Continuing its effort to establish more direct control over its content costs, music streamer Pandora has announced another multiyear licensing deal, this time with Downtown Music Publishing.
Downtown’s artists range from The Beatles to Randy Newman to Jewel.
A release said: “The deal allows Downtown Music Publishing to obtain its goal of delivering improved performance royalties for its songwriters, while Pandora will benefit from greater rate certainty and the ability to add new flexibility to the company’s product offering over time. The public performance royalties Pandora also pays to rights holders of master recordings are not affected by this agreement.”
Downtown Music Publishing Founder and CEO Justin Kalifowitz said, “This agreement with Pandora is a milestone in our ongoing mission to deliver equitable, accurate and timely payments for our songwriters … It also serves as a reminder that songwriter royalties are best negotiated in a free market.” Pandora recently also inked a deal with Warner/Chappell Music.
