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Pandora Wants Radio Stations To Pay For Music, Too
suraj.sun sends along an Ars writeup of the lobbying Pandora is doing now that it has secured its future, royalties-wise. Some might think it odd that Pandora is weighing in on the side of the record labels in their fight to get radio stations to pay more for the music they broadcast. "US radio stations don't pay performers and producers for the music they play, but the recording industry hopes to change that with a new performance rights bill in Congress. Webcaster Pandora has jumped into the fray on the side of the artists and labels, asking why radio gets a free ride when Pandora does not. ... With revenues from recorded music sales declining, rights-holders have turned their eyes in recent years to commercial US radio, which currently pays songwriters (but not performers or record labels)... With its own future secure for the next few years, Pandora is now turning its attention to the public performance debate here in the US, saying that the issue is a simple matter of fairness: why should webcasters have to pay more for music than traditional radio does? ... [But] the 'fairness' argument could clearly go either way. Radio might start paying a performance right; on the other hand, perhaps webcasters and satellite radio companies should simply stop paying one, relying on the old argument about promotion."
Why wouldn't they side with the Radio broadcasters as a way to use that as an argument to decrease their own costs. I mean, they have nothing to lose in the end.
Sounds fair to me... We make internet radio pay up big bucks to play music.
And the radio stations have been getting it for free! how dare they! (be our paid shills for crap music)
Level the playing field!
Perhaps Canada is a leading the way on fees for once? (see bullet 6)
Seriously. Email/write/call your state representative about this bill and tell them how this bill is severely diminish the quality of all radios out there. Urge them to vote against it!!
It's enough that we have to pay higher taxes, but don't let them take away our free music.
Previewing comments are for sissies!
The internet provides all sorts of dynamics in the music being played. Radio has "Phone in a request" once in a blue moon. This would literally kill music radio, as radio stations don't have a direct way to charge the listeners. Something tells me this is simply Pandora having a hissy fit over having to pay.
Health Freedom is almost as popular as Freedom itself.
Pure greed when the industry turns in on itself to make a buck.
Be you Admins? nay, we are but lusers!
If the price of playing a song goes up we'll probably get to listen to even more blathering for the DJs.
Internet radio has a potential audience that spans the globe. Radio stations are typically limited by geography and signal power.
Why should passengers flying from New York to Tokyo pay more than flying from Seattle to Portland? Because the distance is longer.
The sooner that the Music Industry starts playing the "payed tier" game like certain OS manufacturers, the better. Through the power of diminishing returns, radio station budgets and a public totally aware of the bullshit that's going on, only then will we see public hanging of corporate executives. We will see them hunted down for the dogs that they are and shot down rabidly in the streets. All because of the loss of non-essential entertainment.
Hey, a fella can dream can't he?
wishing they could go back to the days when the DJs took money from the producers and promoters to play songs.
Im surprised by how many are upset over this. Think about it for a minute, the vast majority are still clueless when it comes to the actions of the Music Industry, Pandora no doubt sees this as an opportunity to bring awareness to the masses of an archaic system thats time has passed.
They paid radio to play your song, so people would actually hear it and buy it... As a matter of fact, with one of my current bands, we still do that. Not in money, but by calling them every day and get a live performance on the radio... It's for them great to have live music and it's great for us to have an wider audience. A well, I must be getting old.
Seriously. Email/write/call your state representative about this bill and tell them how this bill is severely diminish the quality of all radios out there. Urge them to vote against it!!
I'd say that the quality of radio already was severely diminished when a few corporations started buying up every channel in the country so that they could ram their selected artists down the public's throat by playing their hit songs over and over every hour.
Perhaps Pandora hopes to have radio come to the aid of internet radio - "We'll drag you down with us if you don't step up!".
And if you hear someone humming a song, turn them in to the ASPCA ASAP
Todos mis movimientos están friamente calculados
I thought that went the way of the dodo. You can't get FM on the iPod, and who doesn't have a CD player or mp3 jack in their car? Who gives a crap about shitty-sounding distorted 'loud' FM pop music?
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
.. since this will just get all normal radio stations on the side of Pandora - ie that radio should pay no royalties.
at least the Pandora guys give you the option to buy what you're listening to on iTunes or Amazon, unlike a radio station.
