Pandora has taken its turn in the battle over royalties from the Internet radio service. Its ongoing battle to pay lower royalty rates even got the surviving members of Pink Floyd to voice their opposition to Pandora’s actions. Now, the company is defending itself, calling the claim that it wants to cut royalty payments by 85 percent a lie.

According to USA Today, founder Tim Westergren wrote a long blog post, calling claims that it is supporting legislation in Congress that would cut artists’ royalties by 85 percent a lie created by the Recording Industry Association of America.

“That is a lie manufactured by the RIAA and promoted by their hired guns to mislead and agitate the artist community,” Westergren wrote. “We have never, nor would we ever advocate such a thing. I challenge the RIAA to identify a statement from Pandora that says we seek to reduce royalties by 85%. On the contrary, all of the key principals including Cary Sherman (the head of the RIAA) and Mike Huppe (the head of SoundExchange) know that we have been advocating for solutions that would grow total payments to artists.”

He added, “The 85% sound bite preys upon the natural suspicions of the artist community, but it is simply untrue. And although we compete directly with AM/FM radio, which pays zero performance royalties, we have always supported fair compensation to artists.”

Westergren also wrote that Pandora pays around $1,370 for each million plays a song gets, the rationale being that one play on Pandora only reaches one person at a time. By contrast, one play of a song on an FM station could reach up to a million people at once.

“Although we compete directly with AM/FM radio, which pays zero performance royalties, we have always supported fair compensation to artists,” Westergren wrote.

The post comes just days after Pink Floyd penned a USA Today op-ed saying that Pandora was tricking artists into supporting the legislation.

According to The Daily Mail, David Lowery of the 1990s act Cracker said that he was only paid $16.89 for a million plays of their hit “Low.” He claims that Sirius XM paid him $1.01 each time the song was played.

image: Pandora