Can Old Lawsuit Help SiriusXM in New Lawsuit?
As many readers know, SiriusXM has faced some legal setbacks recently with regard to pre-1972 music recordings. The Turtles, authors of “Happy Together”, have sued the satellite radio provider in several states over royalties. The current laws for royalties cover songs after 1972, leaving a loop hole of sorts in what happens with pre-1972 recordings. The Turtles have had a small string of legal victories against SiriusXM, which have bolstered their case, and couold have implications on other services such as Pandora.
GigaOM’s Jeff John Roberts reports that SiriusXM may have an ace up its sleeve in the form of a decades old legal case involving the same issue. His article is well wroth reading. According to Roberts, SiriusXM is pinning hopes on a case from 1940. Apparently SiriusXM is asking a New York judge to use this particular case as a basis to reconsider her ruling last month.
Roberts sourced a legal website, Litigation Daily, which came to the opinion that SiriusXM believes that U.S. District Judge Colleen McMahon overlooked the significance of the legal battle and decision from nearly 75 years ago. The 1940 ruling concluded that a radio station did not have to pay an orchestra band leader, in addition to the song composer, each time it played a recording of his performance. Essentially the opinion was that state law should not let performers, once a phonograph was sold, control how and when it was played.
SiriusXM passes on royalty costs to consumers. The implications might be that listening to satellite radio might get a bit more expensive. Taking it a step further, if costs are deemed too high for consumers and business suffers, the company may need to re-think how many channels are dedicated pre-1972 content. There is still a lot of moving parts in play. Stay Tuned!
The issues of copyrights goes way beyond paying royalties, too many to mention.
I’m surprised this issue came up on old material. Copyright and patent law evolved over a very long time and has worked vey well.
Just to complicate matters, I have several cds I bought because I heard some artist or song on the oldies stations of SiriusXM. The artists got paid for that.
Anybody out there remember the days of “payola” when artists and record companies paid DJs to play their recordings?
SIRI short interest down 34% to 163mil shares short.
“A decreased “days to cover” value could indicate that short sellers are no longer expecting the same decline in stock price they once were, or it could also indicate a long bet elsewhere was closed where SIRI had been shorted as a hedge”
http://www.forbes.com/sites/di.....-drops-34/
Looks like 2015 is going to be a good year for SIRI.
Hi Spemcer,
On another subject. Both siri’s and, not least important, liberty’s shares are obscenely low today. There is no win for either side unless ALL shareholders not just liberty’s are happy.
My theory seeing liberty and siri as conjoined twins seems to be valid. They can win only together. If Malone offers a decent swap price (over $4) everybody wins. Otherwise both companies will suffer to the same extent.
that offer will come after the new year again. it will be one year to the date of the last offer. The liberty portfolio has been cleaned up nicely to allow a better valuation between LMCA and SIRI and i am sure that is why its all been done
side note….has this premium Sirius site done anything other then talk about some pharmaceutical company in the last 5 months?
matt…
It has been a very quiet technical period for SXM. I am in hopes that with the new year we see something that will become a catalyst, and the technical side of the trading can be a more relvant factor.