PANDORA GIVES THE OLDIES SOME GOODIES

In an agreement with Sony, Universal, Warner, ABKCO—home to those beloved Rolling Stones re-issues—and other labels that own the rights to the master recordings in recent years, Internet radio giant Pandora will pay $90m to settle a dispute over recordings made before 1972.

The RIAA sued Pandora over the non-payments last year, but Pandora claimed their actions were legal, considering that the U.S. didn't protect copyrights for sound recordings until February 15th, 1972.

Today, RIAA CEO Cary Sherman described the settlement as "a significant milestone and a big win for the music community."

Pandora CEO Brian McAndrews added, "We pursued this settlement in order to move the conversation forward and continue to foster a better, collaborative relationship with the labels," and explained that the company was "excited."

In response to the announcement, SoundExchange President and CEO Michael Huppe shared, "We are pleased that Pandora has agreed to pay these legacy artists, giving them the compensation and respect they have earned. It is a great day when performers are paid for their work as all artists should be paid fairly, every time their music is used, across all platforms. This is a good start, which we hope encourages all services - including Pandora - to pay for all pre-72 recordings across all of their programming."

We only wish someone would throw us a few gold bricks for being born before 1972.