Full FeedPandora hit with soaring royalty fees; Is shutting down their only option?
Pandora, the ad-supported internet radio service that builds stations off of your personal taste, may be shutting down in the near future. Due to high royalty costs from the labels, that may be their only option. According to the Washington Post, Pandora founder Tim Westergren doesn’t seem too confident the company will survive.
“We’re approaching a pull-the-plug kind of decision…This is like a last stand for webcasting.”
The Post mentioned that a whopping 70% of Pandora’s $25 Million in revenue this year will go to royalty fees. Representative Howard L. Berman, a Democrat from California, is attempting to work up a deal between Pandora and SoundExchange, the organization that represents artists and labels. Lets just hope Berman can get through to them… or we may have to go back to hating the RIAA.
I’m deeply saddened by the fact they may go out of business… and I’m sure their million other users are as well. So what do you think Pandora should do? Should they stick it to the RIAA and start playing all indie bands? Is going out of business really their only option? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
Read [Washington Post] Via [ReadWriteWeb]
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on August 17, 2008 at 06:41 PM - LINKI’d love to see Pandora use RIAA bands to promote indie bands. Type in the name of a corporate band you like, then let Pandora pull up decent indie bands that are good substitutes. It’s a win for the indie bands, who get promotion. It’s a win for the fans, who find bands they otherwise wouldn’t have, and it sticks it to the RIAA, as Pandora would use major label bands to pull fans away from major label bands, and they’d get no royalties for it.
on August 17, 2008 at 09:03 PM - LINKWRONG! The RIAA makes MORE money when Pandora and others play NON-RIAA music than when they do.
on August 18, 2008 at 05:00 PM - LINKHow? I’m not doubting you, I’d just like to know.
on August 19, 2008 at 08:52 AM - LINKThe thing that I take home from this article is that here goes the music industry shooting themselves in the foot again. I guess they can’t see how stations like “Pandora” should be “royalty exempt”. If for no other reason than they create dvd sells by exposing people to music they otherwise may not hear & wouldn’t buy. Simple math to me but then when was the last time the music industry showed that they could even add. It’s really sad to see another industry that’s being destroyed by greed & stupidity..
on August 21, 2008 at 07:50 AM - LINKOf course, the recording industry was built on greed and stupidity, so it’s not like this is anything new. It’s just them being themselves.
on August 21, 2008 at 08:44 AM - LINK