los angeles who is not involved in the copyright board litigation over time pandora has recognized that they may get more by simply being cooperativein october pandora paid 450 million for the online ticketing system ticketfly and last month it made a deal to pay 75 million for the assets of rdio a struggling competitor to spotify the company also recently agreed to pay 90 million to settle a longrunning royalties dispute over recordings made before 1972 and has begun to strike direct deals with music publishers which represent songwriting rights pandoras songwriting royalties are not decided by the copyright boardin announcing the rdio deal pandora executives said they would begin making more extensive licensing deals with record companies signaling that the company would soon begin to compete directly with spotify and expand around the world largely because of its current licensing system pandora now operates only in the united states australia and new zealandwe seek to be the definitive source for music enjoyment and discovery globally brian p mcandrews pandoras chief executive told investors last monththese deals along with new efforts to promote artists and share data have been seen as part of a strategy by mr mcandrews to mend fences with the music industry mr mcandrews the chief executive since late 2013 is also a director of the new york times companyyet as eager as pandora has been to strike new deals it has also been engaged in intense litigation since early 2014 as part of the copyright board proceedings soundexchange a nonprofit licensing agency that is representing the music industry has asked the board to raise the rate that pandora and similar webcasters pay record labels by almost 80 percent to 25 cents per 100 plays while pandora wants it lowered to 11 centsboth sides have filed mountains of contentious heavily redacted documents in one filing pandora mocked soundexchanges arguments as a quest to reach a promised ratelandthe rates paid by services like pandora have become a focal point for musicians who believe they are not being compensated fairly for their work and the record labels argue in their filings that higher rates are necessary to cover their production and marketing costs for new musicthe rates we proposed reflect what would happen in a true free market which is what artists deserve under both the law and as a matter of fairness michael huppe the chief executive of soundexchange said in a statementpandoras current rate is already low the labels argue in 2007 the copyright board set webcasting rates that pandora then a struggling startup said were so high that they would have been ruinous after a highprofile publicity campaign by pandora congress authorized settlement talks to set temporary rates and the payment structure for pure play webcasters which includes pandora was set in 2009in filings with the copyright board mr herring has argued that if pandora had not gotten lower rates through that settlement the company almost certainly would have been forced out of business years