The Invisible Defense Against Music Piracy, 15 J. Marshall Rev. Intell. Prop. L. 297 (2016)

Music piracy has continued to affect the music industry. Specifically, music-streaming service providers that thought they were protected, such as Spotify, have suffered from music piracy as a result of innovative illegal downloading websites. Music pirates have created illegal downloading websites that provide detailed and efficient ways to download and sync music from Spotify without paying for the premium services or membership fees. As a result, illegal downloading has had an adverse impact on various music-streaming service providers’ copyrights. To obtain protection and diminish music piracy and liability to music artists and labels, these music-streaming sites should give thought to the music piracy issue and implement effective technological measures to qualify under the DMCA anti-circumvention and safe harbors provisions. This comment discusses the issues music-streaming sites struggle with and proposes a few ways Spotify and other music-streaming sites can possibly meet the DMCA requirements and obtain protection