The lawsuit includes many artists starting with the 40's of the last century, such as The Beatles, Bob Dylan, the Rolling Stones, James Brown, Aretha Franklin, Buddy Holly, Hank Williams and others. According to U.S. copyright laws at the national level, services such as Pandora are obliged to pay for proprietary licenses for all songs created after February 15, 1972. For songs incurred before that date services are not required to pay a license, but subject to possible licensing that are stipulated by the U.S. authorities.

Therefore, the record companies filed a lawsuit in the Supreme Court of the State of New York. Legal experts believe that the record companis, if they do win a complaint, will receive quite small financial redress.

[Ed - It seems the record lables have forgotten the purpose of the copyright. It was never intended to be a continuous revenue stream, but to allow the artist (composer etc.) to earn revenue off of their creation for limited period of time. Now the industry wants copyright to be forever so they can continue to earn money from any works they "own". Never mind the impact this has to culture or innovation. Now it is all about protecting their revenue stream. It is an excpetionally sad state of affairs and one that is in serious need of work.]

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