Say Goodbye To Pandora?
When SoundExchange, the organization that represents many labels and artists, proposed steep new royalty rates for radio webcasters last year, they shortsightedly killed off their own revenue stream. Instead of their proposed rates being cut back as part of a standard negotiation, they were surprised to see the U.S. Copyright Royalty Board reject opposing arguments and adopt SoundExchange's rates fully. Now Pandora, the popular streaming music site, says it's paying over 70% of its revenue in royalties, and unless Washington changes the rates soon—which looks unlikely— they will have to shut down.
"We're losing money as it is," founder Tim Westergren's told The Washington Post. "The moment we think this problem in Washington is not going to get solved, we have to pull the plug because all we're doing is wasting money," adding, "We're funded by venture capital. They're not going to chase a company whose business model has been broken. So if it doesn't feel like its headed towards a solution, we're done."
So where can you get your Pandora-like fix in the future? There's Nutsie, which streams a rough facsimile of your own music library to your phone, but when we tried it a year ago it was Symbian-friendly (albeit buggy) and now it seems to just run on Blackberry devices. If you've got the patience to upload all your music to the fee-based backup service mp3tunes.com, you can access your backed-up library from a PC (as well as several other types of devices) and stream the songs, but only files in mp3 format (no aac streaming for you!). There's always last.fm, a great recommendation service (I like it better than Pandora, actually) which now has the deep pockets of CBS to support it and seems to be working on a subscription model it will introduce sometime in the future. Or finally, SimplifyMedia offers a free application that will let you share your iTunes library across the web to other computers, your iPhone, and up to 30 friends. (NB:the iPhone version of the app costs money.)
"Pandora Could Be First Major Casualty of New Royalty Rates" [Wired]
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Comments:
That's a damn shame.
What is it about the recording industry that makes all of them so completely delusional and unreasonable? The RIAA still remains convinced that they can sue their way to having people start buying CDs like they used to do. Boggles the mind.
hmm...great minds and all that.
www.seeqpod.com
It takes some work as you have to search for what you want, but you can find and listen to almost anything.
Why don't they just charge for an upgraded version of their iPhone app?! It's easily one of the best things you can do with the iPhone.
Honestly, what purpose do the major record companies serve anymore? If I want to hear a "hit" song by some "major" artist, I have radio and TV commercials. If I want to hear something by a smaller band that doesn't owe its entire existence to a slick marketing campaign and a team of NASA engineers crafting everything from their songs to the shoes they wear, I can get it directly from that band. If you ask me, this is yet another death rattle coming from the mainstream music marketers. The situation that caused these types of things to happen in the first place will be completely irrelevant in a few years.
I knew it was only a matter of time until somehow they would be forced to pay ridiculous royalties and would have to shut down. The recording industry seems to follow this pattern: see a new revenue stream, watch stream for success quietly, jack royalties for new stream, if successful, so it shuts down or gives up on them, whine about how illegal downloading is killing the recording industry and then repeat. If the stream isn't successful they just sue them or shut them down immediately. Sounds like a sound business model to me :/
The sound quality isn't super, but you can play anything for free and without a subscritpion at free.napster.com
The only thing the recording industry really has to offer anymore is promotional might, and they'll only bother to promote the "artists" that they can sell quickly and cross promote.
Since that leaves out the majority of artists, I'm waiting for the day when the vast majority are self producing over the internet.
*Sigh* I used to DJ for an online radio station until this move by SoundExchange killed the station. Those were some of the best times I've had on the internet. Sadly now it looks like SoundExchange is claiming another of my favorite things on the internet. The station I worked for made a little money from banner adds and the such on the page but no where near the money to actually pull in a profit from running the station, and from what I understand that's the same way most internet radio stations are/were. Where does SoundExchange expect these stations to come up with the money for the insane amount of money they are wanting the stations to pay?
