PRS claims "many game titles which incorporate PRS members' musical works are made available on Steam," including "high profile series" such as Forza Horizon, FIFA/EA FC, and GTA.

Insanity. It's like suing a grocery shop for selling the xyz branded milk for using their copyrighted font.

Wait what? Why would valve need to license the music? They're not making the games...That should be the responsibility of the game studio or developer that makes the game that uses the music.

"The litigation will progress until Valve obeys" sounds an awful lot like extortion.

They are clearly trying to double/triple dip on shit that already been paid for and licensed.

Whats next?

Make us individual game owners pay license every time we download and install the game?

I feel like by this logic Amazon and Walmart would also need to obtain lisences to sell video games that have music in them...

That or I'm too tired and bread dead to understand the stupid shit I just read.

There have been so many lawsuits against Valve recently from so many different angles. I'm not usually one for conspiracy but I wouldn't be shocked if this is a coordinated campaign to unseat Valve from their monopoly on the PC gaming market so that other games industry corporations can move in. They've been trying and failing to break into this market for years because Valve has built so much consumer loyalty.

See, this is why I fucking hate copyright law. It’s so fucked and even though this is clearly fucking bogus, watch them find some kind of loophole and set a precedent

Information should be free. It is as shackled as the rest of us under capitalism.

Shouldn't they be suing the game publishers not the reseller?

So EA and Microsoft according to their docket?

Next in convenience store owners and employees need to get a music license for selling CDs and DVDs so the public.

Are they going to sue to operating system owners next? What about the web browser that offers the steam installer download?

Isn't this kind of like suing blockbuster over music in the films they rent? Seems a bit daft, but there must be a reason they think it might succeed.

Meanwhile, big AI vacuums up the entirety of music produced by everyone from piracy sites for profit and noone bats an eye

This was inevitable after valve caved to pressure from card processors. The sharks have smelt blood.

This whole thing is utter bullshit. It sounds like the game studios DO have a license, and they're claiming that Steam does not but should. Because you can't tell me that Microslop, EA, and Rockstar, three ENORMOUS giants in the gaming industry, have willingly opened themselves up to litigation by not licensing music in their games, something they've been making for decades. Why are they entitled to a license from the developer AND a license from the shop selling it? Of course, they're not, but let's hope this doesn't set precedent that says they are.

Not that I love ActMan, but day to day news about Valve controversies do make me feel the same about these claims as ActMan. It really feels like if suddenly everyone wants to sue Valve to the ground so they got destroyed and other lesser fair gaming companies secure their market.

Valve is no angel. But if we compare to others, they are next best thing to a Saint.

This kind of lawsuit only makes things worse for musicians who are already struggling with making money performing and recording. This will be challenged, beaten and leave a bad image for artists as not everyone is going to draw logical conclusions from it.

It’s not about artists anyway despite their claim, it’s about labels. The artists doing well are doing their own thing recording, touring, selling merchandise and making sure their followers are getting value for money. The traditional labels are losing control the same way the magazines did.

Valve does seem to have a clause in their partner contracts to say all music must have proper licensing so they got that covered. They'll just ask PRS to point out which one and those games are gone within the hour. They can also give PRS a temporary license to the entire library to help them. Things are different if a judge says Valve needs to proactively check licensed materials in the game files, but that requires a library and methods to check against, so that's another discussion.

They're arguing it under section 20, probably this part

the making available to the public of the work by electronic transmission in such a way that members of the public may access it from a place and at a time individually chosen by them.

It looks like they're arguing that by hosting the games valve are acting as a pirate MP3 site.

I think they would have to prove that they did so knowingly, which can only really be done if they ignored takedown notices.

everybody attacking Valve, maybe my tin foil hat is too cozy but it;s a concerted effort by the psychopathic elite to ruin our lives. may their glans be afflicted by a million paper cuts and a salty storm

Does the RIAA know these scammers are trying to muscle in on their scam?

all they do is demonstrate why no game should use licensed music ever. cant stream of make videos of those games either without having to worry about this shit.

They just want to cash in twice.

For the people that don't see how manufactured some of the attacks against Valve have been lately (not that this will help convince them regardless...)

Huh? The game studios pay the licenses, the artists etc. Why on earth would you then hold the store accountable? This is double dipping. That's like charging a CD store for selling your CDs.

This shit is why the music industry is despised.

Dan Gopal, chief commercial officer, PRS for Music said: "Our members create music that enhances experiences and PRS exists to protect the value of their work with integrity, transparency, and fairness. Legal proceedings are not a step we take lightly, but when a business’s actions undermine those principles, we have a duty to act.

tl;dr they're after the money.

They're extortionists. This outfit is doing RIAA moves and surely annoying as those IP litigators whose business is to let loose bots and flag anything with a DMCA that remotely smacks of what they define as piracy.

Looking through the things PRS does, I wonder why anyone would join. Why call yourself an artist when you contribute to an entity that stops people from playing music to animals or whistling to themselves?

Like seriously. It's a group of artists going around shutting down parties. Musicians telling everyone to go home. Probably thinking "it's not my fault, it's the industry, if I want my fair share I HAVE to bully individuals and small businesses."

This is the type of thing that pushes developers towards AI music generators and similar tools.

Being a piece of shit human being should be enough disbar lawyers.

The price might not be worth it, but would be really funny if Valve just delisted the claimed games in the UK and notified the publishers that they need to remove the claimed music or resolve the licensing issue if they want their game back up. Instead of one tidy lawsuit, suddenly these guys are being contacted by the angry lawyers of hundreds of orgs they have existing contracts with.

That's like suing Spotify, Tidal, Amazon, etc for an artist in their library not licensing a sample correctly

This is probably bogus and already covered in steamworks' terms of use, I'm going to check but I expect them to have some kind of "you (the developer) are responsible for clearing copyrights stuff" clause

These idiotic lawsuits. First of all, this isn't even Valves responsibility. Second, Steam/Valve are small frys compared to Amazon/Apple/Google/Microsoft. In gaming they may be smaller than Sony and Nintendo and those two have full on closed software platforms. Steam is one software store among many on Windows, Linux, and MacOS. All these groups want to enshittify PC gaming. They want to enshittify personal computing in general. Turn pre-iPhone smartphone operating systems into iOS