“A company built on industrial-scale copyright infringement”: Universal Music sue digital distributors to the tune of $500 million

Universal Music, (UMG) the largest major label group has joined forces with ABKCO Music & Records and Concord Music Group to file a huge copyright-infringement lawsuit against Believe SAS, the digital music company formerly known as Believe Music, and its subsidiary TuneCore. Together they’re seeking an eye-watering $500 million in damages.

UMG and co allege that Believe has achieved significant growth by acting as a hub for distributing unauthorized copies of copyrighted recordings to the major platforms, and they’ve managed to evade detection on slightly altering or speeding up the original tracks.

Another way UMG alleges Believe evades detection of these copies is by deliberately mis-spelling artists’ names. For example, Kendrik Lamar becomes ‘Kendrik Laamar’, Lady Gaga becomes ‘Llady Gaga’ and so on. The quantities involved are vast – we’re talking millions of tracks here.

Kendrick Lamar - i (Lyric Video) - YouTube

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The lawsuit claims: “While Believe is fully aware that its business model is fuelled by rampant piracy, it has eschewed basic measures to prevent copyright violations and turned a blind eye to the fact that its music catalogue was rife with copyright infringing sound recordings.”

UMG’s action comes at a time when there is gathering concern over unauthorised copyright-evading slightly-modified tracks on TikTok. Earlier this year UMG confronted Bytedance, TikTok’s Chinese parent company, over the 120 million such videos on the short form video platform.

The case could hinge on the fact that, like its competitor DistroKid, Believe has a terms-and-conditions clause that essentially passes on the blame for any copyright violations onto the user.

That’s evidently not good enough for UMG though - their company spokesperson said: “Believe is a company built on industrial-scale copyright infringement. Their illegal practices are not limited to cheating artists on major labels but artists on independent labels as well - including artists on the independent labels within the trade bodies of which Believe is itself a member.”

For their part, a Believe spokesperson told us: “Believe and TuneCore do not comment on pending litigation. As companies that work with artists and labels around the world, we take the respect of copyright very seriously. We strongly refute these claims, and the statements made by Universal Music Group and will fight them.

"We have developed robust tools and processes to tackle this industrywide challenge, working collaboratively with partners and peers and will continue to do so. We have been at the forefront of the digital music ecosystem for nearly 20 years, supporting the development of independent artists and labels, and have been awarded Tier 1 status and included in the Preferred Partner Program across all music stores.”