George Lopez is all for getting his comedy out into the world by any means possible — but he claims streaming giant Pandora never even bothered to license his comedy specials before streaming them … which is why he’s dragging them to court.
Pandora is a subscription-based music streaming service owned by Sirius XM Holdings based in Oakland, California, United States. The service carries a focus on recommendations based on the “Music Genome Project” — a means of classifying individual songs by musical traits.
The legendary comic just filed suit against the radio streaming giant, claiming they’ve exploited his copyrighted material — namely, his standup from 2 different specials — without first getting a proper license to distribute it.
His attorneys write, “Pandora not only did not obtain any license for the Works but admitted that it did not do so in SEC filings, and admitted that it would very likely face copyright infringement liability as a result. But Pandora did what most goliaths do: it 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.”
George wants an accounting of all profits made from streaming his stuff and is looking to collect big damages. In the alternative, he’s looking for statutory damages totaling $5.5 million for the alleged infringements.
The ongoing fight has prompted the streamers to play defense. Spotify (which is not currently being sued over the matter) removed comedy albums by the likes of John Mulaney and Tiffany Haddish after negotiations went south. Pandora, which is particularly vulnerable because of an ill-advised financial filing that openly said it streams comedy without a publishing license, is reportedly compelling comedians to waive their publishing rights altogether.
It’s a messy situation. Streamers obviously don’t want to have to pay royalties for spoken-word content, which has generally been cheaper for them to maintain than music. Comedians, meanwhile, want their legal and monetary due for their works but also rely on the promotion they get from streaming to get people to their shows. A resolution is likely a far way off, and industry heavyweights like George Lopez joining the fight will only further turn up the heat.
