Roblox and Sony Music partner to bring more artists to metaverse
Roblox and Sony Music Entertainment announced Tuesday a partnership that will bring more Sony artists into the metaverse of the game.
The companies will team up to continue developing the music experience of Roblox’s users— a reported 42.1 million daily active users in the first quarter of 2021—by offering “a range of new commercial opportunities,” the press release read.
Roblox provides artists a platform for virtual concerts, merchandise, and integrated in-game activities.
The tie-up came after the hit collaboration projects between the virtual world-building game platform and the recording company.
In 2020, over 36 million people attended the Lil Nas X concert experience, Roblox’s first live virtual concert. Last May, Zara Larsson’s launch party had over four million visits, currently the highest record for a launch party on Roblox.
The partnership news comes a month after Roblox received an ongoing music copyright infringement lawsuit filed by the National Music Publisher’s Association (NMPA) for over $200 million, on behalf of music publishers including Universal Music Group.
The organization claimed that “Roblox allows users to build their own video games and incorporate music from a library it maintains of hundreds of thousands of songs, including copyrighted commercial music represented by major and independent publishers, which Roblox has refused to license.”
Roblox said that the lawsuit represents a “fundamental misunderstanding” the platform operates. NMPA chief executive officer David Israelite responded in an interview with CNBC that the association understands how Roblox uses music, hence, the lawsuit.
In the partnership announcement, Roblox said that it “respects the rights of all creators and uses advanced technology to screen all uploaded music. Roblox has no tolerance for repeat offenders and quickly responds to all submitted DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) requests.
Sony Music Entertainment includes labels and artists like Columbia Records (Beyonce, Adele, Chloe x Halle), RCA Records (Doja Cat and A$AP Rocky), and Epic Records (Travis Scott and Camila Cabello), among others.
(Images from Roblox)