Just give up and bill everyone:
...and when they don't pay: Sue them.
Bill the artists for making it and everytime it's played.
Bill the distributor and packaging plant.
Bill the radio stations for playing it.
Bill the store for selling it.
Bill the Moving Picture Experts Group when it's moved digitally.
Bill your mom.
Bill the listener for liking it.
Bill them if they don't like it.
Bill Microsoft and Al Gore for bringing the internet.
Bill Apple and the beatles.
Bill Linux just cause.
This Greed - It's becoming bloody disgusting.
---
"Don't be too troubled. He'll be all right now. He left a packet for you.
There it is!"
This was done in Australia, and overnight the amount of Australian music broadcast dropped to close to zero. For a couple of years the government rattled sabres threatening to cancel broadcast licences and then eventually radio stations were charged for all content and not just Australian content. It really didn't matter if there were cases where there was no way the money charged could actually get back to the copyright holders because IT'S A SCAM. The money claimed on behalf of the local copyright holders that theoretically could get back to them does not and is absorbed in "administrative costs" for instance huge payouts to board members of the organisation running the scam. The British version of this is a prime example.
ASPCA
Did you mean ASCAP, or did a subtle joke about animal cruelty just fly over my head?
How the hell did these stations survive past the 90s? Seriously? This technology should be fazed out and the frequency bands allocated to something worthwhile. Radio was going the right way in the late 80s by playing local bands and more underground music, but that changed during the 90s and any kind of underground music was gone by 2000. (unless you listened to a college AM station) Since Pandora supports a broader range of music from Beethoven to Burzum, I hope they cause these shitty stations the pain they deserve for making my radio useless. Even the local 80s station stopped playing 80s music and started playing coldplay.... wtf? If I was Pandora I would try to team up with verizon and use that new wireless they are working on to compete with the radio. People who listen to music will pick Pandora; people who like to listen to short, ugly guys talk all day , will pick the radio.
at least the Pandora guys give you the option to buy what you're listening to on iTunes or Amazon, unlike a radio station.
If you mean enough artist and title information to write it down and buy it later, FM radio has that too. If you mean a button to Buy It Now, how would that work in a vehicle? Not everybody has $700 per year to spend on mobile broadband.
One of the radio stations I depend on for traffic reports is already fighting this. They run several advertisements predicting the free music you listen to is at risk of being eliminated by congress with new fees on the music they play. Call your congressman right away to stop this legislation that will end free music on radio.
The NAB, National Association of Broadcasters is leading the charge to oppose the bill.
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-ct-radio3-2009jul03,0,6937549.story/
The truth shall set you free!
The free dutch newspaper "De pers" had an intresting article about music sales yesterday. Or rather not about music sales at all which is probably why the copier (oops sorry journalist) failed to make the connection.
The story? A pension fund was reporting they made 8% profit last year, when the entire economy had collapsed, on their music portfolio. The article told that music rights are big business with a steady reliable revenue stream and that after 10 years you have made enough profit to have paid for the purchase of the rights and from then on its pure profits.
But yeah, music sales are declining.
How can music be an extremely reliable investment for pension funds when the sales are going down? The only similar reliable investment is in things like supermarkets because people always got to eat.
How can you tell someone from the content industry is lying? They got their mouth open.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
The RIAA giving radio a compelling reason to play independent artists is exactly what we need. They can only hurt themselves.
I find it ironic that not too long ago payola was a serious problem, and now we have this. These are the death throws of the recording industry, and I think that is a great thing.
Great Intellect...
Only a few months ago, it was charged in the US Congress that record companies have been paying radio stations (again, like in the fifties) to play their records.
Now they want the stations to pay them?
Playing a recording on the air is better than advertising it, and the record companies know it.
This effort is bound to fail, if not ignite laughter.
Detectives and Mysteries oldtime radio old radio Golden Days of Radio Nostalgia ... These are Easy Listening Beautiful Music Favorites! Listen to selections
marknik
Carpet Cleaning Toronto
It's been a while since I had anything to do with broadcasting, but it used to be that stations had to have licenses from BMI and ASCAP for public performance rights. What ever happened to that?
If online radio has to pay, and satellite has to pay (for those of you who didn't know that, they do), then broadcast radio should also have to pay.
