SiriusXM Claims No Law Requires Payment for Pre-1972 Songs

The Turtles

A proposed class action, started by Flo & Eddie of The Turtles, contends that SiriusXM has "reproduced, performed, distributed, or otherwise exploited" pre-1972 recordings without license. After the lawsuit was filed, major labels Sony, Universal and Warner filed their own lawsuit against Sirius on pretty much the same grounds.

Now, according to The Hollywood Reporter, the satellite radio giant is speaking up for the first time about the dispute brought by Flo & Eddie.

In a motion filed late last week to transfer the lawsuit from California to New York, Sirius says it has operated for some 12 years without ever paying license fees to the plaintiffs. The company asserts that no state law requires them to do so. And as for federal law, there's a gap there too since sound recordings didn't begin falling under federal copyright protection until 1972.

And so, in just one paragraph, Sirius highlights the far-reaching implications of this battle:

"Plaintiff apparently has become aggrieved by the distinction drawn by Congress in withholding copyright protection from its Pre-1972 Recordings; thus now, after decades of inaction while a wide variety of music users, including radio and television broadcasters, bars, restaurants and website operators, exploited those Pre-1972 Recordings countless millions of times without paying fees, it asserts a purported right under the law of various states to be compensated by SiriusXM for comparable unlicensed uses."

All of these lawsuits make the same point: Sirius hasn't been paying royalties on songs like "Happy Together," "It Ain't Me Babe" and "She'd Rather Be With Me." Sirius does pay hundreds of millions of dollars for music created after 1972, thanks to statutory licenses set up under federal copyright law. But Sirius doesn't pay for music created before 1972, as a lawsuit by SoundExchange made clear, and Sirius' own legal papers appear to now confirm.

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