Meet the new boss
Same as the old boss
Microsoft has quietly settled a lawsuit over unpaid music royalties with a drummer and his band’s music publisher. It’s a small but significant settlement: the pair are also suing Google, Deezer and Jay Z’s Tidal for the same reason, and the issue is also at the heart of two class action lawsuits against Spotify. All the …
It wouldn't surprise me if the settlement was in the region of a couple of thousand $.
IMO The American Dollar could be described as a minor band at best (I know it's not an infallible source of info, but when Wikipedia doesn't even have a listing of any of your songs then you're going nowhere) so are just angry that everyone's been ignoring them and saw this as a get rich quick scheme.
Considering they only sued Google, Tidal (service) and Microsoft for allegedly failing to pay proper royalties for streaming their music in 2016 and the fact that Microsoft have settled out of court already means this is a bit more that a get rich quick scheme!. Microsoft are not know for give their money away to anyone who asks for it?
Is for music produced on physical media. CD, Records, Tape, Etc. My guess is they are setting the stage to attack "fair use" recordings on physical media. For example recording a song from the radio to cassette tape for personal use. That would have huge implications for music and video if fair use went away.
... that it's both Microsoft and Google.
Had it been just the former, I would have expected an outpouring of bile from the usual suspects about how Microsoft abuse every single patent and law possible, whereas in the latter's case I would expect a stream of comments about the impossibility of Google's guilt and how the plaintiffs must be overreacting...
I guess there are a few cases of exploding head syndrome going on right now...