Dallas, Texas 08/28/2013 (Financialstrend) – Sirius XM Radio Inc (NASDAQ:SIRI) has been litigated by Sound Exchange Inc for around $50 million for paying too little on recordings, comprising ones before from the year 1972.
Sound Exchange Inc, a non-profit-making company with task of accumulating digital royalties for musicians in US, lodged the case in the US District Court of Colombia.
Sound Exchange Inc is a body selected by the Copyright Royalty Board to gather and distribute performance royalties set up below federal law.
Company dodged royalty sum
In the court case, it is cited that between the year 2007 to the year 2012, Sirius XM “methodically” did not make payments of royalties to Sound Exchange for the legal authorization that permits the service to transmit recordings to hoards of paying subscribers.
Additionally, it was remarked that the company reported less income by around 10 to 15% as compared to it usually does to work out the royalties. The move was proposed to match the recital with pre-1972 footages.
Sound Exchange stated that the royalty charge to be filed on the gross income will be from 6% in the year 2007 to 8% in the year 2012.
“We cannot sit by and watch this multi-billion dollar firm reap all time high profits from the creative inputs of artists as well as labels without making payments to them everything they deserve,” Sound Exchange CE Michael Huppe stated.
Other accusations against company
Aside from underpayment of royalties, the company was charged of many other matters like exclusion from its revenue computation of the funds it drew from its clients who pay a regular contribution to XM premier package.
Sirius XM recital during the similar period
During the period of time when the company annulled paying musicians for their vital service, the firm’s user base zoomed to 24 million as against 17 million, and income augmented to $3.4 billion as compared to $2.06 billion.
