Pandora paid almost $500M to artists in last year

Pandora announced Wednesday it has paid out almost $500 million to musicians in the last year, days after a win in a Washington battle over royalties.

In total, the company said, it has distributed $1.5 billion in royalties to artists over the course of its lifetime.

{mosads}“It took us nearly nine years to generate the first billion dollars in royalties, and just over a year to increase that total by 50 percent,” said Brian McAndrews, the streaming company’s CEO. “I am proud of our enormous royalty contributions, and our progress on building on a broader vision for the future of music.”

The company has struggled to turn a profit in the past — leaving some concerned about its financial health.

Last week, Pandora won an early victory in the fight over how much it should be required to pay in royalties from next year until 2020. By December, the little-known Copyright Royalty Board will reach a decision on the rates the company will pay to artists when their songs are played on the service.

In an opinion released Monday, a top official said that judges setting the rates could factor into their analysis of the rates Pandora pays under a deal with a small rights manager called Merlin. That will allow Pandora to argue that the rates it pays as part of the Merlin deal represent a fair value for what it pays artists.

The organization that collects royalties for artists, SoundExchange, disputed Pandora’s argument. They have said that judges should not be able to consider the other deal as part of the proceeding.