Roblox and the National Music Publishers Association (NMPA) have reached an agreement that will dismiss the latter’s $200 million lawsuit against the popular online game platform. The news comes less than a week after NMPA’s landmark deal with Twitch.
Back in June, the NMPA sued Roblox after it found copyrighted music that it being used in the platform’s games without the proper licenses. The artists included deadmau5, Ariana Grande, Ed Sheeran, and the Rolling Stones, among many others.
With this current agreement in place, Roblox has the time and flexibility to negotiate with the NMPA’s clients individually and strike deals that are best suited for their artists.
“We are pleased that the publishing industry sees the potential of Roblox to be a significant creative and commercial opportunity for its members,” NMPA’s president David Israelite said in a statement. “Roblox understands that music has the potential to play a more integral role on its platform. I appreciate Roblox’s willingness to work with us in pursuit of advancing the interests of publishers and songwriters and look forward to seeing how they expand virtual experiences through music.”
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Roblox Corporation
There are a couple of avenues that creators can take when using an artist’s music within their game. The first is virtual concerts, which requires the proper licensing in order to legally be used. Second, game developers utilizing Roblox can upload artists’ music to their own games.
Roblox has quite literally installed the building blocks for a very lucrative sector in the metaverse. The platform’s parent corporation recently announced that artists can now host in-game listening parties, which provide artists an opportunity to sell virtual merchandise and make a lot of extra cash.
“We see a path to not having YouTube or a DSP in the background, but having a more integrated kind of metaverse music experience come together, which is again leaning into the social aspect,” Jon Vlassopulos, Roblox’s Global Head of Music, told Music Ally. “Maybe you get some virtual concert ticket access, you get some VIP artist world access, you get some merch, you get some listening, you get playlists. I think it’s a really exciting time to connect fans back in a more visceral way with the artist they love.”
