Not even a couple of weeks after the New York state's Attorney General announced a lawsuit against Valve for their gambling-like loot boxes in games such as Counter-Strike 2, the Steam owner is about to be hit by another lawsuit, this time on the other side of the "pond" (where it already faces a £656 million class-action lawsuit directed to the 30% fee it collects from each game and software distributed on the platform).
The Performing Rights Society (PRS), a UK-based music licensing and royalty collection organization that works on behalf of songwriters, composers, and music publishers whenever their music is publicly performed, broadcast, or streamed, claims that Steam would need a dedicated license for games that include music from PRS artists. The PRS said it tried to engage with Valve for years but got nowhere.
PRS Chief Commercial Officer Dan Gopal said in a statement:
Since its launch in 2003, Valve has never obtained a licence for its use of the rights managed by PRS on behalf of songwriters, composers and music publishers. Legal proceedings are not a step we take lightly, but when a business’s actions undermine those principles, we have a duty to act. This litigation will progress unless Valve Corporation engages positively with discussions and takes the necessary licence to cover the use of PRS repertoire, both retrospectively and moving forwards.
The case is being brought under Section 20 of the UK's Copyright, Designs, and Patents Act 1988, which covers the "making available" right. That means the right to communicate a work to the public via download or streaming.
Of course, Valve would certainly argue that those rights were already covered upstream by the developers and publishers of the games. They're doubtlessly not at all keen to purchase separate music licenses for each Steam game that includes works by PRS artists. In most countries, this likely wouldn't be an issue, but the UK law may be different enough to warrant a serious legal confrontation. We'll keep an eye on the development of this interesting dispute; stay tuned for updates.
In other Valve news, the company has quietly further delayed the new Steam Machine, Steam Frame, and Steam Controller hardware launches out of the first half of the year by swapping that mention with a generic "2026" window.
About the author: With over two decades of experience in gaming journalism, Alessio Palumbo has led the gaming vertical at Wccftech since August 2015. He started working at a young age for Italian websites like Everyeye.it, Gamestar.it, Nextgame.it, and Multiplayer.it before kickstarting the indie English-language publication Worlds Factory as its founder and Editor in Chief. In the last decade, he has coordinated the overall output of Wccftech's gaming section, managed PR relations, assigned reviews, produced daily news coverage, edited gaming content as needed, and delivered game reviews. Arguably, his trademark content is the long series of exclusive developer interviews that have been cited by Wikipedia and by the biggest news media and gaming publications. His passion for technology also makes him knowledgeable when it comes to gaming hardware and tech. His favorite genres include RPGs, MMORPGs, and action/adventure games.
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