Pandora now pushing radio to pay for music | Hacker News Reader

Pandora now pushing radio to pay for music

arstechnica.com

18 pointssoundsop12 comments

While I sympathize with the artists (not the labels), I also sympathize with the broadcasters. I have a few friends in the music broadcasting business, and I know how hard they struggle to stay afloat. They might be able to make small payments per song, but they make very little on advertising (from what I've heard, I can't actually quote numbers).

They might be able to deal with small royalty fees, but anything drastic would bring down nearly all small stations.

Radio stations don't get to play copyrighted music for free. Traditional radio stations have to pay license fees that go to the copyright holder of the songs (writers and composers or whoever has acquired those rights), but not performers. Companies like ASCAP administer this for them.

http://www.ascap.com/licensing/radio/radiofaq.html

The article is wrong there. But I was under the impression they pay a lot less than internet radio, based on what I've read surrounding this case.

I would like to get pandora through my car stereo, as well as other Internet music services. The set up/radio should look no different then what is in cars now. Just let me hit a dial and it takes me to my pandora, last.fm and etc music services and to my account.

You can connect and iPhone to your car stereo and enjoy Pandora now, but that is not as intuitive and safe as how car stereos have been for decades.

Even in densely-populated European countries, 3G network coverage isn't anywhere near good enough to allow this sort of thing.

FM (and DAB) radio will be around for a very long time - they're simply the most efficient way of delivering music and radio programming to large numbers of people across a wide area.

It works for you now because about three people and a dog are doing it, but if even a fraction of the audience of an average regional FM radio station started to stream their personal Pandora / Last.fm accounts or listen to on-demand programming over the 3G network instead, it would very quickly reach capacity.

A large number of people can all use their cellphones at the same time in a fairly small area. High quality personal radio might take more bandwidth, but it's one directional and most cell towers cover a small area. Honestly, I don't think it would be much of an issue to build that much extra infrastructure.

Well Verizon and AT&T now own the spectrum that was once used for analog TV. LTE should be able to sustain and provide the level of bandwidth needed for this.

A Clear channel or iBiquity (HD radio which is boring and needs a Pandora to jump start it) could be potential buyers of Pandora. I would say those who invested are looking at such entities as potential buyers. Also, another potential reason why Pandora is jumping onto RIAA ship saying clear channel should pay the same rates.

It may not be feasible now with 3G, but 4G and other future wireless options will be.

Though the per-song cost for Pandora is very hard on their business model, is their support of the same for traditional radio anything but hypocritical?

If Pandora has to pay per song, why shouldn't traditional radio?

The hypocrisy is on the part of the music industry, not Pandora.

Oh, I'm sure the music industry loves that U.S. terrestrial radio doesn't pay performance fees. I bet they also love it when we do their promotion for them by sharing iTunes playlists with our dorm/neighborhood/company.

Look, I get that the internet is TEH FUTURE and all the old distribution channels are dumb and old. I get it. But there are reasons for why things are the way they are. And to say that the record labels are in cahoots with the radio stations is insane. The record labels hate that, by an accident of history, U.S. terrestrial radio doesn't pay performance fees (they do pay mechanical royalties to songwriters). More: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=698651

Yes, record labels hate the fact that they're tethered to Clear Channel in so many ways (not only do they own most of the major radio stations, mind you, they also own most of the large concert venues and billboards). I've been sort of flabbergasted that they haven't been more behind internet radio and the like - it's a way for them to get out from under the thumb of Clear Channel.

I don't think "I pay too much in royalty fees" and "everyone should pay equal royalty fees" are necessarily opposing positions.

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