George Lopez is adding his name to the list of comedians who are suing Pandora for streaming their material without a license.
On Tuesday (August 23), Lopez filed a lawsuit, which claims that two of his comedy albums, 2001’s Right Now Right Now and 2003’s Team Leader, were available on Pandora’s platform without his permission and without paying him royalties. He is seeking $5.5 million in damages.
“Just like with music, there are two copyrights involved in the recorded performance of a literary copyrighted work: a copyright in the sound recording, and a separate copyright in the underlying spoken word composition,” the lawsuit reads. “Anyone wishing to obtain the right to do so, must get a license from the respective copyright owner in both of these copyrights, and pay agreed-to royalties.”
Other comedians who are currently in litigation with Pandora include Lewis Black and the estates of the late George Carlin and Robin Williams. Back in July, Black filed his lawsuit after he found out his work had already been streamed thousands of times.
Earlier this summer, legal experts told The Wrap that “if these allegations are true, then this would be like the Napster of comedy.”
“Pandora did what most goliaths do,” Lopez’s lawsuit reads. “It decided it would infringe now to ensure it had this very valuable intellectual property on its platform to remain competitive, and deal with the consequences later. Later is now.”
As George Lopez says in his Latin Kings of Comedy performance, that means “Right now, right now” not “later, later.”