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Williams and Carlin's estates, along with
comedians Bill Engvall, Ron White and Andrew Dice Clay, have not
received a "fraction of a penny" from Pandora, they said in five
separate federal lawsuits filed in Los Angeles by the same
attorney.
The lawsuits ask for damages ranging from over $4 million for
Williams' estate to nearly $13 million for White.
Carlin and Williams were two of the most popular comedians of
all time. Carlin died in 2008 and Williams in 2014. Engvall and
White are best known for their performances on the Blue Collar
Comedy Tour, while Clay was a major act in the late 1980s and
early 1990s.
The lawsuits say Pandora's licenses to the comedians' recordings
do not include their underlying jokes. While companies like
Pandora often negotiate licenses to music rights with
performing-rights organizations like the American Society of
Composers, Authors and Publishers, these groups don't license
literary works like spoken-word comedy, the comedians said.
They said Pandora knew it was violating their rights. Pandora's
filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission from
2011 to 2017 allegedly said that it played spoken-word comedy
"absent a specific license from any performing rights
association" and could face "significant liability for copyright
infringement."
A rights-management group discussed licensing the works with
Pandora starting in 2020, but Pandora ended the discussions last
year, the complaints said.
Internet radio giant Sirius XM bought Pandora for $3.5 billion
in 2018 to bolster its streaming services against rivals like
Spotify and Apple Music. A Sirius spokesperson did not
immediately respond to a request for comment.
The comedians' lawyer declined to comment on the lawsuits.
(Reporting by Blake Brittain in Washington; Editing by David
Gregorio)
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