Broadcast Music (BMI) has filed a lawsuit in a US federal court against Internet radio service provider Pandora Media over license fees.
BMI alleged in the lawsuit, which was filed in Manhattan federal court, that Pandora Media rejected its proposed license fee for playing songs on several devices.
According to Bloomberg, BMI said in its complaint that "BMI has proposed an increase in Pandora’s fees consistent with market rates to reflect the explosive growth of the Internet streaming marketplace."
"We expect Pandora to claim that it is no different than commercial broadcast radio. This contention is wrong," BMI said.
According to the lawsuit, Pandora has over 200 million listeners and streams around 1.5 billion hours of music per month.
Established in 1939, BMI currently represents over 600,000 songwriters, composers, and publishers with more than 7.5 million works.
BMI collects license fees on behalf of songwriters, composers and music publishers and distributes them as royalties to those members whose works have been performed.
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BMI distributed over $749m in royalties in 2012 to the songwriters, composers and copyright owners it represents.