I think the RIAA and all these other organizations need to realize that the CD and all other media is dead. I understand the need to make money (for themselves, not the artists silly!) but this is getting ridiculous. Why don't they find a happy medium where the two industries can co-exist? Music and Movies are going completely medialess and they need to get that through their thick money hungry skulls! I dont want my own music, because Pandora brings fresh, random content to my PC that i like. I have been using it for about a year now, and EVERY song that it plays, whether i've heard it or not, I like! I dont wanna here the same songs OVER AND OVER as i would with my library! Pandora, I love you and your cause was worth it! I like the service so much that i would even be willing to pay X amount of dollars a month/year to use it (wink wink). There is no gate keeper (RIAA) with the music industry. The gates have been busted wide open since Napster and Audiogalaxy. Ugggghhhh!!!
Good thing we have price controls to keep SoundExchange from exploiting people!
Oh, wait, it's having the exact opposite effect as intended. Gee, I guess we'll have to get the government to intervene somehow...
The worst part about this is that radio is advertisement for music. I think that if they want to impose these licensing fees against an organization that promotes their music for free, they should do it against terrestrial radio as well. Just because it's the internet doesn't make it special.
It's quite amazing. In the last two-odd decades, the recording industry has completely destroyed two highly optimized, free promotion and marketing/A&R channels that anyone else in any other industry would slay for. First, free radio, now internet radio.
They aren't people slaying the golden goose, they're Golden Goose Serial Killers.
Well played, sir, well played. Advantage: BitTorrent!
The recording industry has taken up the 3 step business model of:
1. Destroy the blooming internet radio station industry.
2. ...
3. Profit!
The thing that kills me here, is I discovered a lot of cool music on Pandora that I never heard on the radio. As a result I bought several CDs and MP3s of those artists.
Talk about short sighted. It seems like who this will hurt the most is smaller artists or artists on small/ Indy labels.
listen.grooveshark.com - use the Autoplay feature, and it's very similar to Pandora. For now.
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
i adore pandora! i cannot live without it!
Sadly the recording industry is shooting themselves in the foot...again. I use Pandora to stream artists that are similar to other artists that I like. When I find something I will go BUY music from the artist that Pandora introduced me too. Hint to the industry executives. If you have a great artist on your label and nobody hears them, you are probably not going to make much money on them.
And then they scratch their heads as to why people pirate and stop buying CDs.
RIAA -1 / PirateBay +1
Guess I will just stick to listening to 30 second clips of songs over and over again on iTunes like Micheal Scott?
I'm a co-host of an internet talk show based on the paranormal and when we come back from breaks we come back with some music. Does anybody know if we are going to have to pay royalties for this as well?
www.theparanomalists.com
@Mayor McRib: bingo. it's not like you can listen to the radio and get new music. i switch that on every six months when i forget my ipod and i hear the SAME SONGS that were playing a year ago.
good job record industry, i now won't purchase anything i can't hear for free so i can hear it again. i will just borrow cds from the library and friends. people like free samples. how is this hard to comprehend? take the hint from ice cream stores, give us a free spoonful, we buy a cup. it's not like you can even press rewind with pandora and play the same song more than once. in this day and age, most people won't shell out money to buy a cd from an artist they've never heard before. they'll just go back to stealing.
you fail at business.
The App just quit working on my iPhone. Officially gone for good?
@Mayor McRib: i've *bought* at least 30 albums as a result of hearing the tracks on Pandora. are these guys idiots or what?
slacker.com is a good alternative as well. I actually kind of prefer it! With the rates they are paying, I would not be surprised to see Slacker follow this out.
Just wait as all internet radio moves off shore.
@novelgirl: exactly! They even had a link to the artist and the album information. It was a clear marketing tool for unknown or little known bands and a great way for us to hear new stuff. They weren't playing enough Justin Timberlake or Miley Cyrus, that was the problem for the big record execs.
I use Pandora at work where we don't get radio reception, and where I'm not keen on bringing my i-pod. I'm leaving the company soon, hopefully Pandora will last that long.
....(pours Mountain Dew on carpet) for a fallen hommie.
Just have to echo some of the other posters. I was introduced to some artists through pandora and legally purchased their music. A lot of music, in fact.
@MongoLikeCandy : +1 on GrooveShark - grooveshark.com , while it lasts...
Productivity at my office is going to fall sharply if this happens. We all listen to it, all the time.
God, the RIAA and its ilk are dumb.
This is so ridiculous. Like most posters here, Pandora helps me discover bands I never knew existed. Then I go out and buy their albums, tshirts, etc.
