It has been a long, strange trip, but Internet Radio (specifically Pandora) has finally been pulled from the jaws of oblivion, and will live to fight another day.
For the past two years, Pandora and other Internet Radio sites have been on the brink of destruction due to a campaign by SoundExchange to hike streaming fees to exceedingly high levels. Since the crusade first began, there have been numerous flirtations with a solution, but nothing substantial until now.
The meat of the deal centers on a compromise by SoundExchange to reduce the per-song-per-listener rates by 40-50%. In exchange, Pandora pay either 25% of its total US revenue, or the per-song-per-listener fee, depending on which is higher. As a result, Pandora will be implementing a 40-hour per month cap on users of its free subscription service (though supposedly this will affect about 10% of all subscribers). Should you reach this cap, you’ll need to pay a $0.99 fee for unlimited listening for the remainder of the month. Users of Pandora’s paid subscription service, Pandora One, will be unaffected by this change.
It’s good to know that our favorite Internet streaming services will survive, and that the music industry is willing to make some compromises. What are your thoughts on the news? Let us know in the comments!
Comments
I think I'm part of that 10% of users effected, though I guess this is reasonable.
Reasonable? You listen to 40+ hours of music per month, and you guess it's reasonable to pay only $.99 for it? I'd say it's almost unreasonably cheap, like they should charge $2, and use the extra money to build up their service. Even $5/month would be reasonable for really heavy users.
hmmm, in comparison, I could continue listening to radio like we've been able to do forever (my lifetime at least) for NOTHING. Or I could stream one of thousands of online stations for, um, NOTHING.
Damn shame. i knew it was too good to last. i listen all day @ work and @ the gym
OK so what does this have to do with the Pre? Is Pandora releasing an app?
Palm pre already has a pandora app
Phew. Pandora is an amazing company. They have introduced me to countless new artists that I now love. My local radio stations all play the same 15 songs all day long. Long live Pandora Radio!!!
There was no "Campaign by SoundExchage." The rates were determined by a copyright panel that heard evidence from SoundExchange and the digital media trade group. Pandora did not even participate.
It is SoundExchange that is voluntarily offering the lower rate than what they were entitled to in the rate court.
The rates were set by the copyright panel at the request of SoundExchange. That is the "campaign" that was referred to in the article. The rates were substantially higher than terrestrial radio for no good reason. SoundExchange should be entitled to fair market value, but because we have a system laden with government interference, SoundExchange can get rates enacted by clueless bureaucrats that the market (e.g. companies like Pandora) cannot support.
The rates were higher than terrestrial radio because terrestrial pays ZERO. AM/FM corporate radio has an exemption which Pandora is now joining SoundExchange to end.
If you ask Pandora, they'll tell you that they're much better off with the current "government system" allowing them to use any track without permission of the copyright owner than the fair market system. Such as system would mean Pandora would have to negotiate with every record label (and pay a much higher rate).
It's good to remember that Pandora's business is based on using someone else's content. Playing copyrighted sound recordings is not an entitlement.
At no point did I suggest that Pandora was entitled to play music for free.
There is a crucial economics point that you're missing in assuming that a free market system would be more expensive that the current "government" solution. In a market system, price is determined by two factors: the cost of production and the ability of consumers to pay. A producer is free to charge what they wish, but if they charge too much they will price themselves out of the market. I could create a candy bar that I think is the greatest candy bar in the world. In a free market system, I could price the candy bar at $100, but no one would by it when they can buy a snickers for $1. I have to price the candy bar to reflect the consumer's ability (or willingness) to pay.
Two other points: 1) If "terrestrial radio pays ZERO" (which isn't true; radio stations pay ASCAP, BMI, etc. fees) why is the solution to raise rates on internet radio?
2) How does pricing the internet radio companies out of the market make them any money? Which is greater: 50% of $1,000 or 100% of $0? (Note: numbers randomly chosen to illustrate point.)
To your points: There are two copyrights in a sound recording, and ASCAP/BMI/SESAC only cover the musical composition (not the sound recordng, the performance). Pandora and other streamers pay for both copyrights, but the issue discussed in this article was only about SoundExchange, which collects for the sound recording. And yes, terrestrial has a full exemption on the sound recording. You may be getting an email from Pandora soon asking for your support in helping SoundExchange close this exemption.