Broadcast radio keeps insisting what they want is a level playing field. Well, it ain't level if they don't have to pay.
No in between bullshit, all commercial broadcasters should be treated the same, regardless of the actual method of broadcast...either charge no one, or charge everyone.
I want a new quote. One that won't spill. One that don't cost too much. Or come in a pill.
It already has.
There was a vague musical trend of each half-decade up until about 2005. You could decided something felt "dated" but at least it felt like it belonged to some era.
Now they're running out of fresh genres, and desperately working the 2nd level blended stuff.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Warning: I work with EDM-variety music producers.
This is actually fantastic news. When we provide ala carte downloads for our tracks, they usually get shunned and our systems spend hours each month uploading to Rhapsody and the like... for $6 royalty statements.
The net result?
An hour block of unadvertised, "live mix" content wherein the latest music gets performed and no one pays a red cent to Harry Fox. It works thusly:
1. DJ in our roster wishes to promote.
2. Under US tax code, any music said DJ has paid for is a business expense as an appropriation of requisite tools to perform said job.
3. DJ plays promotional mix set, commercial free, and it's released to the blogs under fair use.
5. Profit. DJ sees more bookings as a result for live-performance gigs. The hottest tracks have already been promoted to BBC Radio One and artists see more BDS numbers as a result. People buy more hardcopies as a result of extended exposure.
6. You missed there wasn't a step 4, and there is no "... Profit?" meme.
It would take a bit of renegade work, but there isn't any reason why bands can't be promoted in the same way. It's more on the radio DJ's taking the responsibility for ownership instead of the studio for the tracks performed, but that would effectively shut down payola in most cases. With the advent of the Internet, it means these streams can be put out royalty-free and can survive for public enjoyment, while increasing artist exposure and cutting the middleman out. How would the site maintain itself? Through rabid fans. Just look at DogsOnAcid for an example.
Never attribute to Hanlon that which can be adequately attributed to Heinlein.
The imminent death of Internet radio has led me to think of ways of modifying the Creative Commons share and share-alike non-commercial license. I wish to release some music I have composed, but before I do this, I would like to craft a variant of the creative commons licence under which SoundExchange, the RIAA and their legal representatives would be subject to a $10,000,000 fine if they listen to my music, create derivative works based on it, or if they attempt enforce my rights under the copyright act.
Specifically, the license I would like should impose a crippling fine on SoundExchange in case it attempts to collect royalties on my behalf paid by services making ephemeral phonorecords or digital audio transmissions of sound recordings, or both, under the statutory licenses set forth in 17 U.S.C. 112 and 17 U.S.C. 114 or if it attempts to distribute the collected royalties to me pursuant to 17 U.S.C. 114(g)(2). The license should go beyond merely threatening the possibilityof a lawsuit--it should stipulate an RIAA-level fine against SoundExchange and its legal representatives.
If such a license could be crafted with sufficient care, and if sufficiently many musicians were to release music under this license, in time it could effectively criminalize SoundExchange, the RIAA and its lawyers.
I think it's pretty obvious what Pandora is angling at here, they're attacking the obvious double-standard. Problem is that if it goes the other way, then that's pretty much the last nail in the coffin of broadcast radio; it's already only a marginally profitable business to be in anymore, and having to pay more royalties will kill most of them off for good.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
MTV doesn't play music. Radio stations will stop playing music now too. Services like last.fm and Pandora only suggest music you already know about anyway. Live music sounds like crap (hey mr. indy band ever heard of an eq?). And I don't even care, because the industry quit making music long ago, it's just taken awhile for everyone to catch up.
Win a signed Stephen Carpenter ESP Guitar from the Deftones: http://def-tag.com/?r=0008781
NAB spent the last several years arguing that satellite radio should be forced to pay these royalties. Prior to those hearings, satellite hadn't been paying, since they were arguing that they were another form of radio. Any lawyer worth their salt would have told NAB to support satellite radio as protection against something like this. But they didn't. They saw a chance to eliminate a competitor, and hoped to saddle them with an additional expense.
One of the first victims of their stupidity were the NAB member stations that were streaming on the Internet. Previously, they hadn't had to pay, either - which was a good thing for them, considering that most streams had their advertising removed from the stream, and weren't generally profitable on their own.
