Pandora Suit May Upend Century-Old Royalty Plan

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/14/business/media/pandora-suit-may-upend-century-old-royalty-plan.html

by digital55 • 12 years ago

30 19 12 years ago

steve19• 12 years ago

What I don't understand is why the music companies license their entire catalogs to the likes of Spotify and Google All Access, which is a direct replacement for buying music, but want to drive true Internet Radio like Pandora and indie stations out of business. It makes no sense.

bediger4000• 12 years ago

Agreed. The music companies seem really odd about what they'll license, and to who. Is it a control issue? That is, when they license to All Access or Spotify, the music companies perceive that they have more control than with Pandora.

jsnk• 12 years ago

Unlike the common lexicon we are used to, there's no one single unified "music industry". It is composed of many individuals, companies, and government bodies and they all have goals and interests of own which do not coincide with each other all the time. Deals with internet music companies are made on individual basis at different times in different financial circumstances etc.

glasz• 12 years ago

correct. they make no sense. they're senseless. insane. useless. they haven't heard the shot. 20 years of internet and they're still fucking around. they need to die. they need to die a very, very painful death. but that's upon us.

pmorici• 12 years ago

It probably has something to do with the fact that traditional radio is viewed as more of a promotional tool to drive record sales than a revenue stream.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payola

Enter Pandora which even though it has radio in the name is different in that the user has a greater degree of control. So Where as artist were accepting that they didn't make much off traditional radio and viewed getting play time as good publicity they probably don't view Pandora and services like that in the same light. In fact they might even view them as cutting into Record and digital download sales.

amosson• 12 years ago

Music companies don't see Spotify as competing with purchases, they see it as competing with "free" (aka, piracy)

tfigueroa• 12 years ago

My guess: it's a control issue. Direct license deals can be done behind closed doors, and that privacy is worth a lot in controlling other negotiations.

When any guy off the street can pay $0.005 or whatever to stream your content, your bargaining position is already compromised, because the guy has an alternative to negotiating with you at all.

With a direct deal, you could employ all kinds of strategies. Charge different rates for different songs. Give discounts to some players. Keep the contract short-lived to keep them coming back. I think a lot of that goes out of the window with compulsory licensing.

Full disclosure: I work for Pandora, but am speaking more from my days as a "promoter".

fourstar3• 12 years ago

I went to a talk at Pandora couple weeks ago and Tim Westergren said that 90% of Americans still use (traditional) radio every week. I doubt music companies are trying to get the indie stations to go out of business -- they go out of business because they don't play the hits (thus it's harder to gain a huge user base + monetize).

ProAm2• 12 years ago

90% has to be a subset of something, there is no way 297 million Americans use the radio. I bet it is something like 90% of automobile drivers use the radio, I never heard the radio outside of cars these days. Even most businesses use some sort of streaming for their music these days.

rblatz• 12 years ago

CD101 (CD1025) in Columbus is as indie as they come. Independently owned and operated, playing indie and alt rock. They are doing awesome and are a true jewel for the city. If indie radio can make it in Ohio why are so many other stations having so much trouble?

ars• 12 years ago

record companies ... only ... to publishers

Aren't those two the same thing?

adventured• 12 years ago

Often, but not always.

A record company can be just the label the music is marketed under. Or it can be both the label and the publisher of the music (with the publisher typically holding the copyrights).

For example, in 1995 Jay-Z created Roc-A-Fella Records as his label, and then Priority handled distribution for him (and later Def Jam).

Sometimes large stars will own a record company that holds their music rights, while having someone like Warner for distribution purposes.

Pandora Suit May Upend Century-Old Royalty Plan

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