Pandora Tomorrow? - Unlikely

I love Pandora!!!

If you don't know, Pandora is a site that streams music...

...the excellent aspect of it is that you create your own stations according to what they call a music "genome".

In essence, this means that you start a station by choosing an artist or even a single song and they then play music that has the same "qualities".

I have created several stations which I can play according to my mood....perhaps I want to listen to little celtic/esotric stuff...perhaps to a bit of rock...or maybe some indi...it's all there for me.

So what? Well I recently received an email from the site's founder which explained...

we worked diligently with the rights organizations to negotiate an economically workable license fee. After over a year of trying, this has proved impossible. Both the PPL (which represents the record labels) and the MCPS/PRS Alliance (which represents music publishers) have demanded per track performance minima rates which are far too high to allow ad supported radio to operate and so, hugely disappointing and depressing to us as it is, we have to block the last territory outside of the US.

Now, in the year or so since I discovered pandora, I have been introduced to at least twenty (and that's just the number I can remember as I sit here) artists that I hadn't heard (or had heard of) - nine of which I have since bought an album by!!!

As the email goes on to say...

It continues to astound me and the rest of the team here that the industry is not working more constructively to support the growth of services that introduce listeners to new music and that are totally supportive of paying fair royalties to the creators of music.

Too right...

More...

I don't often say such things, but the course being charted by the labels and publishers and their representative organizations is nothing short of disastrous for artists whom they purport to represent - and by that I mean both well known and indie artists. The only consequence of failing to support companies like Pandora that are attempting to build a sustainable radio business for the future will be the continued explosion of piracy, the continued constriction of opportunities for working musicians, and a worsening drought of new music for fans. As a former working musician myself, I find it very troubling.

And the consequence for me...

We have been told to sign these totally unworkable license rates or switch off, non-negotiable...so that is what we are doing. Streaming illegally is just not in our DNA, and we have to take the threats of legal action seriously.

Well, thanks go out to the music industry...

I have contacts/friend all over the world...some of them have not bought a piece of music legally for years (its ALL there if you know where to look!)

I tend to get on my high moral ground over this issue when I chat to them (especially being a musician - although never producing anything that was likely to make me any money!!!)...and I probably won't resort to illegal downloading...but frankly if more and more people do, the industry only has itself to blame!!!

Idiots!
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