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Pandora Will Add About 100 Rdio Employees

In 2016, the company plans to "bring to bear a technology stack, monetization engine and data asset without peer"

Pandora has closed on its acquisition of key assets from Rdio, and will bring approximately 100 former employees of the shuttered audio service on board.

It also reached yet another direct licensing agreement with a music publisher.

The publicly traded firm completed its $75 million acquisition of technology and intellectual property from Rdio, which closed its service Tuesday. A bankruptcy court approved Pandora’s acquisition that day.

“The company will also add nearly 100 former Rdio employees to its product, engineering and content licensing teams,” it stated in an announcement. “This move will accelerate Pandora’s plan to substantially broaden its subscription business and roll out a multi-tier product offering by late 2016.”

The coming year is shaping up to be an important one as Pandora seeks to integrate multiple acquisitions and carry out this expanded strategy. It summarized its positioning this way: “With its industry-leading Internet radio product, the recent acquisition of Ticketfly and the great talent, technology and IP of Rdio, the company will bring to bear a technology stack, monetization engine and data asset without peer.”

Separately, Pandora announced an agreement with Atlas Music Publishing that “modernizes” compensation for Atlas and its songwriters in the United States. This is the latest in a flurry of such publishing agreements over the past week or so. As with the earlier deals, terms were not announced. Pandora said it benefits from “greater rate certainty and the ability to add new flexibility to the company’s product offering over time.”

Pandora this week also announced it was dropping a legal fight against BMI, and had signed performance rights deals with BMI and ASCAP. And this month it learned, along with other webcasters, what its streaming rates would be from a recent ruling of the Copyright Royalty Board.

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