A legal tug-of-war between Pandora and performing rights organization BMI has been in progress since a ruling last December, and it took a new twist last week. According to The Hollywood Reporter, BMI advised Pandora that it does not expect any major music publishers to withdraw their catalogs at the end of 2014.
This communication, which is reportedly strong on reassurance but weak in specifics, might keep the two organizations out of court as a follow-up to last December’s “all in / all out” ruling. That judgment established that BMI’s publisher clients could not selectively withdraw music from BMI’s catalog, in order to negotiate selected rights with selected music services. In the U.S., so-called consent decrees give Pandora (and anyone else who “performs” copyrighted music) the blanket right to BMI and ASCAP catalogs at established royalty rates.
Several of the major publishers — most notably Sony/ATV and Universal — have made claims that if they cannot negotiate digital rights separately under existing consent decrees, they would withdraw from those PRO contracts entirely. Withdrawal would possibly mean that huge swaths of music could disappear from online services, such as Pandora, if the publishers chose to hold out for directly negotiated royalty rates.
BMI’s reported communication with Pandora takes place within the larger context of music licensing controversy and decision-making. The Department of Justice examined many aspects of the recording, publishing, and performing businesses this summer in two high-profile hearings. At the same time, the Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) is in the middle of its two-year lead-up to setting new webcaster royalty rates for the 2016-2020 royalty period.
Pandora and Spotify are. ripping Musicians along with Sound exchange