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I think that, in order to understand ‘spins’ on Pandora, we must also know how many times a purchased track (iTunes, CD, etc) is played over its lifetime, on av

I think that, in order to understand ‘spins’ on Pandora, we must also know how many times a purchased track (iTunes, CD, etc) is played over its lifetime, on average. In my iTunes library, I can see how many times I’ve played a song. There are some that I’ve played hundreds of times, and there are some that I’ve never played. For all those songs, I paid about the same amount. If I’d have to guess, I’d say, on average, I’ll play each track 10 times. That means I pay about $0.10 per ‘iTunes spin’, of which more than 60% goes to the creators. Compare that to a Pandora spin, which they say pays $0.00137 (one-tenth of a cent).

quesera 13y ago
Well, it seems proper to me that there's a high premium on explicitly chosen products vs algorithmically-recommended ones. Pandora lets you pick an artist but not a specific song, and it's rare for any artist's entire output to be in their library. But sometimes I wish there was a way to reward artists with long standing personal value to me. The $15.99 CD I purchased in 1987 doesn't feel like adequate tribute for the thousands of times I've chosen to listen to the songs. It might balance out (from the consumer perspective) with all the crap I've bought and listened to once only -- but in many ways that is all the more galling.
pstuart 13y ago
Apples and oranges. Nice try.
- Samuel_Michon 13y ago
  Why? I understand that Pandora wants to be compared to terrestrial radio, I just don’t buy into it, as users can manipulate the stations to their liking. If you have a Pandora subscription, why would you still buy CDs or digital tracks? Pandora costs $36 per year for unlimited streaming; I currently spend way more to purchase a few dozens tracks per year.
  - thaumasiotes 13y ago
    > If you have a Pandora subscription, why would you still buy CDs or digital tracks? This question might make sense for Spotify (disclaimer: I have never used Spotify, and don't really know how it works), but it makes no sense for Pandora. You'd buy the tracks so you can listen to them on demand, more than twice a day. Maybe even twice in a row! I have a pandora channel on which one song that I particularly like rarely plays, even though it's thumbed up. I'd be happy to buy the track, except it's only available through iTunes.
  - dubcanada 13y ago
    Good question... why did you buy your cd? Why not just signup for Pandora? I really fail to see your logic? Buying a CD (which is a dying industry, which can be seen by the number of CD selling companies going out of business) has nothing to do with pandora. Pandora is an internet radio, end of story. It streams music over the internet, your radio streams music over the fm/am waves. Buying a CD is more expensive, because it's suppose to become yours, while you may personally listen to it 10 times, that is not a problem for the CD seller. You paid $20 to buy their songs, you can listen to those songs millions of times over 15 years and play them in front of your friends, or at a house party. Or you can listen to it 1 time. But you don't pay for the number of plays, because it could and can be unlimited. You could play that CD 24/7 for 10 years if you want. That is what you are paying for. Oh and if you think artists get 60% you should go talk to one. While some indie artists may get that. Anyone who sells a fairly nice amount of CD's makes next to nothing on CD sales, some even lose money. I'm not sure how accurate it is but http://www.theroot.com/views/how-much-do-you-musicians-really-make?GT1=38002 http://www.theroot.com/views/how-much-do-you-musicians-reall... is an example (there are probably more out there)
    - Samuel_Michon 13y ago
