A CRA Competition team assisted counsel to Pandora Media in its favorable settlement of several lawsuits brought on by comedians or their estates.
The plaintiffs alleged that Pandora had failed to secure licenses to perform and distribute the underlying written comedy routines, arguing that a separate license was required for the literary works in addition to the license for the comedy recordings. In the settlement, Pandora did not obtain any licenses for the literary work rights at issue in the litigations, nor did it make any payments for those rights in connection with the settlement.
CRA supported Professor Adam Jaffe, who provided expert economic evidence in the case. Professor Jaffe analyzed the economics of spoken-word comedy licensing for digital streaming services, which included extensive analysis of vast amounts of streaming data. The CRA team was led by Nadia Soboleva, with support from Jane Murdoch and Matthew Cormier. The case, Yellow Rose Productions Inc. v. Pandora Media LLC, was filed in the US District Court for the Central District of California.
CRA’s team worked closely with counsel from King & Spalding, Jacob Ebin and Paul Fakler, who represented Pandora Media.
