Recording artist Darnaa’s indie music label has accused Google and YouTube of costing her millions of dollars by taking down her performance video and wrongly accusing her of violating promotion rules.
Darnaa is an emerging artist who has recorded 40 songs, just three released publicly, and has performed in 11 music videos and more than 60 live performances, according to the complaint filed Friday.
Her firm, Darnaa LLC, seeks $50 million in damages and another $100 million in punitive damages for alleged breach of contract, defamation and trade libel and interference with economic advantage by Google and YouTube.
The lawsuit was filed in California’s federal Northern District Court in San Jose.
The suit claims Google and YouTube took down her music video
“Cowgirl,” alleging violation of rules regarding use of electronic “spiders” or “bots” in links. The action interfered with the success of the video, even though it was subsequently restored, but to a different web link, according to the complaint.
Lawsuit alleges that to succeed, unestablished artists without recording contracts need to get on the Vevo site created in 2009 by Universal, Sony, Google and Abu Dabi Media.
In 2014, Darnaa got 3 million views on two music videos, spent hundreds of thousands to promote new music video “Cowgirl” and expected $7 million to $8 million in revenue.
Case: Darnaa v. Google, No. 15-cv-3221
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