Downtown Music Can’t End Lawsuit Over Split With Partner It Linked to Streaming Fraud
Categoria: Musica
A legal battle centers on whether Downtown was entitled to quickly kill a deal with a YouTube licensing partner that it says was involved with "parasitic content."
Por Billboard | 07/08/2026
A federal judge has denied Downtown Music’s bid to dismiss lawsuit claiming it dropped a YouTube licensing partner as a “sacrifice” to help win approval of its merger with Universal Music Group. The case was filed by Blast Off Media , which offers free music for YouTube creators, over claims that Downtown destroyed its business by abruptly terminating a distribution deal. Downtown says it rightfully killed the partnership because Blast Off was linked to streaming fraud and violating YouTube’s rules. Related Universal & Sony Music Take Legal Action in Canada Against ‘Parasitic’ Streaming App Musi BE:FIRST Is Ready for the World: Inside the J-Pop Superstars' Long-Planned U.S. Breakthrough Glenn A. Baker, Australian Music Historian and Former Billboard Correspondent, Dies at 74 In a ruling Wednesday (Aug. 5), Judge Paul Engelmayer rejected key elements of Blast Off’s case, substantially narrowing the lawsuit. But he refused to dismiss accusations that Downtown breached their contract by immediately ending the relationship, allowing those claims to move ahead toward trial. Downtown had argued Blast Off’s violations were so widespread that the company couldn’t have fixed them. But the judge said it was contractually required to give Blast Off 30 days to try: “Because the [lawsuit] plausibly alleges breaches by Downtown… the court denies the motion to dismiss with respect to this claim.” Blast Off offers a library of backing tracks that YouTube creators can add to their videos. It signed a distribution deal with Downtown in August 2025, tapping the company to run point on monetizing the tracks and navigating YouTube’s copyright claims process. But in a November 2025 complaint, Blast Off demanded $375 million in damages on the grounds that Downtown had illegally ended the partnership just months after it started. The case claimed the bigger company had flagged only a few examples of problems before its “absurdly disproportionate” response, causing Blast Off to be delisted on YouTube and inflicting “catastrophic” harm on its business. “This case involves the calculated destruction of a rapidly growing independent music business by a large company… seeking to escape an agreement they determined to be financially and/or strategically disadvantageous by manufacturing a pretext,” wrote Blast Off’s lawyers from the law firm Quinn Emanuel. More provocatively, the lawsuit claimed that the real reason Downtown killed the deal was to avoid any kind of scrutiny as it sought regulatory approval for its $775 million sale to UMG. The deal ultimately closed in February , but Blast Off’s lawyers had argued that any whiff of problems on YouTube, even if they were false, might have held up the transaction. “Downtown preemptively chose to sacrifice Blast Off’s rights rather than work through routine compliance matters out of an abundance of caution to protect its larger financial interests during a sensitive period.” Downtown tells a very differe