      > You paid $20 to buy their songs, you can listen to those songs millions of times What you’re describing is a gym membership. Sure, some members spend all day every day at the gym. In reality, most members come in rarely if at all. If most consumers are like me, they don’t play an album millions of times. > Oh and if you think artists get 60% you should go talk to one. While some indie artists may get that. Anyone who sells a fairly nice amount of CD's makes next to nothing on CD sales, some even lose money. I didn’t say 60% of CD sales go to artists. I said more than 60% of iTunes music sales go to creators (which includes the label, writer, performer, etc.) I also didn’t say I buy a lot of CDs. I only buy an album on CD if it’s not available of iTunes. When I buy a CD directly from an unsigned artist, it’s mostly profit for them, but in most other cases, the performing artist makes under a buck for something I paid $20 for.
akavi 13y ago
This is not an entirely accurate analogy. You explicitly chose each of the songs you've purchased on iTunes. In contrast, song 'spins' on Pandora is not necessarily one you would've sought out on your own, nor chosen to pay money for given the option. I think it's only reasonable that the incidental-ish nature of these spins should be valued less than the intentive ones of your iTunes purchases, and yes, I think being valued several order of magnitude less is reasonable.
- Samuel_Michon 13y ago
  I see what you mean, and as for traditional radio, I agree. However, Pandora’s value lies in the fact that it learns your taste in music. Supposedly, after a while it shouldn’t play music you would hate. If Pandora’s service would provide several orders of magnitude less value than handpicked purchased tracks, then no-one would pay for it.
  - socillion 13y ago
    I used Pandora continuously for several years, and I think it's fundamental value proposition is that it lets you discover new music. If you know what you want to listen to already, Pandora is an extraordinarily poor option because it gives you little latitude to listen to those specific tracks. I see it as entirely incomparable to purchasing an indefinite license to play a song or album. In many ways it is identical to radio, including solving the same problem - "give me a kind of music that I can enjoy". Instead of listening to something vague and poorly defined like a Metal channel on the radio, you're listening to a genre as defined by Pandora's much more nuanced song trait maps. Like radio, the service limits the amount that a single artist is played - you're unlikely to hear more than 1-3 songs by the same artist. You also have no ability to rewind and listen again. As a discovery tool like radio, Pandora also has positive externalities that are not demonstrated by simple royalty payments. Ff you enjoy an artist enough, you're likely to purchase their music (or just find it on Youtube) either because you want to hear more of their music, or simply because you want direct control over when you listen to that song.
smokinn 13y ago
60% of that most certainly does not go to the creators. The creators only get a small fraction of that and only after they've repaid their studios' various costs. A lot of the studios' costs come entirely out of their artist's royalties. Here's Courtney Love famously explaining how an album can gross 11 million dollars, the studio makes 6.6 million profit and the artist never sees a penny: http://www.salon.com/2000/06/14/love_7/ http://www.salon.com/2000/06/14/love_7/
- k-mcgrady 13y ago
  It's not possible to say what goes to who as it's different for everyone. An independent artist will get 60-70%.
- Samuel_Michon 13y ago
  Studios are creators, just like publishers are integral to the creation of a book. Why else do so many hiphop and pop acts prominently mention their producers? Besides managing the production process, labels are also investment companies, who take all the risks. How much did Courtney Love pay upfront to get the album made and the tour organized? Also, hundreds of thousands of independent musicians offer their music directly through iTunes, or via a cheap intermediary like CD Baby.
sitharus 13y ago
Last year I spent NZ$40 on ordering an album from an artist who isn't well known, but I found on Pandora. Pandora is radio, and radio is marketing. Much like the FM radio I listen to the artists don't make much money, but I'll hear artists I like who I wouldn't have spent $40 on before.
pisarzp 13y ago
