Pandora Is Out of Tune with Songwriters

Author is conveniently neglecting to mention how much Pandora typically pays out for 1 million plays. Just because the songwriter gets only $90 does not mean that is all Pandora pays out.

If I recall with the last musician who made a similar complaint about a million plays, Pandora actually paid out in total royalties of around $1,400 for a million plays. That means most of the money is going to recording companies (if the songwriter only gets $90 out of $1400).

Now if I were a songwriter, two possible approaches to increase my payout would be either... 1.fight for Pandora to double what they pay out and get $180 or 2. I could fight to get say 50% of what Pandora already pays out and get $700. Pandora would also go out of business in the first scenario as they already pay over half of their revenue to royalties. Second scenario sounds a lot better to me. It's also more sustainable as a bankrupt company doesn't pay out anything.

So why don't these songwriters do what would net them far more money?

I'm actually a bit surprised Pandora is still doing well considering the rise of streaming services like rdio which implemented pandora-like features years ago. And they've implemented them better, I'd argue.