Singh&Singh| Malhotra&Hegde advises on Spotify Warner india saga

Everyone is aware of India’s most prestigious music licensing deal of 2020. The one between Warner Chappell Music (WCM) and Spotify which culminated into a treat for avid listeners in India.

In February last year, WCM filed a case in the Bombay High Court in seeking an injunction against Spotify for including music represented by WCM in its selection in India.

However, this litigation did not come in the way of Spotify’s launch in February last year and the music platform was well received by the Indian masses. Simultaneously, both parties actively pursued this litigation.

It was only until last week when the tide turned and both the parties approached a settlement and submitted to the court to get the pending litigation dismissed as they penned down a multi-million licensing deal. For this, Vanditta Malhotra Hedge, Founding and Managing Partner of Singh&Singh | Malhotra&Hegde, advised and acted for Spotify and Anand & Anand & Khimani represented Warner Chappell in the litigation.

Warner Chappell Music, Inc. is an American music publishing company and a division of the Warner Music Group. Warner Chappell Music’s catalogue consists of over one million compositions and 65,000 composers, with offices in over 40 countries. According to WCM the new deal appropriately values its songwriters’ music and expands its license partnership with Spotify to include India.

Spotify which was founded in 2006 is in the primary business of providing an audio streaming platform – the “Spotify” platform, that provides DRM (Digital rights management) protected music, videos and podcasts from record labels and media companies.