Hacker News Reader

If they wanted, could Pandora avoid interacting with record companies completely? That is, only buy music direct from artists? And if they did this, could they then just negotiate whatever deals they wanted with the artists?

I am not implying that this would be economically feasible for them, just curious if there is any reason it absolutely couldn't be done

View on HN

The problem is that most artists that the majority of people want to listen to have already signed exclusive contracts with one of the record labels. And they did that because of the initial value of promotion by the record label (it's almost impossible to get radio airplay without a record label).

They signed with a label because of the advance first and foremost.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com