Meta loses early bid to dismiss Swedish music label’s copyright lawsuit

(Reuters) – A San Francisco federal decide on Monday denied a request by Meta Platforms Inc to throw out a lawsuit filed by a Swedish music label that claims Meta infringed hundreds of its copyrights by way of Fb and Instagram.

Meta didn’t present that Epidemic Sound AB’s allegations had been too speculative to help its grievance, a San Francisco federal courtroom mentioned Monday.

Representatives for the businesses didn’t instantly reply to requests for remark.

Epidemic mentioned it owns and distributes greater than 38,000 items of royalty-free music for creators to make use of in movies, podcasts and different content material. Epidemic sued Meta in July for allegedly reproducing a minimum of 950 tracks in its music library for Fb and Instagram customers to obtain, stream and incorporate into movies with out the label’s permission.

Epidemic requested a minimum of $142 million in damages from Meta for allegedly distributing its music by way of “hundreds of thousands” of consumer movies which were seen “billions” of instances.

Meta informed the court in September that the lawsuit needs to be dismissed as a result of Epidemic had not recognized “even a single allegedly infringing copy” of its music “on a Meta property,” and had not included different “primary information” in regards to the supposed violations.

However U.S. District Decide Jacqueline Scott Corley denied Meta’s movement on Monday, discovering Epidemic’s grievance was detailed sufficient to justify persevering with the case.

The case is Epidemic Sound AB v. Meta Platforms Inc, U.S. District Court docket for the Northern District of California, No. 3:22-cv-04223.

For Epidemic: Ilene Farkas and Mona Simonian of Pryor Cashman; and Adam Cashman and Evan Budaj of Singer Cashman

For Meta: Joe Wetzel and Alli Stillman of Latham & Watkins

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