Bloomberg News
Friday, March 23, 2007

XM Satellite Radio, the District-based provider of pay-radio service, was sued for copyright infringement by publishers of such songs as "Let It Be" and "Me and Bobby McGee."

The lawsuit, filed yesterday in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, accuses XM of infringing on the publishers' music "on a massive scale."

The suit, which the National Music Publishers' Association said was filed after months of negotiations, seeks damages of $150,000 for each work infringed and lists more than 175 titles as a "small fraction" of the songs involved. The suit also seeks to block XM from infringing the works.

An XM spokesman said the company is "confident that the lawsuit is without merit."

The suit by more than a dozen publishers involves an XM service called "XM + MP3," which allows users to permanently download libraries of songs from XM. It is similar to a suit filed last year by the Recording Industry Association of America.

The publishers include Beechwood Music, EMI Virgin Music and Warner-Tamerlane Publishing.