Apple, Google, Amazon sued for alleged music piracy operation

The lawsuit makes 216 claims across 148 pages against this ‘massive music piracy operation.’

A lawsuit has been filed by the estate of Harold Arlen, the man who composed Over the Rainbow from The Wizard of Oz, and many other classics.

The estate is suing Apple, Amazon, Google, Microsoft and Pandora for selling unauthorized recordings from the songwriter’s catalogue of compositions.

According to the lawsuit, the companies are involved in a “massive music piracy operation” involving 6 000 pirated recordings, Forbes notes.

According to the lawsuit, the major players in digital music stores and streaming services are inundated with unauthorized copies of Arlen’s songs under different record labels and sold for less than the price of authorized copies of his songs.

For example:

A song from the Jamaica cast album is sold under the record label Soundtrack Classics for $0.99, alongside an authorized copy of the same song from RCA Victor for $1.29, with the RCA Victor logo having been removed from the Soundtrack Classics version of the song.

A piracy ring

“It is hard to imagine that a person walking into Tower Records, off the street, with arms full of CD’s and vinyl records and claiming to be the record label for Frank Sinatra, Louis Armstrong, and Ella Fitzgerald, could succeed in having that store sell their copies directly next to the same albums released by legendary record labels, Capitol, RCA, and Columbia, and at a lower price,” stated Arlen’s attorneys.

Arlen’s lawyers claim that the online retailers “have had knowledge of their own infringing conduct and that of the many of the pirate label and distributor defendants for several years and have continued to work with them.”

In total, 216 claims have been cited across 148 pages of the filing, with them demanding an end to the infringement in addition to paying attorney fees and damages.

There is no rainbow in sight for these corporations and their alleged music piracy operation.