Roblox Sued for Letting Users Upload Pirated Music

The National Music Publishers' Association (NMPA) — a company that represents US music producers and songwriters — has sued the Roblox developer on charges of allowing the illegal use of copyrighted music. The lawsuit requires Roblox Corporation to pay a $200 million fine and include rules on the platform to crack down on piracy.

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In a statement, NMPA president David Israelite accused the gaming platform Roblox of offering a library of unlicensed copyrighted music. He also claimed that the company “takes virtually no action” to prevent acts of piracy.

Roblox game creators have an audio library with hundreds of files available for use in titles. This catalog is powered by the users themselves, who include unlicensed music from artists such as Ariana Grande, Imagine Dragons, deadmau5 and others on the service.

In the text, Israelite also pointed out that Roblox would be encouraging the inclusion of popular songs on the platform and making money from it. To upload files, the developer charges a fee in Robux — the service's virtual currency purchased with real money.

Roblox says it uses filters to stop piracy
Roblox Corporation responded to the NMPA's complaint in a post on the tool's official website. In the message, the company said it had closed partnerships with music labels, such as APM Music, to hold events with licensed songs, such as in the virtual concert of singer Lil Nas X, which took place on Roblox, in 2020.

“We do not tolerate copyright infringement, which is why we use the best advanced filtering technology to detect and prohibit unauthorized use of recordings,” said the developer.

However, the NMPA claimed to have found licensed music when searching for more generic terms. For example, searching for “Ariana Grande” does not show any results. However, if the search term is only “Ariana”, several popular songs by the artist appear in the catalog.

“Roblox’s use of filtering technology was nothing more than an empty gesture to mask its long history of inciting, tricking and encouraging users, including children, to illegally use copyrighted music,” the NMPA concluded.