Spring Into Fitness & Don't Forget The Music

Spring is the time when a lot of people double down on working on those Summer bodies and music is the soundtrack that keeps them motivated. Enter Peloton, a fitness, tech and equipment company HQ in NYC,  which got slapped with a $150 million copyright infringement suit for not obtaining the proper music licenses for hits from Ariana Grande, Drake, Lady Gaga and many more.

The suit brought by National Music Publishers' Association (NMPA) members: Downtown Music Publishing, Pulse Music Publishing, ole, peermusic, Ultra Music, Big Deal Music, Reservoir, Round Hill, TRO Essex Music Group and The Royalty Network alleges that Peloton, while it has deals with some labels and music publishers, failed to secure licenses from other publishers resulting in copyright infringement of more than 1,000 musical works.

In response to the lawsuit, Peloton filed a countersuit claiming antitrust violations on the part of NMPA saying that it had instigated a coordinated effort to fix the process and refuse to deal with them. It will be interesting to see how the court rules on the countersuit. The takeaway here is that you never use music that is protected by copyright for business purposes without a proper license. Even if the other party is refusing to negotiate, you cannot take it upon yourself to just use the music.