Oakland, California-based Pandora Media LLC received a slew of civil complaints on Monday over its alleged and blatant copyright infringement of comedic works. The plaintiffs include famous comedians like Bill Engvall, Andrew Dice Clay, Ron White, and the estates of Robin Williams and George Carlin.
White’s complaint alleges that Pandora, described as the “largest digital broadcast and streaming music provider in the U.S.,” made a multitude of comedy specials and audio clips available for dissemination to the public via its digital broadcast radio service without license and without paying due royalties.
In White’s case, Pandora allegedly misappropriated 86 of his works and advertised earlier in February that he had 233,000 monthly listeners. The complaint says that in 2020 alone, White’s content was streamed over 400 million times on Pandora, yet it contends that he received no compensation for his works’ use.
The complaint advances a theory of wilful infringement. Pandora “decided it would infringe now to ensure it had this very valuable intellectual property on its platform to remain competitive, and deal with the consequences later. Later is now,” the filing says.
It also notes that Pandora allegedly admitted to infringement in Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filings. For example, in its 2011 to 2017 Form 10-Ks, Pandora stated that it did not have a license for its spoken-word comedy content and could be subject to significant liability for copyright infringement.
According to the complaint filed by Andrew Clay Dice, in August 2020 or thereabouts, Word Collections, a Spoken Word/Literary Works Collection Agency, contacted Pandora on behalf of many clients about licensing, but Pandora reportedly never came to the table. “As the Diceman might say, Pandora and Dice went up the hill, but Pandora came down with all the money,” the filing remarks.
The complaints state one claim for federal copyright infringement and seek declaratory and injunctive relief, an accounting of all profits, statutory or actual damages, and an award of the plaintiffs’ litigation fees and costs.
White, Dice, and the other aforementioned comedians are represented by King & Ballow.
