Yet another controversial hour for music streaming giants Spotify as the Ministry of Sound have confirmed they’re suing over the use of playlists. The record label claim they have been asking Spotify to remove these playlists since 2012, The Guardian reports.

The playlists in question copy the compilations released by the Ministry of Sound, compilations that take months of curating to ensure the order of songs is correct. They might also be suing because they’re called the Ministry of Sound, and when you’re called that, suing people is the logical next step*.

"It's been incredibly frustrating: we think it's been very clear what we're arguing, but there has been a brick wall from Spotify," said Chief executive Lohan Presencer. "What we do is a lot more than putting playlists together: a lot of research goes into creating our compilation albums, and the intellectual property involved in that. It's not appropriate for someone to just cut and paste them," he added.

"Everyone is talking about curation, but curation has been the cornerstone of our business for the last 20 years. If we don't step up and take some action against a service and users that are dismissing our curation skills as just a list, that opens up the floodgates to anybody who wants to copy what a curator is doing."

Of course, Spotify have the rights to stream any of the songs, but given that many of the playlists are of the exact same structure as the MoS’s, trouble has ensued. "When we license our compilations, which include a lot of major-label repertoire, they do not grant us the rights to stream those compilation albums," said Presencer.

ExampleExample 'saving his club' back in 2011

*We made that up.