Easy come, easy go
Argh. This article on Ars Technica says that Pandora, the streaming music service I wrote about last week may be shutting down soon due to exorbitant fees imposed by a royalty hike on internet radio. Considering that no frills Pandora is free, I suppose it was too good to last forever.
The thing that gets me is that the Big Fat Corporations (BFCs) are likely to kill off entire revenue streams in the quest for the Big Bucks. By leaning on all the little guys to try to squeeze every possible dollar out of them, they’ll force innovative players like Pandora out of business. Let’s see… less income at reasonable rates vs. no income at Greedy Bastard rates… gee tough call there.
Oh well, this geek update actually turned into one those rants where I really have no idea how to change the way things are. Any thoughts would be appreciated.
In any case, check out www.pandora.com while you still can!
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By Not "The LG", August 18, 2008 @ 11:55 pm
Nice rant.
Okay, so I’m very ungeek…and I make up words.
Anyway, any geekiness I may have comes only from people like you or Derek or my Lance W. So, I may sound like a complete dope…which if you ask “The LG” is very easy to do.
I digress.
I know nothing of Pandora.com except for what you wrote. Thus, my understanding was this was essentially online radio. Why not let it play? Did the site offer the technology to download the songs? Were XM and Sirius upset?
Down with the BFCs, unless it’s the one I’m working for and they’re paying me some big coin.
By egeek, August 19, 2008 @ 8:15 am
The original fee structure for broadcast music was a flat annual fee, plus a percentage of the profits made by the broadcaster. For a streaming internet radio site there probably wasn’t much profitability to
extortcollect on.The new structure approved in July 2007 involved a fee per-song, per-listener, regardless of whether the site made any money or not. If I interpret that correctly an internet radio site would owe the flat fee x the number of listeners for each song. On top of that, the fees would be retroactive to January 2006.
XM and Sirius Radio were represented at the hearings to argue that since their costs of operation were so much higher, they should pay lower fees than internet radio. I think in this case they were trying to protect themselves more than oppress the little guys, although the demise of internet radio could mean more customers for satellite radio.
By Not "The LG", August 19, 2008 @ 11:51 am
Thanks egeek.
BTW, I’ve got a new rant topic, give me a call and will explain.
By Derek, August 20, 2008 @ 2:54 am
Wow, Comment Props! thanks Not LG!
The real irony of this situation is although pandora was never structured to download/rip the radio stream(s), this move has prompted a whole plethora of new “tools” to do just that!
By Not "The LG", August 20, 2008 @ 11:50 am
Eh, if they’re going to treat you like you are already doing that, then I guess you may as well do it.
People try and do things within the context of what’s permissable, then someone gets all in their face and sets them off.
Nicely done.
By the lone gunman, August 21, 2008 @ 9:00 am
Not cool, BFCs… I got all excited about the Pandora geek post… Oh well.