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I got a very impassioned email from the Internet music-streaming service Pandora today.
Now, because I can't have a good rant without a digression, let's get that out of the way up front. Pandora like to call themselves "Internet radio", the first thing that, while I like their service, makes me think they are idiots. They stream music online. They allow users to tune what they hear so that it matches their preferences. Neither of these are what radio does. Radio broadcasts over the public airwaves. Radio programs have a variety of formats, but none of them allow individual users to adjust the music being played by a single station immediately according to their preferences. So let's drop the preposterous characterization of this as Internet radio. That's as ridiculous an oxymoron as "protein-free bacon".
But on to the meat of the matter. The owner of Pandora thinks that it is very, very unfair that his service (and others like it, though he likes to pretend his is the only one) are forced to pay much higher rates of royalty to artists than satellite broadcasters, cable providers, or radio stations pay, simply because they use a newer technology (the Internet). I agree; that's quite unfair.
He would like everyone to get behind a bill that pushes Internet purveyors' rates down towards the rates that over-the-air broadcasters pay (next to nothing). I think that stinks. And what I find remarkable about the literature that he provides about the bill doesn't even tell you that that's his proposal. It complains about the unfairness of the current arrangement and asks you to support him, but it doesn't tell you that his solution will substitute screwing artists for screwing Pandora. Only the musicians will tell you that part.
To be frank, I don't give a toss about the financial woes of someone who is reselling other people's work on the Internet. I care about the people who actually create the work. I don't give a damn about the owner of Pandora, but I do give a damn about artists getting paid fair royalties for music they created. Let's *raise* the minimal (often nonexistent) amount that broadcast radio pays for making money off other people's work, instead of giving the owner of Pandora a huge and early Xmas present.
To read a summary of the issues, with links to more information, here's a piece on the debate from The Next Web.
Now, because I can't have a good rant without a digression, let's get that out of the way up front. Pandora like to call themselves "Internet radio", the first thing that, while I like their service, makes me think they are idiots. They stream music online. They allow users to tune what they hear so that it matches their preferences. Neither of these are what radio does. Radio broadcasts over the public airwaves. Radio programs have a variety of formats, but none of them allow individual users to adjust the music being played by a single station immediately according to their preferences. So let's drop the preposterous characterization of this as Internet radio. That's as ridiculous an oxymoron as "protein-free bacon".
But on to the meat of the matter. The owner of Pandora thinks that it is very, very unfair that his service (and others like it, though he likes to pretend his is the only one) are forced to pay much higher rates of royalty to artists than satellite broadcasters, cable providers, or radio stations pay, simply because they use a newer technology (the Internet). I agree; that's quite unfair.
He would like everyone to get behind a bill that pushes Internet purveyors' rates down towards the rates that over-the-air broadcasters pay (next to nothing). I think that stinks. And what I find remarkable about the literature that he provides about the bill doesn't even tell you that that's his proposal. It complains about the unfairness of the current arrangement and asks you to support him, but it doesn't tell you that his solution will substitute screwing artists for screwing Pandora. Only the musicians will tell you that part.
To be frank, I don't give a toss about the financial woes of someone who is reselling other people's work on the Internet. I care about the people who actually create the work. I don't give a damn about the owner of Pandora, but I do give a damn about artists getting paid fair royalties for music they created. Let's *raise* the minimal (often nonexistent) amount that broadcast radio pays for making money off other people's work, instead of giving the owner of Pandora a huge and early Xmas present.
To read a summary of the issues, with links to more information, here's a piece on the debate from The Next Web.
