A free music streaming app whose legality has been questioned by some in the industry has taken Apple to court after its app was removed from the Apple Store for alleged “intellectual property infringement.”
Musi, a Canada-headquartered streaming service that some news reports have described as being particularly popular with teenagers, filed a lawsuit against Apple on Wednesday (October 2) accusing Apple of breach of contract and breach of good faith and fair dealing in its decision to remove the Musi app from its store on September 24.
Musi, whose app had only ever been available through the Apple App Store, asked the US District Court for the Northern District of California in San Jose for a preliminary and permanent injunction forcing Apple to restore the Musi app to its store, as well as damages incurred as a result of the removal.
Unlike other music streaming services, Musi doesn’t license music from rightsholders and hasn’t built a library of licensed music. Instead, it gives users access to audio of YouTube videos through its own interface.
A report by Wired earlier this year cited data showing that the Musi app had been downloaded 66 million times since it launched a decade ago, with 8.5 million downloads in 2023 alone. To highlight the app’s popularity, the Wired article cited a Chicago high school where 80% of students used Musi to stream music.
According to Wired, Musi serves ads when the app is first opened, but then allows uninterrupted audio streaming even as video ads play in the app window. The app also features banner ads. While the app is free to use, all ads can be removed for a one-time fee of $5.99.
Musi’s business model has led some to question its legality. According to an article published by Torrentfreak in July, global recording industry group IFPI reported Musi to the App Store, and in 2023 it contacted Musi’s lawyers over a feature called “secret sauce,” which evidently gave Musi users access to pre-release music.
That feature was discontinued after communications with IFPI, Torrentfreak reported.
The app’s legality has been an issue ever since it was launched. Founders Aaron Wojnowski and Christian Lunny initially found a number of willing investors through the Canadian edition of the reality show Dragon’s Den, but one of those investors – fashion designer and entrepreneur Joe Mimran – backed out of the investment after carrying out due diligence.
“During the legal due diligence, I was advised that when companies such as Musi get to a critical size, they could be sued for past use by the publishers,” Mimran said, as quoted by the Financial Post. “As great as the concept was, there was too much work to be done on the legal side that hadn’t been buttoned down.”
In its complaint against Apple, Musi said Apple had removed the app from its store “on the basis of a five-word complaint dated July 29, 2024 from a complainant identified as ‘YouTube Legal’… with no supporting evidence or documentation.”
Musi said it had attempted to contact YouTube regarding the alleged intellectual property violation, but YouTube “failed to either respond to Musi or to substantiate its accusations.”
Musi’s complaint, which can be read in full here, stated that the streaming service had been in contact with YouTube since 2015, and had repeatedly addressed YouTube’s concerns about Musi’s potential violations of terms of service.
Musi had been in touch with YouTube in April and May 2021 “to address several questions YouTube had about the functionality of the Musi app and compliance with the YouTube Terms of Service,” the complaint stated.
Musi’s lawyers said they had asserted to YouTube that “the Musi app merely allows users to access YouTube’s publicly available website through a functional interface and, thus, does not use YouTube in a commercial way,” and that “the Musi app does not sell advertising on any page that only contains content from YouTube or where such content is the primary basis for such sales.”
The complaint said Musi received no response from YouTube until March 2023, and again in July 2024, “when YouTube sent a standard notice to Apple stating that the Musi app violated its intellectual property rights without any explanation.”
The complaint also alleged that Apple knew YouTube had not responded to Musi’s communications when it withdrew the app from the Apple Store.
Musi’s case has been assigned to Judge Nathanael M. Cousins, and the court has issued a summons to Apple.Music Business Worldwide