takeover led to a “complete collapse of the reporting and payment for the Sonos Radio service”.

Ironic turn for Napster

The situation is quite ironic if you look at the story of Napster. The name Napster was once the synonym for music piracy par excellence. The filesharing platform started in 1999 by Shawn Fanning and Sean Parker revolutionized the music industry and enabled millions of users to exchange music free of charge.

At the peak, Napster had over 80 million registered users. However, the music industry reacted quickly and hard, in 2001 Napster was finally forced to stop the service. After several changes of ownership and competitions, Napster became a legal music streaming service – a complete U -turn from the former pirate to a licensed provider.

Partnership ended, debts remain

Sonos and Napster are no longer partners. The audio technology manufacturer moved to Deezer in April 2023 as the new provider of his radio service. This change seems to have solved the licensing problems for future payments, but Soundexchange continues to be compared to the outstanding debts from the time of the Napster partnership.

Soundexchange is a non-profit organization that was founded in 2003 and is the only position in the United States to act intended by the government for the collection and distribution of digital performance licensing fees. The organization represents over 245,000 recording artists and record labels and has distributed more than nine billion dollars of license fees since its foundation.