Nederland.FM wins lawsuit from copyright foundation over embedding radio streams

Nederland.fm has won a lawsuit in the court of The Hague against copyright organization Sena. Sena wanted Nederland.fm to pay for the embedding of radio streams, but according to the court this is not necessary.

The court was guided in its ruling by a 2014 ruling by the European Court of Justice, which stated that linking and embedding online content is not a new disclosure. If it’s not a new disclosure, no license is needed.

Sena, who represents the rights of music makers, argued that the earlier case the European Court ruled on was about news and not music streams and therefore would not apply to this case.

The ruling has little impact so far. Nederland.FM previously had license agreements with Buma/Stemra and Sena, but these ended in 2014. It is unknown whether the foundation will appeal. The foundation could not be reached for comment Wednesday evening. That is obvious: both parties wanted to go to the European Court as soon as possible, they said in 2015.