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Yet Another Valve Lawsuit

Grildon Tundy

Grildon Tundy

Member


"British music rights organisation PRS for Music is suing Valve, claiming that Valve must pay separate licensing fees for "making available" games that include music from PRS members.

The dispute targets games sold or downloaded via Steam that feature such music without Valve holding the required UK licence.

Examples cited include Forza Horizon, FIFA/EA FC, and the Grand Theft Auto series."

Edit: Yet another another lawsuit:


"Valve has been hit with a second class-action lawsuit over its loot box system in Washington federal court.

The suit alleges that the loot box system in Counter-Strike 2 operates as illegal gambling through casino-style mechanics like unpredictable rewards and near-misses, with plaintiffs seeking billions in restitution."
 
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Grildon Tundy said:


"British music rights organisation PRS for Music is suing Valve, claiming that Valve must pay separate licensing fees for "making available" games that include music from PRS members.

The dispute targets games sold or downloaded via Steam that feature such music without Valve holding the required UK licence.

Examples cited include Forza Horizon, FIFA/EA FC, and the Grand Theft Auto series."
Click to expand...

That seems like a weird one. I'd think that the responsibility there would be on the people publishing the games. Can Walmart get sued in the UK for selling CDs of music they don't own the rights to?
 
This will be thrown out, easily.

Platforms aren't responsible for licensing issuses, publishers are. Target doesn't own the rights to Ariana Grande's albums but they sure as shit sell em.

This is retaliation from the Rothchilds for Valve making them look like ineffectual idiots, so now they stamp their feet, make a fuss, and prove Valve right.

Predictable and pitiful.
 
It's like suing Netflix for music royalties just because the movies on the platform have soundtracks already licensed by the studios. This is stupid.
 
https://musically.com/2026/03/10/prs-for-music-sues-steam-games-store-owner-over-soundtracks/
Hang on a second. Aren't the publishers for those games responsible for licensing music rather than the store where the games are sold? Actually, it's more complicated than that.

The publishers certainly have sync licences, but the legal action focuses on Valve's role in "making PRS members' musical works available for streaming and/or download" in the UK via Steam.

'Making available' is a different kettle of rights in the UK, and PRS says that it had "sought to license them for many years without appropriate engagement from Valve". The society hopes the legal action will encourage it to stump up "both retrospectively and moving forwards".
Click to expand...
I don't understand why the UK has so many nonsense laws like this that allow them to shake down tech companies for no good reason.
 
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Seems to me like they're trying to attack Valve by every vector to see if one sticks. Weird to think of Valve as "The Underdog" as a billion-dollar company, but compared to who is apparently behind these lawsuits, I'm Team Valve 100%.
 
Grildon Tundy said:


"British music rights organisation PRS for Music is suing Valve, claiming that Valve must pay separate licensing fees for "making available" games that include music from PRS members.

The dispute targets games sold or downloaded via Steam that feature such music without Valve holding the required UK licence.

Examples cited include Forza Horizon, FIFA/EA FC, and the Grand Theft Auto series."
Click to expand...

Meme Lol GIF by ALL SEEING EYES

72og08.jpg

kuorjn82r4661.jpg
 
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uncreativename said:
https://musically.com/2026/03/10/prs-for-music-sues-steam-games-store-owner-over-soundtracks/

I don't understand why the UK has so many nonsense laws like this that allow them to shake down tech companies for no good reason.
Click to expand...
They do have a history with nonsensical laws. Like a window tax that taxed buildings based on how much windows they had (with horrifying consequences as people bricked their windows and died during summer heat as a result), and the locomotive act that demanded cars had 3 person crews with one 60 yards ahead waving a red flag and the car driving at most 2 to 4 mph (damaged their automotive industry irreversably)
 
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According to what I'm seeing on Google this law is usually applied to public performance of music: things like cafes and music stores playing music in the background. So stores don't need this license to sell CDs. Idunno, it all sounds very fishy, and probably in grey legal territory. Hopefully it gets thrown out.
 
poodaddy said:
This will be thrown out, easily.

Platforms aren't responsible for licensing issuses, publishers are. Target doesn't own the rights to Ariana Grande's albums but they sure as shit sell em.

This is retaliation from the Rothchilds for Valve making them look like ineffectual idiots, so now they stamp their feet, make a fuss, and prove Valve right.

Predictable and pitiful.
Click to expand...
They're weaponizing the "The process is the punishment" tactic.
 
Ok I THINK I understand this better now? https://committees.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/23084/pdf/

In the UK anyway, downloading works containing music is considered to be the same as downloading music.
As far as I know, worldwide, you're not allowed to resell digital copies of music, it's considered to be different from reselling secondhand CDs and stuff.
As far as I know, all streaming platforms have to pay something to the rights holders every time a piece of copyrighted audio is streamed.
In the UK anyway, downloading is considered to be the same as streaming.

