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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 fo

by steve19 13y 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 13y 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 13y 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 13y 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 13y 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 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 13y ago
Music companies don't see Spotify as competing with purchases, they see it as competing with "free" (aka, piracy)
tfigueroa 13y 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".
fourstar 13y 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).
- ProAm 13y 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.
  - fourstar 13y ago
    It's a subset of 100% ;) http://dailycaller.com/2013/12/03/nielsen-more-than-90-percent-of-americans-listen-to-radio-each-week/ http://dailycaller.com/2013/12/03/nielsen-more-than-90-perce...
    - ProAm 13y ago
      Oh I totally misread your comment. I thought it was 90% each day, not each week. It still seems high to me, I bet there are more than 10% that are too young/old/sick to even use a radio.
      - mathattack 13y ago
        Seems very high to me too but I don't own a car and I have a non-radio alarm. I wonder if they count things like office visits or internet streamed radio. I'd say we are outliers but many don't own cars.
    - pjtr 13y ago
      Quoted from that report: "AM/FM RADIO METHODOLOGY: Audience estimates for 48 large markets are based on a panel of people who carry a portable device called PPM that passively detects exposure to content that contains inaudible codes embedded within the program content. Audience estimates from the balance of markets and counties in the US are based on surveys of people who record their listening in a written diary for a week. The estimates in this report are based on RADAR and the National Regional Database. RADAR reports national network radio ratings covering the US using both PPM and Diary measurement and it is based on a rolling one-year average of nearly 400,000 respondents aged 12+ per year. The National Regional Database reports national and regional radio ratings for individual radio stations using both PPM and Diary measurement. It is published twice a year and the annual sample is more than 600,000 respondents aged 12+. NOTES: Listening to HD radio broadcasts, Internet streams of AM/FM radio stations and Satellite Radio is included the Persons Using Radio estimates in this report where the tuning meets our reporting and crediting requirements. Monthly Time Spent Listening is derived by multiplying the weekly time spent listening estimate by 4.33 (the average number of weeks in a calendar month)." So 90% of people in a panel with a PPM (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portable_People_Meter http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portable_People_Meter)

by steve19 13y ago

bediger4000 13y 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 13y 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 13y 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 13y 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 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 13y ago

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

tfigueroa 13y 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".

fourstar 13y 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).

ProAm 13y 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.
- fourstar 13y ago
  It's a subset of 100% ;) http://dailycaller.com/2013/12/03/nielsen-more-than-90-percent-of-americans-listen-to-radio-each-week/ http://dailycaller.com/2013/12/03/nielsen-more-than-90-perce...
  - ProAm 13y ago
    Oh I totally misread your comment. I thought it was 90% each day, not each week. It still seems high to me, I bet there are more than 10% that are too young/old/sick to even use a radio.
    - mathattack 13y ago
      Seems very high to me too but I don't own a car and I have a non-radio alarm. I wonder if they count things like office visits or internet streamed radio. I'd say we are outliers but many don't own cars.
  - pjtr 13y ago
    Quoted from that report: "AM/FM RADIO METHODOLOGY: Audience estimates for 48 large markets are based on a panel of people who carry a portable device called PPM that passively detects exposure to content that contains inaudible codes embedded within the program content. Audience estimates from the balance of markets and counties in the US are based on surveys of people who record their listening in a written diary for a week. The estimates in this report are based on RADAR and the National Regional Database. RADAR reports national network radio ratings covering the US using both PPM and Diary measurement and it is based on a rolling one-year average of nearly 400,000 respondents aged 12+ per year. The National Regional Database reports national and regional radio ratings for individual radio stations using both PPM and Diary measurement. It is published twice a year and the annual sample is more than 600,000 respondents aged 12+. NOTES: Listening to HD radio broadcasts, Internet streams of AM/FM radio stations and Satellite Radio is included the Persons Using Radio estimates in this report where the tuning meets our reporting and crediting requirements. Monthly Time Spent Listening is derived by multiplying the weekly time spent listening estimate by 4.33 (the average number of weeks in a calendar month)." So 90% of people in a panel with a PPM (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portable_People_Meter http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portable_People_Meter)