Their arguments as to why they shouldn't have to pay are outdated. They claim that they're giving free promotion to music, but how many terrestrial stations are actually giving exposure to new music? Seriously - how many stations in your town are currently recycling everyone's favorite hits from the 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s? Radio knows that new music doesn't draw listeners - it's easier to take the free ride and give audiences the music they already know and love.
Radio should have to pay. Given NAB's size, it shouldn't be difficult to negotiate with SoundExchange for a lower rate.
For real? People still pay for their music? I say we start a fund that pays outrageous fines to those few poor bastards that get sued and distribute music freely.
Unknowingly RIAA will create their own problems.
Clear lack of planning for emerging technology coupled with lower overhead will eventually erode consumer confidence in spending the money they demand.
Knowing their customers wants and needs should be a cornerstone of their business.
Reimbursing the RIAA with a fund fueled with with $1 per person per lifetime should suffice. Let them sue away. Senior citizens should be prorated.
I'm just waiting for the day when instead of ambulance chasers we have riaa hounds that follow court filings.
After the fallout all we will be left with is more talk radio.
Anyways I thought the reason the music industry pays the artists so little is for their distrobution and promotion. If they charge for that wtf would artists need them?
It's not independent. Anyway, we lost most of the independent radio stations in the 90's.
Perhaps their hope is that by playing this game they either A) effect an industry they might see as a competitor or B) they gain an ally in short term with their own fight who can help with legislation and/or rate negotiation. Kind of a reversal of what they might have seen as a divide and conquer scheme that landed them the different rates in the first place.
Of course the real fight is still coming as we begin the transition from analog broadcasting to an all digital networked signal. After all, a cell phone is just a radio device.
Quack, quack.
I think what they've found here is right. The Radio Format has been getting a free ride and so have all those brigands listening to it in their cars. All the people in the world are a bunch of no-good sound thieves, Hell, they even have large fleshy scoops on the side of their heads just sucking up and stealing all the free sounds they can get close to. If only we could have those things permanently blocked so the only sounds that come through them are properly paid and licensed by the source.
I should start going to sleep at night with earmuffs on so some ghetto-blasting kid in a donk doesn't come cruising down the street blasting hip-hop and turning me into a music pirate. Then I'd have no choice but to turn myself in for participating in an illegal public listening of a song I didn't pay for.
In typical modern capitalism fashion, companies are free to compete for exclusivity and preferential treatment, but not freely with each other.
The playing field is never even, and be it lobbying with congress, inking expensive deals, hiring an army of salesmen and lawyers, or leveraging your monopolistic weight, big businesses know how to tilt the market so money trickles only their way. New comers and outsiders on the wrong side of the slope cannot compete by price or quality, and the issue precedes supply and demand.
If the recording industry wants the public to pay it more money for being good at making contracts with musicians, okay. In exchange let's repeal the Bono Act of 1998. This law not lengthened new music copyrights to 95 years, it placed every audio recording made before 1972 under copyright until 2067. Thousands of older works were re-copyrighted even though they had already been in the public domain for many years. If this law were repealed, historical works such as wax cylinder recordings made by Thomas Edison in the 1890s, which are now protected until 2067, would again be available for public use as they should be. I don't think this is too big a concession in return for creating a brand new revenue source for the industry.
You dont know what will come after opening it. Maybe the system could hold it running even with bigger charges, or maybe not, and be the end of radio, RIAA, music as something commercial or most major artists revolt and just put in Creative Commons all their work. Sometimes change end being good in the middle/long run,
now that everyone has abandoned traditional radio for iPods, Pandora, and last.fm for 10 years now, its perfect timing to swoop in and milk radio dry
they've waited 90 years for the perfect time to do this
and you're next satellite radio... as soon as you declare bankruptcy!
how fucking pathetic. what, ran out of grandmothers and college kids to sue?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Radio? Who needs it!
Back here on earth, more people are listening to radio than ever before. At least in the UK if not on earth, but that article is consistent with others I've seen looking at the US as well.
> I can't wait until we create an AI that will administer our stupid human
..... whatcouldgowrong .....
> civilization 100x better than we ever will.