It being applied to Valve still doesn't make any sense to me, for obvious reasons, but maybe the actual lawsuit doesn't make sense either.
 
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How is it the fault of Valve and not the game developers and publishers themselves?

These are getting frivolous and clear bullshit.

uncreativename said:
https://musically.com/2026/03/10/prs-for-music-sues-steam-games-store-owner-over-soundtracks/

I don't understand why the UK has so many nonsense laws like this that allow them to shake down tech companies for no good reason.
Click to expand...
That's exactly why they have laws like this (or amend laws for specific agenda). So they can shakedown and basically extort through legislative policy.

Now where has that happened before a couple of years back? Hmm. 🤔
 
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uncreativename said:
Ok I THINK I understand this better now? https://committees.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/23084/pdf/

In the UK anyway, downloading works containing music is considered to be the same as downloading music.
As far as I know, worldwide, you're not allowed to resell digital copies of music, it's considered to be different from reselling secondhand CDs and stuff.
As far as I know, all streaming platforms have to pay something to the rights holders every time a piece of copyrighted audio is streamed.
In the UK anyway, downloading is considered to be the same as streaming.

It being applied to Valve still doesn't make any sense to me, for obvious reasons, but maybe the actual lawsuit doesn't make sense either.
Click to expand...
If you buy a song from iTunes for $0.99, and it's covered by these rights holders, does Apple have to pay a fee every time you download it or stream it to your phone? Honest question.
 
Maybe it's a case of selective outrage, but in my extremely summary research on the matter it doesn't seem like valve has historically been sued by major players every other week, and you can't explain this trend as people being emboldened after seeing others doing it, you know, like it would be with false accusers, because they'd get discouraged when all the other lawsuits get thrown out or loose anyway ... this really doesn't seem like the actions of opportunistic individual parties ... it really does seem concerted ...
 
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jshackles said:
If you buy a song from iTunes for $0.99, and it's covered by these rights holders, does Apple have to pay a fee every time you download it or stream it to your phone? Honest question.
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Apparently?
It seems to me that they're taking a law that seems to be aimed at companies like Spotify and Youtube (Youtube might also sell music, idunno. You know what I mean, though) who don't sell music and only pay streaming rights, and applying it to a store like Steam that is exclusively selling copies of the music on behalf of companies who are in turn already paying the music rights holders what they're owed.

Like I said above, seems like a legal loophole that might be peculiar to the UK.
 
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uncreativename said:
Apparently?
It seems to me that they're taking a law that seems to be aimed at companies like Spotify and Youtube (Youtube might also sell music, idunno. You know what I mean, though) who don't sell music and only pay streaming rights, and applying it to a store like Steam that is exclusively selling copies of the music on behalf of companies who are in turn already paying the music rights holders what they're owed.

Like I said above, seems like a legal loophole that might be peculiar to the UK.
Click to expand...
If that's the case then it's likely that Valve would simply just outright ban these games from Steam, or at the very least charge the publishers each time the games containing these songs are downloaded (downloads are free on Steam, for both end users and publishers, which is a big part of the platform's appeal).

You better believe that Rockstar would patch the shit out of their Steam version and remove all the "offending" music long before they paid every time GTA5 got downloaded. Would happen even faster if it meant no more GTA5 PC sales.

They think they're being cute and trying to help these artists, but realistically all this is going to do is ban UK music artists from having their songs featured in video games going forward.
 
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This reeks of the music copyright stuff from early 2020-2022ish as it related to streaming on twitch, YT, Ect. Someone's just counting zero's somewhere on some spread sheets and went "well guess its time we squeeze some moneyz outta platforms by leaning on music rights bs. Ridiculousness.
 
Seeing this was really bizarre because my immediate thought was, "What about the other platforms? Why just Steam?"

I think that's enough to show you that this is bullshit and just a waste of time. Really strange that they'd attempt to go after Steam and no one else though.
 
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poodaddy said:
This will be thrown out, easily.

Platforms aren't responsible for licensing issuses, publishers are. Target doesn't own the rights to Ariana Grande's albums but they sure as shit sell em.

This is retaliation from the Rothchilds for Valve making them look like ineffectual idiots, so now they stamp their feet, make a fuss, and prove Valve right.

Predictable and pitiful.
Click to expand...
Counterpoint: this is UK tho.
 
Failing orgs are just trying to use Valve like an ATM to stay afloat. "They'll want to just settle". This one is the most preposterous. I hope Valve takes it all the way and bleeds them for trying this dumb shit.
 
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