What you are not understanding is that Pandora can use the free market system TODAY. They can avoid the "government rates" and negotiate with the labels. Why didn't they do that when they thought the CRB rates were set to high? Because they knew they were still worse off having to get permission from each label. And a label may very well price it too high to prevent Pandora from streaming (if they think it reduces sales). The compulsory license is a gift for services like Pandora--it allows them to use any recording without permission and without having to negotiate with each copyright owner. That SoundExchange voluntarily lowered its rates was yet another gift.
Lol Pandora already has an app. It has been on since launch. I personally think this is a decent compromise.
Ha ha
Wow totally blew that one. For some odd reason i had Slacker Radio in my head...
Hhm hope pandora will settle it's licensing constraints outside the US till the arrival of the Pre in europe. Would be a big setback if this app wouldn't be usable in europe.
An average of 1.5 hrs of Pandora a day? Guess thats cool
This seems like a stupid policy on the part of the record companies. Since I got my Palm Pre, I've downloaded many songs from Amazon simply because I heard the song on Pandora. Making it more costly to use Pandora will probably result in reduced downloads.
Wonder when this will go in effect?
$12 a year is still cheaper than satelite radio and so far the music has been better!
I would happily pay the $36 a year if it meant I could get 192kbps on my Pre as well. Does anyone know if it works that way?
Yeah that was the question I had. However, it looks like you are stuck at 64k streaming no matter what Pandora service you use. I don't remember where I heard this but I think it was the Precentral forums. I think the 192 is strictly through a desktop/laptop browser.
I subscribe to Pandora One and haven't noticed much of a quality difference when streaming from my Pre. There is still a lack of bass that leads me to believe it's still 64kbps.
I hope I'm wrong. I would love 192kbps in my car!
I can't tell for sure what bandwidth Pandora uses for stream, but it's certainly seems higher than 64k. While on Wi-Fi, and as long as you have the cell data "Higher Quality Audio" setting turned on in Pandora's preferences, it sounds like 128k stereo, which is right at the lower end of tolerable. You can go lower, but not with MP3 compression (which is what I assume they're using, though they shouldn't be).
When you have that setting turned off, God help you. To my ears they drop the quality to 32k. It's really terrible.
I poked around the Pandora FAQ once I got home (was blocked at work :P ) ... and I found this :
"Pandora Mobile and Pandora Devices do not currently support 192Kbps streams, although we're very interested in expanding High Quality audio options at some point in the future."
Dang...
There's a radio station in Detroit called "Doug FM" that has the slogan, "We play everything," and they have a broader assortment than I've been getting out of Pandora, which feels like me digging through my personal CD collection more than a means to discover music. Last week, they played Nena's "99 Red Balloons" only SIX SONGS after playing "99 Luftballons!" Commercial radio isn't that stupid! (They also played the original and live versions of Queen's "Under Pressure" within a two hour frame.)
What makes Pandora's cap and price tag reasonable is that it's plenty of time for casual listeners and if you don't go over the limit, you don't pay and even then the price tag is a quarter of what that Starbucks soy mocha latte set you back. It's better than a subscription because you aren't paying for it even if you aren't using it, like Sirius/XM (which also suck) do.
The irony of the copyright fees being a killer of web radio, it's not as if that money will actually go into the pockets of the writers and performers. No, it'll fund the Hookers & Blow® lifestyle of the record label weasels.
Those stations (like Jack FM here in the DC/Baltimore area) are just robo-stations set up to lower costs as much as possible. They got rid of actual DJs who know anything about music or bands and replaced it with the equivalent of a Winamp playlist. Ohh how cool and edgy! We play what we want! Well, to me it sounds like they just took the top hits of the past 30 years and hit shuffle.
At least Pandora lets me keep customizing things. Yeah, there are some issues but the other day I was in the mood for some reggae/dub music. I don't own a lot so I added some obvious stuff like Bob Marley, then started adding others like Lee Scratch Perry and Toots and the Maytals. As I went along I would add artists to the quickmix as they were played if I liked their sound. Before long I had a crazy good reggae/dub mix running for the rest of the day. The best part was we were out on a guy's roof deck eating crabs and had no stereo. I just plugged in my Pre and grabbed his computer speakers and we were good to go for hours.
