{"id":2441904,"date":"2019-03-19T14:42:12","date_gmt":"2019-03-19T20:42:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/?p=810133"},"modified":"2019-03-19T14:42:12","modified_gmt":"2019-03-19T20:42:12","slug":"peloton-is-being-sued-by-music-publishers-for-150-million","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/music-news\/peloton-is-being-sued-by-music-publishers-for-150-million\/","title":{"rendered":"Peloton Is Being Sued by Music Publishers for $150 Million"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Indoor bike company Peloton has amassed a cult following and a $4 billion valuation off of its dreamy lifestyle sell: Well-dressed men and women pedal their way to fanatically good health with the help of electrifying videos and hit songs. But the latter may have involved some cut corners, according to a lawsuit filed on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

A group of music publishers is taking legal action against Peloton, alleging that the fitness-tech company has been using songs from the likes of Ed Sheeran, Lady Gaga, Rihanna, Drake, Bruno Mars and Ariana Grande without permission. Peloton launched in 2012 and currently offers a subscription service with some 13,000 home workouts. The 10 independent publishers involved in the suit say the company has knowingly violated copyright on thousands of songs since it launched at-home streaming features on its exercise equipment in 2014 by failing to obtain the requisite sync license. Under U.S. copyright rules, companies using music in other media, like the exercise videos that live on Peloton\u2019s subscription service, must obtain sync licenses from publishers and songwriters.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe best analogy to this would be is if a movie used music and didn\u2019t have permission,\u201d National Music Publishers Association president and CEO David Israelite tells Rolling Stone<\/em>. \u201cIn 2017, we became aware that Peloton published playlists of music and some songs had been licensed while others had not. We engaged in what we thought was a good faith effort to try and resolve the issue, and when that didn\u2019t lead to an acceptable result, we felt we had no alternative.\u201d Plaintiffs in the suit include Downtown Music Publishing, Pulse Music Publishing, Ole, Ultra Music and The Royalty Network, and the thousand-odd songs represented include hits such as Maroon 5\u2019s \u201cAnimals,\u201d Justin Timberlake\u2019s \u201cSuit & Tie,\u201d Kesha\u2019s \u201cDie Young,\u201d and the A Star Is Born<\/em> hit \u201cShallow.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPeloton is a textbook willful infringer,\u201d says the lawsuit, which was filed in a U.S. district court in New York on Tuesday. \u201c[T]here is no doubt that Peloton\u2019s infringement was and continues to be knowing and reckless. Peloton fully understood what the copyright law required, having entered into sync licenses with certain other copyright holders, while trampling the rights of Plaintiffs by using their musical works for free and without permission.\u201d<\/p>\n

The lawsuit also lobbies criticisms against the company\u2019s vested interest for music in some ways and lack of support in others. \u201cBy Peloton\u2019s own admission, music is at the center of the ballyhooed Peloton experience,\u201d it says. \u201cPeloton\u2019s experience is built around songs. Users can even select classes based off the type of music they want to listen to \u2014 Eighties rock, Seventies disco,\u201d Israelite says.<\/p>\n

The exercise company has been expanding its footprint in the music industry<\/a> of late, striking up a relationship with startup accelerator program Techstars Music<\/a> as well as bolstering its existing video-and-media offerings. A spokesperson for Peloton tells Rolling Stone<\/em> that the company has \u201cinvested heavily to build a best-in-breed reporting and licensing system\u201d and is currently evaluating the legal complaint.<\/p>\n

via:: Rolling Stone<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Indoor bike company Peloton has amassed a cult following and a $4 billion valuation off of its dreamy lifestyle sell: Well-dressed men and women pedal their way to fanatically good health with the help of electrifying videos and hit songs. But the latter may have involved some cut corners, according to a lawsuit filed on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[50],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2441904","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-music-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-15 17:12:17","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSPN The Valley's Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2441904","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2441904"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2441904\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2441904"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2441904"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2441904"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}