4 ms·

Responding as I read: Yep, Pandora is pretty cool, and the genome projects is really cool, I'm looking forward to finding out what it says about my own songs,

Responding as I read: Yep, Pandora is pretty cool, and the genome projects is really cool, I'm looking forward to finding out what it says about my own songs, and I'm hopeful that my songs will be recommended to people who will have a real affinity to the songs. I personally like Pandora (as a concept) much more than Spotify, because in Pandora if they want to hear my music again, they have to actually go find the cd and buy it. In Spotify, I'm basically screwed. Onward... to paraphrase, "We don't want to cut royalties by 85%, we want to GROW total payments to artists!" is a bunch of doublespeak. Growing total payments is not the opposite of cutting royalties. He could have every intention of "growing the pie" to make up for the smaller pie slice, but if his starry-eyed intentions to grow the pie don't pan out, it still means a cut for the artists. Guess what, a really great way to "grow total payments" is increase the pie while keeping the pie slices the same, or increasing them. Purely as an aside, performance royalties confuse me. I paid between $50 and $300 to my session musicians on my EP and considered it work-for-hire. I'm assuming that means I don't have register them as session musicians at soundscan, but I really have no freaking clue. I don't even know how to get hold of half those musicians now. Anyway, organizations like pandora like to confuse discussions by bringing in performance royalties - for instance, an artist might have a complaint that is specifically limited to the inequity of the songwriter royalties. Responding with "you are forgetting about the performance royalties!" is completely irrelevant. The law is that digital radio pays performance royalties (through soundscan) in addition to songwriter royalties, and (US) radio only pays songwriter royalties. That's not the artists' fault! If an artist has a beef about songwriter royalties, hitting them over the head about how unfair it is that they also have to pay performance royalties is intellectually dishonest.

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
jmduke 13y ago
I personally like Pandora (as a concept) much more than Spotify, because in Pandora if they want to hear my music again, they have to actually go find the cd and buy it. In Spotify, I'm basically screwed. I think Pandora needs to work on their point of sale here. I buy a lot of music, but if I like a song Pandora I'm more inclined to prop it open on a tab on Youtube than I am to go through the hassle of opening iTunes to download/purchase it. Currently, the quickest route is via Amazon MP3, but even that isn't perfect (especially because most of the stuff I'm inclined to purchase isn't on Amazon/iTunes.) I guess what I'm trying to say is that one-click purchasing on Pandora would be wonderful.
- alwaysinshade 13y ago
  > I'm more inclined to prop it open on a tab on Youtube than I am to go through the hassle of opening iTunes Perhaps the issue is one of perceived value to the end user. When I hear a song that I love, I have to own it. If I hear something on Spotify I'm off to the iTunes store to buy it. If I hear it in a shop or at a party, I Shazam it and I'm off to the iTunes store. If it's not on the iTunes store, I look for a store that has it. If it's not available on any store (this happens frequently - I listen to a lot of underground music) I check on Soundcloud. If it's not on Soundcloud then I'm off to Youtube and favorite it so that I can look for it again at a later date. My music collection used to be 100% pirated, but when I lost my collection (and backups!) I realised how much good music meant to me. It's worth more than most of my possessions. The issue for many is perceived value - I cannot fathom how someone would happily pay for a beer or some other quick buzz but not for a song that will bring them joy for the rest of their lives.
Guvante 13y ago
Watch out, you are going into the realm of fixed pies. No one benefits when you make it a zero sum game. Pandora is saying they are trying to get more royalties for artists, and they are truthful in saying that. If they do some growth to get there, does that hurt artists in anyway? > unfair it is that they also have to pay performance royalties All the talk of performance royalties is about fairness to artists from what I have read, not complaining about expenses, but saying Pandora actually considers the performer.
- tunesmith 13y ago
  Pandora says they are trying to get more royalty revenue to the artist, but only by saying they want to make massively more revenue overall. Well, so does everyone else. The line about "sure, you get a smaller slice, but we want to make the whole pie bigger!" has been said by a lot of shysters in the past. Pandora wants to pay a lower royalty RATE. And, Pandora paying performer royalty is not about fairness from Pandora's perspective, so you can't really say they are considering the performer any more than I am considering a random stranger on the street by not punching him. They're required to pay performance royalties by law.
  - delinka 13y ago
    "...they want to make massively more revenue overall." Well every company wants more revenue. But I don't believe that's the goal here. I believe they avoid saying that they'd love to cut out the middlemen between Pandora and the artist. How much of those royalty payments are sucked up by licensing agencies? Remove that amount from the equation and now artists can get a bigger paycheck and Pandora can pay less overall.
delinka 13y ago
I read his "...grow total payments to artists" as saying "We'd really love to cut out these leeching industry licensing incumbent middlemen and pay you directly." In other words, Pandora can indeed reduce their payout and provide more money to artists by changing the size of the pie slices: eliminate the RIAA, ASCAP, BMI, etc slices.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

