Aimee Mann files $18 million copyright lawsuit against digital music distributor

24 July 2013, 12:33 | Written by Luke Morgan Britton

(News)

(Aimee Mann)

Acclaimed songwriter, Aimee Mann has followed Thom Yorke’s recent lead and is attempting to tackle digital music royalties, specifically the lack thereof from “one of the world’s largest but least known providers of online music”.

MediaNet are a company who offer music to digital services including the likes of Yahoo Music, MTV, HMV and more. However, according to man, not all of the music they sell to their clients are properly licensed on their end, allowing for – it is claimed - 22 million songs to be used without the relevant artist getting paid any percentage.

Mann herself feels that she’s lost out money on 120 tracks that MediaNet claim to own rights to, which could total to as much as $18 million in damages and loss of earnings.

According to Billboard, the singer is pursuing legal action against the company to stop a culture of “willful copyright infringement”.

This follows on from Nigel Godrich and Thom Yorke’s recent criticism of music-streaming platform Spotify.