Spinrilla will cease to exist in its original form after a federal judge in Georgia levied a $50 million ruling against the hip-hop mixtape platform and its founder.
The judgment, submitted on Wednesday, resolves the six-year-old copyright infringement lawsuit that the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) filed against Spinrilla and its founder, Jeffery Copeland, according to Billboard.
The RIAA sued Spinrilla and Copeland on behalf of Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Bros. Records, Atlantic Recording Corp. and LaFace Records. The RIAA claimed that Spinrilla and Copeland allowed users to stream and download content that was not licensed.
Copeland created Spinrilla in 2013 as an application allowing authorized users to access “independent and emerging hip-hop artists.”
The platform had 19 million users at the time of the music industry’s filing — 14,000 of whom could post content — and roughly 1.4 million songs available.
As the case progressed, the RIAA claimed to have found infringements in connection with over 4,000 songs by artists, including Bob Marley, Kendrick Lamar, Beyoncé, Rihanna, Michael Jackson and Kanye West. In 2020, U.S. District Judge Amy Totenberg ruled that Spinrilla had indeed infringed upon copyrights.
As part of the settlement, Spinrilla will provide the music industry companies access to the domain name for its service, which they have committed not to use. In addition, Copeland is permanently forbidden from running Spinrilla or other websites, platforms, or similar ventures.
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