Last.fm sucks for people like me who listen to a huge variety of music. Its player also sucks. As somebody already mentioned, there is grooveshark. But I have no idea how long it's going to last. I'm actually surprised that it hasn't been shut down already.
Poop. My music tastes are stale & depressing. I need Pandora!
Had I of known large corporations would just kill it off anyway, I'd of just stolen all the music I loved from Pandora instead of buying it from ITunes.
@Geekybiker
"Just wait as all internet radio moves off shore."
My thoughts exactly. What would happen if an Internet radio station decided to set up shop in Grand Caiman? They could profit all they'd want off the music and make a killing with banner adds.
This is part of the reason I will never understand the music industry. I can't count the number of digital tracks and CDs I have purchased because I heard an artist on Pandora that I didn't know and specifically went to search them out. I can credit Pandora with not only many of my own purchases, but some of my friends who, after hearing my new music, got it for themselves.
As a pirate site has said much better than I ever could: "Why am I paying for something that is more inconvenient, harder to obtain, and limits how I enjoy it?"
My wife and I love Pandora. It will be sad to see them go. Just over the weekend I purchased 20 songs off of iTunes of artists I had hear on Pandora. And I rarely purchase new music. It's shown me alot of artists I would have never heard of before but now enjoy . . . and purchase!
RIAA: My gun just went off and my foot hurts. What gives?
@Nogard13:
The R(MAF)IAA would then get legislation passed that any consumer who goes to those offshore sites will get fined 3k for each song they listen too.
I like Pandora but Deezer is just so much better and since it's located in France so there's no RIAA bullshit.
@Krycek: yeah... infact i think its kinda always been that way for pubic performance of a copyrighted song.
How did Pandora ever expect to make money? I love it too but it seems to me that it follows a radio model but without the annoying advertising that pays for the music. Internet advertising just doesn't pay as well as other mediums. It's a bummer for sure.
@wilstanton: I use pandora in my classroom. I can set it to play music that is acceptable with regards to content and style. I really enjoy it. I guess I can set up some playlists, but I really enjoy the mix I get from Pandora.
I hate the RIAA, and have refused to buy a CD or DVD for years (ok, the OCCASIONAL DVD that I feel warrants the price) I never download pirated material... but that doesn't mean I'm not up to date with my CDs and DVDs... :)
The one thing I pined for after I got an iPhone was a way to listen to Pandora on it. They just came out with that and now this... I didn't think they could strip anymore of my enjoyment out of music. All of the local radio stations are very corporate and only play the safe stuff (aka the 10 songs they tell us are really good/popular). I haven't bought much new music because I refuse to buy anything until the lawsuits stop. And now they're killing off one of the last avenues I had to find new, interesting music. I know there are other services out there, so I guess I'll have to start looking for one I like again.
Who's got email addresses for an EECB? I know they don't read it, but I'd be satisfied just to make it difficult for them to get their usual email.
Well, that's sucky. I had to stop using Pandora quite a while ago, once they figured out that my ip wasn't in the US, (stupid cross-border licencing issues; my page views are just as good as anyone else's), but I really enjoyed the service while I had it.
Like everyone's said, it's a great way to get exposed to new music that you'll have a much better chance of actually liking, rather than the shotgun approach of most radio stations. And another thing I liked was that it just ran out of your browser; no software install required.
I better get the names of all the bands I've bookmarked on Pandora so I'll know who to torrent when they shut down and I can't listen any more.
Yes, this move won't help the industry. It will just move us back to pirate land.
Wow, this is just bad. One of these days, the "music industry" (read: RIAA and its ilk) and will realize that they are running on a primitive business model, and that killing these compaines with bold new ideas for getting more music to the masses is not the way to make money in the long term.
Another recommendation for all you Pandora users is Slacker. Very cool, very quick customizable radio. Hopefully they won't be shut down by this same BS.
Last.fm is...
well. Was great.
The software works well. Still provides great reccomendations and all that jazz. But the new site update is lame. Trying to be "Facebook with music" but it's not. I don't know anyone who uses last.fm for socializing.
This is a damned shame. What else are we going to do with all these tubes and dump trucks?