Valve is discovering that dominance in the PC gaming marketplace comes with regulatory complications. The UK's Performing Right Society has commenced legal proceedings against the company, claiming that Steam lacks the proper licences to distribute games containing music from PRS members. The case hinges on a distinction in UK copyright law that many outside the music industry may find counterintuitive: the people who made the game and secured permission to include a song are not the same people who need permission to make that music available online.
Since its launch in 2003, Valve has never obtained a licence for its use of the rights managed by PRS on behalf of songwriters, composers and music publishers, according to the collecting society. The alleged gap spans the entire history of Steam.
The Licensing Puzzle
This is where the lawsuit gets technically interesting. When a game publisher wants to include a song in their game, they negotiate a "sync" licence with the music publisher. That deal covers the reproduction of the music in the game file itself. But in the UK system, when a songwriter or composer joins PRS, they assign to the society the 'performing rights' in all their music, so that's the right to perform, communicate or make available every song or composition. If the writer then signs with a music publisher, they will assign or license the other elements of the copyright to that business partner. Making the music available online when someone downloads the game triggers different rights entirely. Those rights can only be licensed through PRS, not the publisher.
Although the publishers of games sold via Steam will have secured sync licences for any UK compositions they include, that doesn't cover the subsequent making available of music when games are downloaded, which only PRS can license.
This is not merely a technical nicety. Steam is the major player when it comes to the distribution and sale of PC games, controlling about 75% of the market with 147 million monthly active users. The scale matters.
High-Profile Games, Unresolved Dispute
PRS claims "many game titles which incorporate PRS members' musical works are made available on Steam," including "high profile series" such as Forza Horizon, FIFA/EA FC, and GTA. It is worth noting that none of these games are published by Valve itself; the company is a platform operator, not a game developer. That distinction is precisely what makes the licensing dispute complicated. Valve argues it is simply a distributor. PRS argues that when you run a platform making music available, you need a licence regardless of who created the content.
According to legal papers filed by PRS, Steam has never secured the licences it needs in place to make available games that include music composed and written by PRS members despite the best efforts of the collecting society, which has "sought to license" Steam for "many years", but "without appropriate engagement from Valve".
A Series of Legal Pressures
The PRS lawsuit arrives as Valve already grapples with other major litigation. Valve Corporation separately faces a £656 million lawsuit in the UK over alleged unfair prices on its global online store, Steam, following a tribunal ruling that the case could continue. Additionally, New York Attorney General Letitia James filed a lawsuit against Valve, alleging that loot boxes in Counter-Strike 2, Team Fortress 2, and Dota 2 unlawfully encourage minors to gamble.
These cases reflect a broader reckoning: as digital platforms capture ever larger shares of markets, the question of what responsibility they bear for the content flowing through them only deepens. Are they neutral infrastructure, or do they have active obligations that scale with their market power? Different jurisdictions appear to be answering that question differently.
"Legal proceedings are not a step we take lightly", Dan Gopal, PRS Chief Commercial Officer, said, "but when a business's actions undermine those principles, we have a duty to act". The litigation will proceed unless Valve Corporation engages positively with discussions and takes the necessary licence to cover the use of PRS repertoire, both retrospectively and moving forwards.
Whether Valve settles or fights, the case exposes a gap between how music rights work on paper and how the world actually operates at scale. For developers and publishers selling games through Steam, the legal clarity that emerges will matter a great deal.