LOS ANGELES, Jan. 3 (Xinhua) -- U.S. music publisher Wixen Music Publishing has sued Spotify, a popular streaming media service company based in Sweden, seeking compensation worth at least 1.6 billion U.S. dollars and injunctive relief, a U.S. magazine reported.
California-based Wixen Music Publishing, which holds the rights to songs of many prominent singers, filed the suit at the California federal court last week, alleging that Spotify was using thousands of songs without a proper license, according to U.S. entertainment magazine and website Variety.
Spotify provides access to more than 30 million songs. As of June 2017, it had more than 140 million monthly active users and more than 60 million paying subscribers. It pays royalties based on the number of artists' streams.
The Swedish company has been plagued by complaints and legal actions from the music publishing industry which accused it of not fairly rewarding music creators.
In May, Spotify proposed a 43 million-dollar settlement to a lawsuit staged by a group of songwriters, but more songwriters and actors required the company to pay more, some of whom were represented by Wixen.
The settlement proposed by Spotify did not adequately compensate Wixen or the songwriters for Spotify's misconduct against the Copyright Act, Wixen was quoted as saying by Variety.
The clients of Wixen refused to accept Spotify's settlement since it was too inadequate and would not fulfil their long-term best interests, Wixen said in a statement released Tuesday afternoon.
"We are not looking for a ridiculous punitive payment. But we estimate that our clients account for somewhere between 1 percent and 5 percent of the music these services distribute," the statement said.
Spotify has reaped more than 3 billion dollars in annual revenues and pays outrageous annual salaries to its executives.
So far, Spotify declined to comment on Variety's report and other local medias' requests.
