Fitness startup Peloton may have been sued by music publishers, but an upbeat interview given to Billboard by its head of music Paul DeGooyer aims to portray the company as a willing licensor, rather than a copyright-infringing miscreant. He talks about Peloton’s ‘Crescendo’ library of songs available to stream with its classes, saying that the library now includes “over a million” licensed tracks.
“The lawsuit really didn’t change how we do our jobs. Crescendo made it a lot easier to ensure that we were licensed and compliant,” said DeGooyer. “We had been talking about having to build this custom system because we had explored every option that was there commercially off-the-rack, and we found them all wanting.” He added that while Peloton had to remove a lot of tracks when the lawsuit hit, “we were able to build back the library very quickly”. However, the lawsuit is ongoing, and Peloton this week received a setback when a judge dismissed its countersuit against the music publishers, which had alleged anticompetitive behaviour on their part.
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