Pandora's Box

Music is one of the quintessential forms of entertainment today. It’s all around us; in the radio, television, and even on phones. The mediums through which people listen to music are expanding and changing each day. One major development in this area of entertainment has come in the form of music streaming services. Instead of buying music for a price, these services provide channels of various genres that consumers can listen to for free. The only catch is that the consumer cannot pick any particular songs in the channel and must listen to intermittent advertisements. One may think to themselves, “Free music? Sounds like there can be copyright implications involved” Well, you betcha!

Pandora is one of the more prominent music streaming services out there today. Unfortunately, however, Pandora has recently been involved in a copyright infringement lawsuit with the Record Industry Association of America (representing ABKCO Music & Records, Capitol Records, Sony Music Entertainment, UMG Recordings and Warner Music Group) in New York state court. Specifically, the RIAA claims that Pandora did not compensate the record labels for songs that were recorded prior to February 12, 1972, the date that the Sound Recordings Amendment of 1971 extended U.S. federal copyright protection to recordings. According to the lawsuit, RIAA alleges that Pandora was taking advantage of a loophole for sound recordings created before they were given federal copyright protection, but that in fact they were still liable for compensation to the labels under state common law which provides copyright protection for sound recordings.

Although the record labels claim they have not been properly compensated for Pandora’s alleged misuse of their content, it is the artists themselves who have also been affected by this lack of compensation due to the lack of royalties they receive from such misuse. Retired artists who recorded before 1972 and the families of those artists sometimes rely heavily on those royalty checks. This even drew the transgression of Maria Elena Holly, Buddy Holly’s widow, who stated, “Many artists from the 1950's are retired and struggling

to support themselves or have families or heirs who are trying to make end[s] meet”.

Luckily for these artists, a settlement has been reached between Pandora and the record companies. Pandora will pay the sum of $90 million in compensation. The settlement allows Pandora to continue using the songs until 2016, after which negotiations with the labels will be necessitated in order for Pandora to use the songs.

By: Rolando Cubela, Associate Editor of Sports and Entertainment

Photo credit: via flickr.com cc

Sources Used:

http://www.billboard.com/biz/articles/news/legal-and-management/6062401/record-labels-sue-pandora-over-pre-1972-recordings

http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/oct/23/pandora-record-labels-lawsuit-royalties-1972-music

http://pitchfork.com/news/61763-pandora-to-pay-labels-90-million-to-settle-pre-1972-recordings-lawsuit/

http://appleinsider.com/articles/15/10/23/pandora-to-pay-90-million-in-settling-royalties-lawsuit-over-pre-1972-recordings

http://www.copyright.gov/docs/sound/

http://www.copyright.gov/docs/sound/pre-72-report.pdf