I think you couldn't be more wrong. First of all you compare value that YOU pay ($1 per song) on iTunes to what CREATOR is paid for on Pandora. Second of all, Pandora is like radio, not like iTunes. You cannot select song, you have to listen to the ads. The utility of the song on iTunes or CD is very different to the song listened on Pandora. Thirdly, your assumptions are based on no data and I doubt match reality. The only fair comparison to Pandora is terrestrial radio, and based on all information we have Pandora pays MORE per spin then average radio station.
- Samuel_Michon 13y ago
  > you compare value that YOU pay ($1 per song) on iTunes to what CREATOR is paid for on Pandora. No, I compared my spending habits on iTunes to Pandora’s subscription costs, and I compared what creators get from iTunes for a track to what Pandora pays creators for a ‘spin’.
  - pisarzp 13y ago
    It still doesn't make your arguments valid. You yourself are saying that you are comparing 'tracks' vs spins. Like I said, the UTILITY of both is very different. CD/iTunes track you can copy to other devices, listen offline. Heck, you can even sell your CD. On Pandora you can't even select the song you want to listen to. Because of the fact that you are forced to listen to some songs, average value of song has to be lower. On top of that you get lower quality. You have to listen to ads. Furthermore, your spending habits are representable only for you and I still believe that you can't just assume that average person plays track they bought only 10 times over the lifetime. Finally, you cannot forget of all external effects of 'discovery service' that Pandora is. Pandora not only is not replacing iTunes and other ways of purchasing the music, but is helping to increase the sales by exposing you to new artists you would never hear or normal radio.
    - Samuel_Michon 13y ago
      > you can't just assume that average person plays track they bought only 10 times over the lifetime. I don’t, I just shared my experience. But let’s say my use is atypical and most consumers listen to a purchased track 1000 times. Then the track’s creators still receive more money per spin from iTunes than from Pandora. > you cannot forget of all external effects of 'discovery service' that Pandora is. Pandora not only is not replacing iTunes and other ways of purchasing the music, but is helping to increase the sales by exposing you to new artists you would never hear or normal radio. I believe most of that is true. Let’s hope it gets people to buy more music, not less. I’m not against Pandora as a service, I think it combines some of the greatest strengths of computers and the Internet. The blogpost was about how they compensate artists, which is what all my comments have been about.
edsm 13y ago
You must not use iTunes much... my average is well over 100 and those are songs I've only owned for two years, not my entire life.
- Samuel_Michon 13y ago
  I suspect your music library isn’t as large as mine. I’d be old and gray by the time all my songs had been played 100 times.
jasonlotito 13y ago
Unfortunately, you ignore other critical data, such as being able to bring that music with you, and the quality of the music being played. Pandora music requires a subscription. iTunes music does not. You can take the iTunes music with you. Pandora you cannot. iTunes music can be listend to outside the US. Pandora music cannot. Finally, Pandora will pay whether you actually listen to the music or not. Whether you choose the music or not. You receive substantially less with Pandora, as a customer. You effectively receive the same thing you'd get from Radio. So, this means you have to look at why people buy music rather than simply listen to it on the radio or something like Pandora or Spotify. I buy music because I want to own that music, and listen to it. I want the higher quality. The majority (let's say 99%") of the purchase price is going towards the intent of purchasing it, and owning it to listen to it whenever I want. Using your equally made up numbers and assumptions, that would equate to $0.01 of every $1 for a song going toward the value of listening. Using your 10 play rule, that's $0.001 per play, or less than pandora. Now, you might disagree with my math, but hey, if you can't invent numbers, so can I (and technically speaking, mine is far more correct than yours). More importantly, you can assert this is founded on logic by asking yourself: Would you pay $1.00 for a song you could only ever listen to 10 times? If the answer to that is no, then your argument doesn't hold water.