Why shouldn't local broadcast radio in the US pay mechanical royalties? Radio stations in other countries manage fine and please show me where there's a special exemption for US local radio in the Berne convention. The US being the country most aggressively persuing "IP" protectionism abroad; this particular double standard goes much, much deeper than broadcast radio.
Where I live a violent revolution pretty much killed off the Catholics. They're still there but their political power is gone and that has meant a great deal to us intellectuals. Previously, a foreign revolution forced the aristocracy down. I know some of /. may have an idealised picture of the Victorian researcher, but those were not the norm, most of the aristocrats were just sitting around doing nothing and wasting other people's money. And more recently a more quiet kind of cultural revolution is making science education more accessible to everyone and slowly removing the last religious barriers to progress. So maybe it depends on where you live, but I think revolutions can a good thing. Of course, in this particular case I would rather support the use of the power of the state to dismantle the RIAA and subsidiaries, but that's more of a practical judgement.
I have an answer for you. Because you decided that you wanted to give in to the record labels and screw the small broadcasters in the process and now you you want other radio stations to feel your pain? Its not about fair, its about your inability to see past the record labels bullshit.
Radio and Internet play is free advertising for the record labels why they hell should they have to pay? the system has worked for years, now all of a sudden they want to get even more greedy? The Record Labels days are numbered.
Anyone who wanted to claim copyright on their music could register with the collection agency.
What's more - they could specify the price they wanted to charge for broadcast (within tiers for simplification).
That way radio station X could simply say, 'we won't play any track that costs more than X'. The rights holder would get to decide whether they want to charge more than X.
No more monopoly negotiations - the agency simply manages a market.
My guess is that most companies would pretty quickly list their tracks at $0 so as to maximise radio time.
That's just a guess though - the point is that it would be up to them to choose, and they would have no grounds for moaning.
VLC Remote for iPhone and Android
People that would rather make a buck today than ten bucks next week.
Well, to be fair, the record company execs that bought airtime were arguably more greedy and more manipulative than the ones are today, and it was also easier with local radio. Back in the day, if you had a local radio station, to get airplay, an exec might go and just bribe the DJ at the station to put something on. In those days DJs had more creative control but that also made it easier for them to take bribes. As a result, the studio would pay to get music on the air by bribing the DJ.
Now...
The system is a less corrupt on that score, and the problem was "solved" by removing creative control from the DJ. They can't play new music unless corporate decides its selling, and it won't sell until somebody plays it. To some extent college radio worked to break new music but with iPOD college radio isn't the force it once was.
This is my sig.
Certainly, I do not think that a single Slashdot reader was alive around 1930, which is around when US Congress enacted legislation that would make it easier for the early terrestrial radio broadcasters to invest and build out their fledging radio transmission network, by granting them an exemption from the obligation of having to pay royalties to the owners of the sound recordings they were playing on the air, although they were still obligated to pay the writers, their publishers and appointed representatives (ASCAP, BMI, Harry Fox Agency).
These payments to both sound recording owners as well as publishers are the norm for stations everywhere else in the world.
A measure of how wildly successful the radio stations are in the US today should be the amount of money they appear to have available to spend on lobbyists hired to ensure that this one-time exemption never ends.
One could fail to see what is so bad for owners of sound recordings to finally get paid for the use of their work, broadcasters have had a free ride for 80 years or so, it's fairly clear that they do not need that exemption for its original purpose anymore, and they should build their business model around the same one every other radio station on earth has been using successfully all of this time.
Yes, it obviously fantastic to have your songs promoted on radio, and labels have always seen this as a great way to help sell many more copies of whatever physical product, downloads or ringtones even. But when comparing the amount the broadcasters would have to pay for each song played to what most of them are already racking up from pro-rated advertising income for the time slot that song was in, one cannot help but wonder what this fuss is all about.... a mere few drops in the bucket.
Z.
Stop listening to music that only radio will play, really dig about on the internet and get into niche music. Being a huge thrash, death and black metal fan, there's bugger-all chance of anyone ever playing anything I like, so it's not even an issue in my chosen genre. If we want to try something we have to hope the music samples are on the artists website ( where we can pay the artists directly too ), the band may be in town playing or simply buy the music from a niche music store, hoping it will be OK.
