It had to happen sooner or later …

It had to happen sooner or later — The Performing Rights Society for Music, a UK based licensing group, is suing the pants off of SoundCloud, claiming the service isn’t compensating artists fairly when their songs are streamed by users.

PRS represents more than 111,000 songwriters and publishers, many of whom were notified of the lawsuit via an email from PRS executive director Karen Buse. “After careful consideration, and following five years of unsuccessful negotiations, we now find ourselves in a situation where we have no alternative but to commence legal proceedings against the online music service SoundCloud," she says. She goes on to explain that her and PRS’ duty is to serve those which create and to assure the artists and rights holders are paid accordingly.

As anyone paying any attention to the real world anymore, this just simply isn’t happening yet from any streaming service.

SoundCloud continues to stand in negotiations with two of the big three labels, Universal Music Group and Sony, to try and find a way to better compensate all while not crashing and burning in the process.

It’s not yet known how much PRS is seeking to recoup, or if its just a battle move to try and gain a share of the company before its “pay-to-play” model is launched.

SoundCloud just can’t catch a break …