Good news for Pandora yesterday: it won a court order to ensure it still gets the full repertoire of collecting society ASCAP, including the catalogues of publishers that have withdrawn in order to strike direct deals. “The language of the consent decree unambiguously requires ASCAP to provide Pandora with a license to perform all of the works in its repertory,” ruled judge Denise Cote. The ruling means Pandora’s five-year licensing deal, which began at the start of 2011, will continue. However, Pandora and ASCAP will be back in court later this year after failing to agree future licensing rates. “The court’s decision to grant summary judgment on this matter has no impact on our fundamental position in this case that songwriters deserve fair pay for their hard work, an issue that the court has not yet decided,” said ASCAP chief John Lofrumento. Pandora may have won this round, then, but the victory is a double-edged sword in the impact on its already-fractured relationship with rightsholders, songwriters and artists.
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Tools: Kaiber
In the year or so since its launch, AI startup Kaiber has been making waves,…