Court Agrees To Hear SiriusXM Appeal

SiriusXM's warning to a federal appeals court that broadcasters might pull all pre-1972 sound recordings from the airwaves has paid off. This week, the satellite radio giant got the 2nd Circuit to grant its petition for a review, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

When Congress amended copyright law in the 1970s, only sound recordings authored after 1972 were given protection.

In a series of lawsuits beginning in 2013, the owners of pre-72 songs looked to state misappropriation and unfair competition laws to do something about those like SiriusXM and Pandora that were publicly performing their works. Although free radio airplay has been comfortably assumed for quite some time, California and New York judges have recently given legal victories to those owners of sound recordings who are suing.

Colleen McMahon

SiriusXM aimed to appeal New York federal judge Colleen McMahon's decision last November denying its summary judgment motion in a lawsuit brought by Flo & Eddie of The Turtles. In her opinion, the judge addressed whether New York law protected public performance and wrote that "acquiescence by participants in the recording industry in a status quo where recording artists and producers were not paid royalties while songwriters were does not show that they lacked an enforceable right under the common law — only that they failed to act on it."

The consequences were big — and not just because Sirius XM has spent years broadcasting millions of older songs without paying royalties specifically for such tunes.

As SiriusXM told the 2nd Circuit in its attempt to get a higher authority, "Absent immediate review, the district court’s ruling leaves SiriusXM and other broadcasters with tremendous uncertainty, faced with a choice between stopping the broadcast of pre-1972 recordings to the public’s detriment; submitting to shotgun negotiations with sound recording owners; or facing massive liability as this case and others wend their way through the courts."

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