The estate of Harold Arlen, the composer of “Over the Rainbow” and other classic songs, has dropped a house on the biggest tech companies in the form of a lawsuit over unauthorized recordings.
The Arlen estate and the composer’s son, Sam, are suing Apple, Amazon, Google, Microsoft and Pandora for what they claim is a “massive piracy operation for the purpose of generating profits from their sales and streams of pirated recordings,” reports Billboard. The plaintiffs’ attorneys say they have found over 6,000 unauthorized recordings for sale on the companies’ main platforms as well as their international distribution outlets. These recordings are being sold side by side with legitimate albums, they allege, and often for less money.
