Roblox Lawsuit Drama: what's up with the MeepCity/Alex Newtron lawsuit?
Here’s another interesting lawsuit involving Roblox. This was one was filed in September 2024, and involves the game MeepCity.
The plaintiff alleges that Alex Binello is the owner of the game, MeepCity.
You might know him by his Twitter or Roblox name, Alex Newtron.
They allege that Alex used audio of the plaintiff’s performance of the song, Maple Leaf Rag in the game.
Maple Leaf Rag, as you can hear, is an old-timey piano song, from the late 1800s.
He sued Alex for copyright infringement, and also sued Roblox for contributory copyright infringement.
There are a few interesting aspects of this lawsuit.
The first issue is that the plaintiff has been unable to serve Alex with the lawsuit. Generally, to officially start a lawsuit against a defendant, you have to hand-deliver a copy of the lawsuit to them.
But this plaintiff hasn’t been able to do that. They say they hired a private investigator, who found Alex’s home address. But they say he lives in a gated complex, that requires a key card to swipe in. And despite six separate tries, they still haven’t been able to hand him the lawsuit.
So, does Alex get to win on this technicality? No.
The plaintiff got permission from the court to serve Alex by emailing and mailing him a copy of the lawsuit.
Once the plaintiff does that, Alex has to respond to the lawsuit, or else he will lose by default.
Next week I’ll get into more details about the allegations in the suit. And what Roblox is doing to dismiss it.