this post was submitted on 10 Mar 2026
487 points (97.8% liked)

Technology

82549 readers
3391 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.

Our Rules

  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related news or articles.
  3. Be excellent to each other!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
  10. Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.

Approved Bots

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
L3s@lemmy.world
enu@lemmy.world
technopagan@lemmy.world
L4s@lemmy.world
L3s@hackingne.ws
487
Valve Sued By The Performing Rights Society Over Music Rights in Games Valve Doesn’t Make or Own (www.gamesindustry.biz)
submitted 2 days ago by netweirdo@lemmy.zip to c/technology@lemmy.world
224 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

The Performing Right Society (PRS) has "commenced legal proceedings" against Steam owner Valve over the use of its members' works on Steam "without permission."

The organization claims that while games right across the spectrum use music to "transform play into emotional, immersive experiences," Valve has "never obtained a licence for its use of the rights managed by PRS on behalf of its members, comprising songwriters, composers, and music publishers."

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.

PRS said that as it had sought to work with Valve about the licensing issues "for many years without appropriate engagement from Valve," it has now issued legal proceedings under the UK's s20 Copyright, Designs, and Patents Act 1988 and requires any game that uses PRS' works to obtain a licence.

"The litigation will progress unless Valve Corporation engages positively with discussions and takes the necessary license to cover the use of PRS repertoire, both retrospectively and moving forwards," the organization said in a press statement.

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.

"Great video games rely on great soundtracks, and the songwriters and creators behind them deserve to have their contribution recognised and fairly valued."

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] Pman@lemmy.org 1 points 19 hours ago

Yeah it's probably like corruption the optimal number isn't 0 but as close as we can get without hamstringing society. Make it just hard enough so that those who would do it if it was easy can't do it easily and then you have 90% less corruption. Think of it like piracy, it was big in the 2000's when buying DVDs was a thing and storage was getting cheap but record labels and studios were not able to update their business model and the easiest way to get most media for the average user was something like Napster. When streaming came along and Netflix had a massive catalogue and was better in every way to cable and same with music streaming platforms at first piracy almost stopped completely and is only coming back due to enshitification. We need to implement a model like Netflix streaming which aligns incentives for politicians to make good policies and not sell out the country from under us for personal gain by making said decisions have actual negative and immediate consequences, be it trading in the stock market while in office or for a ster period of 2 terms after they serve their time in office, being a lobbyist for a set amount of time before or after presenting themselves as a candidate, and enforcing an open period after a law is drafted for public review and ability to lodge complaints and a 2-4 year reassessment of the law to see if it is actually doing what it was set out to do or not and repeal it if not (with exceptions for laws that govern long term policy such as schools where it can take 14 years for the policy to actually show concrete results.