Yeah, most commercial radio now is lifeless and flat. Even if they have a notable personality "spinning the records", it's prerecorded and recycled for weeks on end with no local or current events included. Know how you can tell when you're listening to a robostation? "It's half past the hour and I'm hoping you're having a good one". Meanwhile, MJ is dead and there is a tornado on the edge of your town. Bleck.
The email I got from Pandora yesterday specifically says "we are going to begin limiting listening to 40 hours per month on the web." It almost sounds like listening on Pandora apps/devices wouldn't be effected.
Been a happy Pandora user early 2006. Love the service and like others have mentioned, I've found a ton of new music via their algorithms.
The $36 fee isn't so bad, only $4.00 p/month and the inclusion of Pandora on the Pre is fantastic. Not sure if it's 192kbps on the Pre, but I have an option in the Pandora preferences for higher quality.
No matter though, in the car, through the sound system speakers...it sounds great.
I concur. Pandora through my car speakers sounds great! Not so much through my headphones however.
36/12 = 3.
Whoops, thanks Jeff!
Will Pandora tell you when you have reached your 40 hour limit?
Monkey in the room: Why not just sign up for 2 or 3 or 8 pandora accounts and login with a different one when you hit your 40 hours?
Wow! 99 cents for unlimited streaming media. I pay way more than that for my wife's xm radio. Time to get an auxillary jack put in the Pilot so we can go to Pandora in the car as well!
pandora in the car really is pretty great. especially if you have good EVDO coverage.
Does this mean they'll stop playing their ads?
I have to say to me pandora is not radio. It is like playing music from a playlist. I like to listen to real radio (any station that streams over the internet). I am thinking of going back to my centro for this reason.
I listened to pirate stations on my centro with kinoma every night at work with my stereo bluetooth. I paid for classic only to find out that kinoma does not work, and even if it did work It would not have access to bluetooth. boooo
I signed up for moodio streaming service which is supposed to be able stream any station to any phone as long as you input the stream url. Works fine but not on the Pre. Just one blank page ater the other.
I called palm several times they did not even know what I was talking about, kept telling me about pandora. I wanted to scream. The pre does not stream anything except what they want you to stream. booo
Hoping for kinoma or anything that support 3gpp
sorry but that would be a stupid reason to go back to the centro
If you're talking about internet radio such as WMV, MP3, Shoutcast and such the Pre CAN and does natively support streaming various types of files. There just isn't an app (yet, one is in development, visit the development forums here), that allows you to browse from a selection of stations.
For me I listen to about 5 or 6 Shoutcast stations, I've basically just browsed to the homepage of the station itself in the browser, click on whatever "listen" link they have and the web browser card will change automatically to the built-in music player and it starts streaming perfectly. I've been using it like this for the past few days with a few of my favorite Shoutcast stations and its working perfectly.
May be a bit of topic, but how do you play Pandora through car speakers?
Nevermind. I found a post about it.
I never knew about Pandora until I got the Pre. Now I love it and it's all I listen to. I'm okay with $12 per year. Pandora has had costs added to running their station and have to find a way to make money or shut down. $12 is a small price to pay for all the songs I get exposure to thanks to Pandora.
Enough about internet radio. This is not radio. It seems that most former palm os users did not know is possible to listen to the same local am and fm stations you listen to in your car. This is what we lost. FYI kinoma is the embeded software that played sprint tv on palm os. You just had to upgrade to the commercial version and you could listen to your local stations or any other that streams on the internet which almost all stations do.
If you went to the station's website and it did not open Kinoma automatically, then on your pc you would right click and clik view source code and find the url of the actual stream whcih is different from the url of the website. Type in kinoma and bookmark.
Kinoma says they working on kinoma for symbian phones and dont know when they will get around to webos(pre)
I live in Miami with the hurricanes and one year when the power was gone I could still listen to local updates when the power was gone. Try that with so called internet radio.
the apps on the palm pre are they free 2 download?
does it have yahoo messanger?
and have they fixed the problem with the battery to where u dont have stick a piece of paper to hold it in place tight?
im asking these ?s because i have the treo pro and im thinking on the pre b4 i pay 600bucks
Ive found the Pandora Radio is fantastic on the Palm pre. Set the audio quality as high though.
It’s good to know that our favorite Internet streaming services will survive, and that the music industry is willing to make some compromises. What are your thoughts on the news? Let us know in the comments!
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I live in Miami with the hurricanes and one year when the power was gone I could still listen to local updates when the power was gone. Try that with so called internet radio.
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