MUMBAI: Top international artistes like Billy Joel, Rihanna and Missy Elliott have accused the online music service Pandora of unfair artiste compensation and signed an open letter to the company opposing its push to change how artists are compensated.

Pandora is currently lobbying lawmakers in the US Congress to pass the ‘Internet Radio Fairness Act’, that would change regulation of how royalties are paid to artists. The Internet Radio Fairness Act is a bipartisan bill sponsored by US representatives Jason Chaffetz, Jared Polis and Sen Ron Wyden.

A total of 125 musicians have opposed the bill alleging that the Pandora-backed bill cuts royalties by 85 per cent the amount of money an artist receives when their songs are played on the Internet.

A statement with an advance copy of the letter was released by musicFirst, a coalition of musicians and business people, and SoundExchange, a nonprofit organization that collects royalties set by Congress on behalf of musicians.

The letter stated, “Why is the company asking Congress once again to step in and gut the royalties that thousands of musicians rely upon? That's not fair and that's not how partners work together.”

Pandora, along with other music services like Clear Channel Communications, is supporting the bill on grounds that different providers including satellite and cable pay different rates. “The current law penalizes new media and is astonishingly unfair to Internet radio. We are asking for our listeners' support to help end the discrimination against internet radio. It's time for Congress to stop picking winners, level the playing field and establish a technology-neutral standard,” the company posted on its website.

Founded over 10 years ago, the ad supported online music company has always found the issue of musicians being paid for internet streaming of their tracks as a flashpoint. Pandora's success has been double-edged, the more customers it gains, the more money it has to pay overall for rights to stream music.  In October, the company’s share of total US radio listening was stated to be almost 7 percent, up from about 4 percent during the same period last year.