Music copyright lawyers: Don't touch that dial. Nonprofit SoundExchange Inc., which collects and distributes digital performance royalties and distributes them to artists and copyright owners, filed a lawsuit [PDF] Monday accusing Sirius XM Radio Inc. of underpaying.
In the complaint, filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, SoundExchange claimed Sirius wasn't including certain revenues in a formula designed to calculate how much the satellite radio company should pay in royalties under its license. Sirius, according to SoundExchange, excluded revenues from pre-1972 recordings, certain premium subscription packages and products developed by XM Satellite Radio Holdings Inc. before it merged with Sirius in 2008.
