Word Collections Wins Dismissal of Antitrust Counterclaims Brought by Pandora
November 07, 2022
On October 26, 2022, the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California granted Cravath’s motion to dismiss all counterclaims against Cravath client Word Collections, a professional rights organization working with comedians to procure licenses and royalties for the copyrights to the literary works underlying their comedy recordings.
A number of Word Collections’ comedian clients sued Pandora for copyright infringement for failing to separately license the underlying literary works. Pandora filed a series of antitrust counterclaims against the comedians and Word Collections, alleging monopolization, price‑fixing and tying in violation of Section 1 and Section 2 of the Sherman Act. Pandora sought treble damages in an unspecified amount and an injunction that would shut down the copyright infringement lawsuits, render the comedians’ copyrights unenforceable and forbid Word Collections from obtaining the exclusive power to license anyone’s works.
Cravath partner Lauren A. Moskowitz argued Word Collections’ motion to dismiss the antitrust counterclaims before Judge Mark C. Scarsi on August 29, 2022. In his decision, Judge Scarsi dismissed Pandora’s antitrust counterclaims in their “entirety”. On the Section 2 monopolization claims, the Court concluded that Pandora failed to allege market power either directly or circumstantially, noting that “Pandora’s description of Word Collections’ impressive but short list of comedians whose works it licenses does not suffice to demonstrate that Word Collections owns a dominant share of the recording market in the United States”. On the Section 1 price‑fixing conspiracy claim, the Court held that Pandora pleaded acts that merely are consistent with parallel conduct rather than the requisite concerted conduct for a Section 1 claim. Finally, on the Section 1 tying claim, the Court held that Pandora’s failure to allege market power in the purported tying product market was fatal to that claim as well.
The case is In re Pandora Media LLC Copyright Litigation, Case No. 2:22‑cv‑00809‑MCS‑MAR.
The Cravath team included partners Christine A. Varney and Lauren A. Moskowitz and associates Colin M. Herd and David H. Dowling.
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J.D., 1986, Georgetown University Law Center
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M.P.A., 1982, Syracuse University
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