Sirius XM Vs. The Turtles
M.Z.
Music Publishing
11/25/15
The article included for analysis is about a recent case involving the satellite radio
company Sirius XM and a music group from the 60‘s known as the Turtles. The case involves the
music group as the party that is suing over a claim stating that Sirius XM had committed
copyright infringement. The article explains that under the California state law, when Sirius
played the group’s music (recorded before 1972), they were guilty of infringement since they
failed to obtain any sort of license or provide any sort of royalty payment to the creators.1
The article also states that “The group filed class-action suits in California, Florida and New
York, seeking more than $100 million in damages, and opened the flood gates on the issue.”2
After filing the suits for copyright infringement, major record companies began filing suits with
similar claims about Sirius and other well known radio stations such as Pandora Media. The
actions taken by the band and the record companies were supported further when it was said that
“industry groups have begun lobbying Congress over extending royalty laws to pre-1972
recordings.”3
The case in this article explains an issue that you can see re-occurring more often in
present day of the music business and seems to become more of a problem the more technology
expands with new media outlets to the consumer. Within the past decade there have been more
legal disputes between artists and these new media companies, who often make money from the
artist’s product. These suits are usually because the artists don’t get properly compensated for
their music that gets played and eventually can add up to some big losses as the article explains
“The value of the royalties at stake in the oldies cases was also unclear. Sound Exchange
1 “SiriusXM Copyright Battle: What Does the Latest Ruling Mean for Digital Music?” Billboard. Accessed November 18, 2015
2 Sisario, Ben. “Sirius XM Loses Lawsuit on Royalties for Oldies.” The New York Times. September 23, 2014. Accessed November 18, 2015
3 “SiriusXM Copyright Battle: What Does the Latest Ruling Mean for Digital Music?” Billboard. Accessed November 18, 2015
estimates about $60 million is lost each year in un-collected royalties from oldies on all digital
radio services.”4
The text also explains federal and state copyright law and what important difference they
had between the two, which was “By law, federal copyright applies only to recordings made on
