Pandora Settles Lawsuit From Comedians

SiriusXM's Pandora Media has reached a settlement in a long-running copyright lawsuit brought by prominent comedians, including the estates of Robin Williams and George Carlin, over unpaid royalties for streaming their spoken-word comedy material, according to a court filing in California's federal court.

The settlement was finalized during a conference last week, as detailed in a filing dated Friday. A SiriusXM spokesperson stated on Monday that the agreement's terms are confidential. 

However, the company emphasized that it did not make any payments to the comedians for the literary rights in question nor secure new licenses related to the lawsuit's claims. Richard Busch, the comedians' attorney from King & Ballow, described the resolution as amicable.

Originally filed in 2022, the consolidated case involved comedians such as Bill Engvall, Ron White, and Andrew Dice Clay (along with others like Lewis Black, George Lopez, and additional estates). The plaintiffs argued that Pandora's existing licenses covered only the audio recordings of their performances, not the underlying literary works (the jokes and scripts themselves), and that they had received virtually no compensation ("not a fraction of a penny") from Pandora's streams of their routines.

The suit highlighted that while Pandora typically obtains music licenses through organizations like ASCAP and BMI, those do not extend to "literary works" such as stand-up comedy material.

Pandora countered by alleging that the comedians and a related performing-rights organization (Word Collections) had formed a "cartel" to drive up royalty demands, leading to an antitrust counterclaim. 

In 2023, U.S. District Judge Mark Scarsi dismissed that antitrust claim.