quesera 13y ago

Well, it seems proper to me that there's a high premium on explicitly chosen products vs algorithmically-recommended ones. Pandora lets you pick an artist but not a specific song, and it's rare for any artist's entire output to be in their library. But sometimes I wish there was a way to reward artists with long standing personal value to me. The $15.99 CD I purchased in 1987 doesn't feel like adequate tribute for the thousands of times I've chosen to listen to the songs. It might balance out (from the consumer perspective) with all the crap I've bought and listened to once only -- but in many ways that is all the more galling.

pstuart 13y ago

Apples and oranges. Nice try.

Samuel_Michon 13y ago
Why? I understand that Pandora wants to be compared to terrestrial radio, I just don’t buy into it, as users can manipulate the stations to their liking. If you have a Pandora subscription, why would you still buy CDs or digital tracks? Pandora costs $36 per year for unlimited streaming; I currently spend way more to purchase a few dozens tracks per year.
- thaumasiotes 13y ago
  > If you have a Pandora subscription, why would you still buy CDs or digital tracks? This question might make sense for Spotify (disclaimer: I have never used Spotify, and don't really know how it works), but it makes no sense for Pandora. You'd buy the tracks so you can listen to them on demand, more than twice a day. Maybe even twice in a row! I have a pandora channel on which one song that I particularly like rarely plays, even though it's thumbed up. I'd be happy to buy the track, except it's only available through iTunes.
- dubcanada 13y ago
  Good question... why did you buy your cd? Why not just signup for Pandora? I really fail to see your logic? Buying a CD (which is a dying industry, which can be seen by the number of CD selling companies going out of business) has nothing to do with pandora. Pandora is an internet radio, end of story. It streams music over the internet, your radio streams music over the fm/am waves. Buying a CD is more expensive, because it's suppose to become yours, while you may personally listen to it 10 times, that is not a problem for the CD seller. You paid $20 to buy their songs, you can listen to those songs millions of times over 15 years and play them in front of your friends, or at a house party. Or you can listen to it 1 time. But you don't pay for the number of plays, because it could and can be unlimited. You could play that CD 24/7 for 10 years if you want. That is what you are paying for. Oh and if you think artists get 60% you should go talk to one. While some indie artists may get that. Anyone who sells a fairly nice amount of CD's makes next to nothing on CD sales, some even lose money. I'm not sure how accurate it is but http://www.theroot.com/views/how-much-do-you-musicians-really-make?GT1=38002 http://www.theroot.com/views/how-much-do-you-musicians-reall... is an example (there are probably more out there)
  - Samuel_Michon 13y ago
    > You paid $20 to buy their songs, you can listen to those songs millions of times What you’re describing is a gym membership. Sure, some members spend all day every day at the gym. In reality, most members come in rarely if at all. If most consumers are like me, they don’t play an album millions of times. > Oh and if you think artists get 60% you should go talk to one. While some indie artists may get that. Anyone who sells a fairly nice amount of CD's makes next to nothing on CD sales, some even lose money. I didn’t say 60% of CD sales go to artists. I said more than 60% of iTunes music sales go to creators (which includes the label, writer, performer, etc.) I also didn’t say I buy a lot of CDs. I only buy an album on CD if it’s not available of iTunes. When I buy a CD directly from an unsigned artist, it’s mostly profit for them, but in most other cases, the performing artist makes under a buck for something I paid $20 for.

akavi 13y ago

This is not an entirely accurate analogy. You explicitly chose each of the songs you've purchased on iTunes. In contrast, song 'spins' on Pandora is not necessarily one you would've sought out on your own, nor chosen to pay money for given the option. I think it's only reasonable that the incidental-ish nature of these spins should be valued less than the intentive ones of your iTunes purchases, and yes, I think being valued several order of magnitude less is reasonable.

Samuel_Michon 13y ago
I see what you mean, and as for traditional radio, I agree. However, Pandora’s value lies in the fact that it learns your taste in music. Supposedly, after a while it shouldn’t play music you would hate. If Pandora’s service would provide several orders of magnitude less value than handpicked purchased tracks, then no-one would pay for it.
- socillion 13y ago
  I used Pandora continuously for several years, and I think it's fundamental value proposition is that it lets you discover new music. If you know what you want to listen to already, Pandora is an extraordinarily poor option because it gives you little latitude to listen to those specific tracks. I see it as entirely incomparable to purchasing an indefinite license to play a song or album. In many ways it is identical to radio, including solving the same problem - "give me a kind of music that I can enjoy". Instead of listening to something vague and poorly defined like a Metal channel on the radio, you're listening to a genre as defined by Pandora's much more nuanced song trait maps. Like radio, the service limits the amount that a single artist is played - you're unlikely to hear more than 1-3 songs by the same artist. You also have no ability to rewind and listen again. As a discovery tool like radio, Pandora also has positive externalities that are not demonstrated by simple royalty payments. Ff you enjoy an artist enough, you're likely to purchase their music (or just find it on Youtube) either because you want to hear more of their music, or simply because you want direct control over when you listen to that song.

smokinn 13y ago

60% of that most certainly does not go to the creators. The creators only get a small fraction of that and only after they've repaid their studios' various costs. A lot of the studios' costs come entirely out of their artist's royalties. Here's Courtney Love famously explaining how an album can gross 11 million dollars, the studio makes 6.6 million profit and the artist never sees a penny: http://www.salon.com/2000/06/14/love_7/ http://www.salon.com/2000/06/14/love_7/

k-mcgrady 13y ago
It's not possible to say what goes to who as it's different for everyone. An independent artist will get 60-70%.
Samuel_Michon 13y ago
Studios are creators, just like publishers are integral to the creation of a book. Why else do so many hiphop and pop acts prominently mention their producers? Besides managing the production process, labels are also investment companies, who take all the risks. How much did Courtney Love pay upfront to get the album made and the tour organized? Also, hundreds of thousands of independent musicians offer their music directly through iTunes, or via a cheap intermediary like CD Baby.