Just like the good old days during the 80's when there was no net and you had to spend more time finding good music on your own, rather than have it spoon-fed to you. Far more rewarding when you find something really great and you know you're 1 of only a few hundred or a few thousand who may have heard it, rather than one of millions of brain-dead pap-swallowers!
"US radio stations don't pay performers and producers for the music they play.." Um, yes they do, ....ASCAP?
How about:
*IF* the performers and record companies get this, they lose the right to make covers under a statutory / compulsory type license and have to negotiate with the rights holders?
Just a thought...
drew
FreeMusicPush If you want to see more Free Music made, listen to Free
Now they're running out of fresh genres, and desperately working the 2nd level blended stuff.
Creativity has been blooming now that most people can afford instruments and put their music and videos on the internet. Fresh genres are appearing all the time, except my guess is that you are too old to actually be interested enough to put in the time finding new stuff.
I'm 32 and I find that my friends listen to the same old stuff that they listened in their teenager years while I spend hours every week trying to find new stuff.
8 of 13 people found this answer helpful. Did you?
Seriously I say this: let this bring an uttermost end to the music industry and music radio. Let their greed be their dying gasp. And when they (and the RIAA and their other-national counterparts) are dead and blowing in the breeze, the REAL meaning of music will return. That being, entertainment, enjoyment, and the performance itself. Music, like any art, was never meant to be "hey, I can get rich!" but more like "hey, look at this! I made a song! I hope you like it!"
Gordon Gecko was wrong, dead wrong: greed is not "good", rather it is the means to an end that is in itself wholly bad and ruinous.
Why couldn't Pandora invest on a couple of solar panel. Have the solar panel generate power, sell the electricity, and use that money to pay for the music? So we all have endless supply of free music. Problem solved.
I think I'm with you, but I can see an argument that Pandora is different from a radio station. A radio station arguably promotes music sales; services that customize their playlists to your tastes might actually replace music sales. Maybe music becomes a service rather than a product in that case.
I do think it's silly that DJ-controlled stations should be charged differently simply because one broadcasts via radio and one via internet.
RIAA is the most absurd organization around. They do realize that the radio is ancient compared to them. They seriously are looking for money out of everyone's pockets in a time when the the economy is in the tank. I mean they tried to get millions in imaginary damages from a college student. Now they are trying to get money out of an already struggling radio business which has been playing the music for free for well over 50 years.
Just because you are wrong and I called you out on it doesn't mean I am a Troll.
Seems to say that terrestrial radio already pays the Songwriters huh? Those are the people I want my money going to anyway..Not a record exec who is going to spend it on the next craptastic pop album.
Sorry, I did a terrible job mashing two topics together and getting the worst of both.
1. Radio getting worse --> RIAA OldStyle "Top40 Machine" is on the fade. I think I tried to say there's a limit to the number of genres that fit that sales profile: bland enough to not require much work to listen to, upbeat enough to drive to, with a hook Consumer will remember long enough to buy a CD.
2. I agree that creativity is exploding - but at such a unique level I'm not sure if anything stays put long enough to separate "genre" from "marketing fad" name. To me it's becoming just "That Artist's Sound". Gothic-Bhangra-Enya-Punk-Progessive-Violin becomes verbal saltwater swirl toffee. Forget the colors and just enjoy.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Since Pandora plays music based on user recommendations and a presumably good (and improving) similarity metric rather than advertising, this should work out well for the arts. Private labels and performers are just as likely to be played as the Evil Empire's stuff. Indeed, Pandora can drop the big players anytime their contract becomes onerous, as the music genome will have good coverage of the popular genres.
"The biggest problem with communication is the illusion that it has taken place."
"Having heard the quality of most "indie artists," all I can say is thank God for that."
And you are going to argue the mass-market artists broadcast by your 9 local Clear Channel affiliates are better?
Broadcast radio tried to kill internet/satellite radio by siding with the RIAA folks, so now they turn the tables back on them.
Pandora is smart. This puts them on the same basis as the radio stations, limiting their competition. If the stations drop/reduce music, it will hurt sales for these RIAA artists (really for the RIAA, since the artists get squat anyway). This, in turn, hurts the RIAA (possibly more than the stations). They are trying to get the RIAA to kill the goose laying their golden eggs. Pandora does good with independent artists, so really doesn't need the RIAA very much.
