Court Rules on Case Between ASCAP & Pandora

At last, the case is closed (for now) between ASCAP & Pandora.

Judge Denise Cote ruled that Pandora should continue to pay 1.85% in royalties for the full 5-year term of its license with ASCAP. While the ruling maintains the royalty paid to ASCAP artists by Pandora, it is still far lower than the graduated royalty scale up to 3% requested by ASCAP.

Pandora was quick to announce a rate hike in store for subscribers to help 'cover' the costs of the ruling. (Pandora had hoped for a rate decrease down to 1.7% to match terrestrial radio's digital broadcast royalty rates.)

Hypebot was equally quick to counter that Pandora is actually saving $21 million overall thanks to the court's not deciding in full favor of ASCAP.

ASCAP will next be able to negotiate licensing terms with Pandora when the music streamer's current blanket license expires in 2015.

Details on court ruling @ Billboard...Details on court ruling @ HotHardware...Legal nitty gritty of court ruling @ Project DisCo...Graph of $ Pandora saves @ Hypebot...