jmduke 13y ago

I personally like Pandora (as a concept) much more than Spotify, because in Pandora if they want to hear my music again, they have to actually go find the cd and buy it. In Spotify, I'm basically screwed. I think Pandora needs to work on their point of sale here. I buy a lot of music, but if I like a song Pandora I'm more inclined to prop it open on a tab on Youtube than I am to go through the hassle of opening iTunes to download/purchase it. Currently, the quickest route is via Amazon MP3, but even that isn't perfect (especially because most of the stuff I'm inclined to purchase isn't on Amazon/iTunes.) I guess what I'm trying to say is that one-click purchasing on Pandora would be wonderful.

alwaysinshade 13y ago
> I'm more inclined to prop it open on a tab on Youtube than I am to go through the hassle of opening iTunes Perhaps the issue is one of perceived value to the end user. When I hear a song that I love, I have to own it. If I hear something on Spotify I'm off to the iTunes store to buy it. If I hear it in a shop or at a party, I Shazam it and I'm off to the iTunes store. If it's not on the iTunes store, I look for a store that has it. If it's not available on any store (this happens frequently - I listen to a lot of underground music) I check on Soundcloud. If it's not on Soundcloud then I'm off to Youtube and favorite it so that I can look for it again at a later date. My music collection used to be 100% pirated, but when I lost my collection (and backups!) I realised how much good music meant to me. It's worth more than most of my possessions. The issue for many is perceived value - I cannot fathom how someone would happily pay for a beer or some other quick buzz but not for a song that will bring them joy for the rest of their lives.

Guvante 13y ago

Watch out, you are going into the realm of fixed pies. No one benefits when you make it a zero sum game. Pandora is saying they are trying to get more royalties for artists, and they are truthful in saying that. If they do some growth to get there, does that hurt artists in anyway? > unfair it is that they also have to pay performance royalties All the talk of performance royalties is about fairness to artists from what I have read, not complaining about expenses, but saying Pandora actually considers the performer.

tunesmith 13y ago
Pandora says they are trying to get more royalty revenue to the artist, but only by saying they want to make massively more revenue overall. Well, so does everyone else. The line about "sure, you get a smaller slice, but we want to make the whole pie bigger!" has been said by a lot of shysters in the past. Pandora wants to pay a lower royalty RATE. And, Pandora paying performer royalty is not about fairness from Pandora's perspective, so you can't really say they are considering the performer any more than I am considering a random stranger on the street by not punching him. They're required to pay performance royalties by law.
- delinka 13y ago
  "...they want to make massively more revenue overall." Well every company wants more revenue. But I don't believe that's the goal here. I believe they avoid saying that they'd love to cut out the middlemen between Pandora and the artist. How much of those royalty payments are sucked up by licensing agencies? Remove that amount from the equation and now artists can get a bigger paycheck and Pandora can pay less overall.

delinka 13y ago

I read his "...grow total payments to artists" as saying "We'd really love to cut out these leeching industry licensing incumbent middlemen and pay you directly." In other words, Pandora can indeed reduce their payout and provide more money to artists by changing the size of the pie slices: eliminate the RIAA, ASCAP, BMI, etc slices.