Inflight, a company purposed with providing music for airline travelers to enjoy while flying, has filed a countersuit against Universal Music during allegations that the company used music illegally and without proper licensing (from The Hollywood Reporter).
The initial lawsuit came when Universal, which controls the rights to records such as Taylor Swift's 1989 and Kanye West's Yeezus among others, claimed during 2014 that Inflight had infringed copyrights of musical recordings and publication. Now Inflight is countering by arguing that Universal is merely being wishy-washy, and had in fact granted the aforementioned rights to it years previously.
"Universal music knew, expected and, indeed, hoped that these sound recordings (or at least some of them) would be used by CSPs and their airline customers in connection with inflight audio entertainment services provided by airlines to their passengers, who were essentially a captive audience for hours at a time," reads the suit.
Inflight first contacted Universal during 2009 to 2009 to "fill gaps" in its licensing, according to attorney Martin Katz. The lawsuit states that the record label had set a licensing fee and "promised" to send the actual licensing agreement to the plaintiff, but never did. That sounds like a fishy situation for Inflight to be involved in for four years, but the suit clarifies that "during this time frame, Universal Music assured IFP that its continued reproduction and distribution of Universal Music's works in the United States for use on airlines was acceptable."
The lawsuit hypothesizes that Universal changed its tune after Sony brought its own lawsuit against Inflight during 2013, with regards to Irish licensure. That case was settled out of court.
Universal has not responded to the new lawsuit.
