An appeals court has upheld a ruling from last year concerning royalty rates paid by Pandora to songwriters. The US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit agreed with an earlier ruling, which set the rate the music streaming service pays to the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP) to 1.85 percent of Pandora’s revenue, with no changes made to the figure.
In March last year, a New York federal court sided with Pandora in the long-running fight between the service and ASCAP. The 1.85 percent decided upon at the time was far below the rate asked for by ASCAP, but slightly higher than the 1.7 percent rate Pandora wanted, the same rate used by the Radio Music Licensing Committee.
“It was not clearly erroneous for the district court to conclude, given the evidence before it, that a rate of 1.85 percent was reasonable for the years in question,” said the appeals judges in their ruling.
The court also denied a related request from EMI, Sony, and Universal, with the record companies wanting to perform a “partial withdrawal” from ASCAP. If allowed, this would have let the record companies attempt to negotiate their own deals separately from ASCAP, potentially costing Pandora even more.