sitharus 13y ago

Last year I spent NZ$40 on ordering an album from an artist who isn't well known, but I found on Pandora. Pandora is radio, and radio is marketing. Much like the FM radio I listen to the artists don't make much money, but I'll hear artists I like who I wouldn't have spent $40 on before.

pisarzp 13y ago

I think you couldn't be more wrong. First of all you compare value that YOU pay ($1 per song) on iTunes to what CREATOR is paid for on Pandora. Second of all, Pandora is like radio, not like iTunes. You cannot select song, you have to listen to the ads. The utility of the song on iTunes or CD is very different to the song listened on Pandora. Thirdly, your assumptions are based on no data and I doubt match reality. The only fair comparison to Pandora is terrestrial radio, and based on all information we have Pandora pays MORE per spin then average radio station.

Samuel_Michon 13y ago
> you compare value that YOU pay ($1 per song) on iTunes to what CREATOR is paid for on Pandora. No, I compared my spending habits on iTunes to Pandora’s subscription costs, and I compared what creators get from iTunes for a track to what Pandora pays creators for a ‘spin’.
- pisarzp 13y ago
  It still doesn't make your arguments valid. You yourself are saying that you are comparing 'tracks' vs spins. Like I said, the UTILITY of both is very different. CD/iTunes track you can copy to other devices, listen offline. Heck, you can even sell your CD. On Pandora you can't even select the song you want to listen to. Because of the fact that you are forced to listen to some songs, average value of song has to be lower. On top of that you get lower quality. You have to listen to ads. Furthermore, your spending habits are representable only for you and I still believe that you can't just assume that average person plays track they bought only 10 times over the lifetime. Finally, you cannot forget of all external effects of 'discovery service' that Pandora is. Pandora not only is not replacing iTunes and other ways of purchasing the music, but is helping to increase the sales by exposing you to new artists you would never hear or normal radio.
  - Samuel_Michon 13y ago
    > you can't just assume that average person plays track they bought only 10 times over the lifetime. I don’t, I just shared my experience. But let’s say my use is atypical and most consumers listen to a purchased track 1000 times. Then the track’s creators still receive more money per spin from iTunes than from Pandora. > you cannot forget of all external effects of 'discovery service' that Pandora is. Pandora not only is not replacing iTunes and other ways of purchasing the music, but is helping to increase the sales by exposing you to new artists you would never hear or normal radio. I believe most of that is true. Let’s hope it gets people to buy more music, not less. I’m not against Pandora as a service, I think it combines some of the greatest strengths of computers and the Internet. The blogpost was about how they compensate artists, which is what all my comments have been about.

edsm 13y ago

You must not use iTunes much... my average is well over 100 and those are songs I've only owned for two years, not my entire life.

Samuel_Michon 13y ago
I suspect your music library isn’t as large as mine. I’d be old and gray by the time all my songs had been played 100 times.

jasonlotito 13y ago

Unfortunately, you ignore other critical data, such as being able to bring that music with you, and the quality of the music being played. Pandora music requires a subscription. iTunes music does not. You can take the iTunes music with you. Pandora you cannot. iTunes music can be listend to outside the US. Pandora music cannot. Finally, Pandora will pay whether you actually listen to the music or not. Whether you choose the music or not. You receive substantially less with Pandora, as a customer. You effectively receive the same thing you'd get from Radio. So, this means you have to look at why people buy music rather than simply listen to it on the radio or something like Pandora or Spotify. I buy music because I want to own that music, and listen to it. I want the higher quality. The majority (let's say 99%") of the purchase price is going towards the intent of purchasing it, and owning it to listen to it whenever I want. Using your equally made up numbers and assumptions, that would equate to $0.01 of every $1 for a song going toward the value of listening. Using your 10 play rule, that's $0.001 per play, or less than pandora. Now, you might disagree with my math, but hey, if you can't invent numbers, so can I (and technically speaking, mine is far more correct than yours). More importantly, you can assert this is founded on logic by asking yourself: Would you pay $1.00 for a song you could only ever listen to 10 times? If the answer to that is no, then your argument doesn't hold water.