It's almost like Daffy Duck pitting the Dog and Foghorn Leghorn against each other...
Man exactly what kind of Apple planet you live instead of Earth and when did you move?
FM radio go in way of Dodo etc? Did you lose your mind? No, World doesn't consist of Apple Stores, Star Bucks and similar things. FM radio can't die because 10-20 people around you doesn't have FM radio capability since Apple was really horrified that they may dare to listen to top 40 crap 'free' instead of buying from iTMS. In fact, it will stay as FM form for a long time since every company except Apple fascists are putting FM radio to their low end cell phones these days. There hasn't been more FM capable devices in history than today. For example, Sony Ericsson are famous for putting a full feature (even including RDS) radio to every high end phone they use. My SE P1i phone doesn't just display RDS, it is also capable of "audio fingerprinting" currently playing track on radio (or actually the surrounding) and display it. That is the 'evil Sony!' for you. Now you have base score to see how evil Apple is for not putting a 10 cent chip inside iPod.
Ask CBS and Clear Channel giants if you want USA centric information about how FM radio is doing. You can also ask British people how "crap" FM sounds like since they didn't move to full digital DAB despite all the push of BBC which does make excellent music broadcast. I mean it is not NPR we talk about, it is the BBC giant. Their (!) DAB has failed because people didn't see (hear) a point. Of course, in British fashion, DAB owners will never get abandoned although DAB couldn't fulfil its promise.
Some people will always like the music chosen by them, by professionals, with a little chatter and information mixed and even ads. That is why radio survives. It should be dead right when the first 8 track shipped if you think that way. No, some people doesn't really want to bother with ''choice'' etc. too much. They want to hear their taste of music and information with minimum interaction as possible.
Pandora is a jukebox. Yes a Jukebox with high technology. There is no similarity with a radio, even if the radio is web only broadcast.
Radios multicast since they were invented. If the entire planet somehow had multicast capability, could pandora multicast? No. They are streaming aac files to individuals, each individual gets their unique stream.
IMHO, after Last.fm backed by CBS giant went payware in markets excluding USA, UK etc., they also figured they won't really stay afloat with that kind of bandwidth use. As they see thousands of users coming from last.fm because it faced the sad reality mostly because of stupid advertisers can't understand where World is heading to, they now try to trick justice system also somehow troubling REAL RADIO which has nothing to do with them.
If anyone can confuse last.fm, pandora with a real traditional radio, I would be really surprised. The closest thing to real radio on that 'AI' fashion was Spinner which got acquired by AOL and wasted as usual. It was airing (!) same track on its channels.
You must be all driving 15 year old corollas. You haven't been able to get a tape player in a car in about 10 years.
Plus, what a great look to have all kinds of wires hanging over your dash. I have to assume you live as homeless people and appreciate the "junkyard look" in your car?
I understand that record labels are the entities that distribute the media that artists create. If they aren't charging the radio station for them accessing the media then they should start. If the radio stations circumvent them then I guess they have a legitimate claim. The radio stations are using the music to procure a source of income(Ads targeting listeners). As per performers I have no idea how they are defined and won't comment.
Many truly believe the world all have iPhones and everybody spends their day playing with them and looking to add little $1 apps to it. Even more can't fathom a world where people spend hours a day in their car and not only can you not get a data service on your phone, you can barely pick up one or two AM stations.
People should get out more ;)
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
Phonograms were originally considered merely an alternate form of musical notation, such as a MIDI sequence could be thought of today. This was because the first phonograms were piano rolls, which indeed were little other than an alternative form of notation. Hence the 1909 Copyright Act did not consider them copyrightable separately from the underlying music. Recording technology quickly made this view obsolete, but it took decades for the law to catch up. This is why there is no public performance right in most sound recordings.
Creating a public performance right in all sound recordings would make the statute more consistent. But we shouldn't let the robber barons get something for nothing. The new right would be an expansion in the scope of copyright. The quid-pro-quo should be a contraction in copyright's scope elsewhere (such as an expanded margin of fair use) or a reduction in the duration of copyright, from life-plus-70 down to life-plus-60 or life-plus-50.
I prefer anarchy, but only under a strong & wise anarch