Court Rules That Pandora Doesn’t Have to Pay ASCAP More Money…

Songwriters and artists are already pretty angry at Pandora for using whatever means necessary to pay creators less money. In fact, the FCC just approved Pandora’s plan to buy a traditional radio station in attempt to lower royalties even more.

Pandora has just scored another victory.

ASCAP’s appeal of Pandora’s royalty rate has been rejected.

Pandora currently has to pay just 1.85 percent of revenue to ASCAP.<!–/*
* The backup image section of this tag has been generated for use on a
* non-SSL page. If this tag is to be placed on an SSL page, change the
*   ‘http://72.52.81.231/revive/www/delivery/…’
* to
*   ‘https://72.52.81.231/revive/www/delivery/…’
*
* This noscript section of this tag only shows image banners. There
* is no width or height in these banners, so if you want these tags to
* allocate space for the ad before it shows, you will need to add this
* information to the tag.
*
* If you do not want to deal with the intricities of the noscript
* section, delete the tag (from … to ). On
* average, the noscript tag is called from less than 1% of internet
* users.
*/–>

// <![CDATA[
var m3_u = (location.protocol==’https:’?’https://72.52.81.231/revive/www/delivery/r9.php’:’http://72.52.81.231/revive/www/delivery/r9.php’);
   var m3_r = Math.floor(Math.random()*99999999999);
   if (!document.MAX_used) document.MAX_used = ‘,’;
   document.write (“”);
// ]]>A judge also upheld a ruling that says that labels cannot selectively license their music. Universal Music Publishing, Sony/ATV, and EMI Music Publishing had previously tried to pull their digital rights.

The ruling is the result of an antitrust consent decree from the 1940s.

Elizabeth Matthews, ASCAP’s CEO, issued the following statement:

“This ruling reaffirms what we already know – that the ASCAP Consent Decree and the rules that govern music licensing are outdated and completely out of step with the way people listen to music today. We are encouraged that the Department of Justice is reviewing the ASCAP Consent Decree and by the growing chorus of voices in support of our efforts to modernize music licensing – from the Copyright Office to Congressional sponsors of the Songwriter Equity Act. Powerful corporate interests, like Pandora, are determined to stand in the way of meaningful music licensing reform so that they may continue to shortchange songwriters. This is a wake up call for creators to stand together, get involved and fight for their right to be paid a fair market rate for the use of their works.”

Nina Ulloa covers breaking news, tech, and more: @nine_u

Image by Daniel Horacio Agostini, licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC by 2.0).

The post Court Rules That Pandora Doesn’t Have to Pay ASCAP More Money… appeared first on Digital Music News.

Source: Industry News