From PC Magazine:

Pandora founder Tim Westergren...pointed out that Pandora would, under the CRB rules, have to hand over $18 million of its expected $25 million 2008 revenue to cover royalty fees—a price that could force the company out of business.

There are still two more hurdles. First, the President has to sign the bill, but it's widely expected he will. Second, Internet radio stations and copyright holders have to actually negotiate an agreement that both sides feel is fair, and that won't price webcasters out of business. But at least now there's hope that one of the web's most beloved music sites will keep streaming.

"Pandora saved" [SFGate]
(Photo: Bill in Ash Vegas)

"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]

Tim Westergren told Listening Post: "It was getting pretty close. I always had underlying optimism that sanity was going to prevail, but I was beginning to wonder." He also said that everyone who contacted their Congressperson should feel that they had an effect on the process.

"This is a direct result of lobbying pressure, so if anyone thinks their call didn't matter, it did. That's why this is happening."

Online Radio Is Saved; SoundExchange Will Not Enforce New Royalty Rates on Sunday [Wired]
(Photo:supsauce?)

Ignoring all rationality and responding only to the lobbying of the RIAA, an arbitration committee in Washington DC has drastically increased the licensing fees Internet radio sites must pay to stream songs. Pandora's fees will triple, and are retroactive for eighteen months! Left unchanged by Congress, every day will be like today as internet radio sites start shutting down and the music dies.

A bill called the "Internet Radio Equality Act" has already been introduced in both the Senate (S. 1353) and House of Representatives (H.R. 2060) to fix the problem and save Internet radio—and Pandora—from obliteration.

I'd like to ask you to call your Congressional representatives today and ask them to become co-sponsors of the bill. It will only take a few minutes and you can find your Congresspersons and their phone numbers by entering your zip code here.

Your opinion matters to your representatives - so please take just a minute to call.

Pandora