Songwriters' group Broadcast Music Inc. (BMI) has beaten online radio provider Pandora after a two-year legal battle, winning a substantially larger copyright royalty rate of 2.5 percent.

That's a large increase from the 1.75 percent Pandora was paying before. It's also a stark contrast to Pandora's win in a similar case against BMI's rival, the American Society of Composers Authors and Publishers, or ASCAP. It was just last week that a federal appeals court upheld Pandora's win in that case, finding that the royalty rate should rise to only 1.85 percent.

The judge's opinion in BMI v. Pandora isn't yet public, but both sides have put out statements about the results.

"Today’s decision is an enormous victory for the more than 650,000 songwriters, composers and publishers that BMI has the privilege to represent," BMI said in a statement. "The Court resoundingly agreed with BMI, supporting our position that 2.5% was 'reasonable, and indeed at the low end of the range of fees of recent licenses.' This is an important step forward in valuing music in the digital age."

Pandora emphasized that the fight isn't over, and it intends to take it to the US Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit. "We remain confident in our legal position," said a Pandora spokesperson. "We disagree with the Court’s ruling and will appeal to the same court that ruled in Pandora's favor in the ASCAP case last week. We strongly believe the benchmarks cited by the court do not provide an appropriate competitive foundation for a market rate."

Lawyers for Pandora had argued that the judge in the BMI case should follow the 2nd Circuit ruling in the BMI case, but BMI lawyers successfully argued that there was no need. The 2nd Circuit only reviewed the ASCAP results for "clear error," and the judge decided the result in the BMI v. Pandora case only after its own weeks-long trial.

The differing results in two similar cases mean that Pandora's copyright battles are far from over. The songwriter cases don't affect the royalties Pandora has to pay to record labels, which constitute its largest expense.

The Justice Department is reviewing the consent decrees that relate to BMI and ASCAP, a process that began last June, but it hasn't given any indication as to when the review will be complete.