SiriusXM has responded to the lawsuit filed by SoundExchange, which alleges the satellite tv for pc radio big has withheld greater than $150 million in royalties.
SoundExchange collects royalties for using recordings on non-interactive digital platforms. The corporate submitted the lawsuit in a Virginia federal court docket yesterday, alleging $150 million in withheld royalties attributable to SiriusXM artificially inflating the income attributed to webcasting in its satellite tv for pc and on-line radio packages. SiriusXM can exclude its streaming programming from its satellite tv for pc radio income base.
SoundExchange says that SiriusXM’s exclusions “go far past avoiding double-payment of paying a number of royalties on the identical income and as a substitute flout “the simple reality is that its webcasting service produces minimal marginal income at finest.”
SiriusXM has responded to the lawsuit, offering the next assertion to Digital Music Information. “We have been stunned to see the press launch from SoundExchange that it had filed a go well with towards SiriusXM in america District Court docket of the Jap District of Virginia,” the assertion begins.
“SiriusXM has all the time revered the rights of creators and artists, and over the previous ten years has paid SoundExchange royalties of over $5 billion {dollars}. Right now, royalty funds from SiriusXM characterize over 80% of the statutory royalties that SoundExchange distributes to file labels and performers.”
“On the coronary heart of at present’s go well with by SoundExchange are strange course disputes—an audit matter and an allocation of income from bundled merchandise, particularly the place subscribers pay for a package deal offering each our satellite tv for pc radio product and the flexibility to stream our service.”
“The rules issued by the Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) governing SiriusXM’s royalty funds for satellite tv for pc radio are rigorously tailor-made with respect to such packages. The CRB requires SiriusXM to solely pay royalties on income it earns for performances of sound recordings on its satellite tv for pc service. Those self same rules require the corporate to exclude from the royalty base income earned for actions which can be coated by different licenses—together with streaming.”
“SiriusXM has merely adhered to that clear regulatory framework, utilizing a rigorous, examined and honest methodology to determine and allocate income for the streaming part of its bundled packages—a strategy utterly per precedent from the CRB. Moreover, SiriusXM has been clear with SoundExchange from the beginning on its methodology.”
“Whereas we’re dissatisfied with the actions taken by SoundExchange at present, we stay dedicated to paying artists pretty for his or her work, and can proceed to work collaboratively with SoundExchange, as we now have for many years, to make sure they’re paid correctly beneath the governing rules.”