Pandora sues publishers over online music royalties Internet radio station Pandora has gone to court to try and get a better royalty deal from the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP.) ASCAP has over 435,000 members, ranging from the biggest music publishers to individual troubadours, and Pandora had a license with them from 2005 to 2010. But over a …
"A lot depends on the Pandora-sponsored Internet Radio Fairness Act – IRFA (H.R. 6480/S. 3609) – which seeks to cut the amount of royalties paid to musicians by 85 per cent"
So, 85% of virtually nothing is still virtually nothing, right?
Seems everybody else is lining their pockets EXCEPT the artists...
If this whole royalty deal was a broken windows box, I'd be formatting the hard drive and starting again from scratch.
Technically, parity would be the elimination of performance royalties? Given broadcast radio is exempt from performance royalties.
Music is a luxury, it's a very nice one at that, but what is the issue? If Pandora stops, how many puppies drown? I like music, I pay a monthly subscription to listen to pretty much whatever I want via the internet at home and on my phone. I also listen to a couple of local stations. Pandora is not owed a deal because it wants or needs one. Canon don't owe me cheaper cameras, even if they give other people a better deal. I sometimes give some clients a cheaper rate, that doesn't mean any other clients have a right to that rate. Business clients knowing pay 300% markup, they don't bitch. They understand there are reasons and the pay what it's worth to them. If Pandora folds then publishers lose money, so they stand to lose something by not agreeing to Pandora's demands so they aren't just being an arse for the sake of it. If Pandora can't 'sell' for more than it 'buys' for then frankly it needs to fail.
Why the hell is crap like this cluttering up the courts? There is no legal requirement for the publishers to supply tracks at a rate pandora wants. It's a capitalist country, a free market. They are trying to buy the governments support (they wouldn't be the first), but basically they want the government and legal system to force their suppliers to reduce their pricing to make their business model viable. That's absolute BS. If your model doesn't work, it doesn't work. Even if they are offering lower rates to someone else they are allowed to do that. Sponsoring a bill and taking them to court is unlikely to endear you to them.
Pandora contends that ASCAP's behaviour amounts to cartel behaviour: forcing terms because they hold a captive market. And US law does have precedent when it comes to cartel behaviour. It's the reason why you can't buy a DeBeers diamond in the US: DeBeers is classed as a cartel cornering the diamond market.
Apologies, I'll hold my hands up and say I was well off the mark here. I went and read up on the specifics of how the licencing works and you are indeed correct. Specifically I didn't realise that some internet radio stations had significantly better rates, this coinciding with their owners being labels.
While local radio stations are still free (at least for now) to play artists music, there seems to be some confusion/greed as to why internet radio is a different beast. Does anyone know how much Clearchannel pays to play music over local airwave radio stations?
In the end, I have little sympathy or concern. I've already purchased hard copies of the music I like and loaded it on my own personal cloud. I'm able to stream random music or specific artists/albums from my home server to where ever I have internet access. I'm currently listening to my own cloud while at work/lunch.
Purchasing digital music online has less ownership, when Apple can wipe/cancel any account it chooses, without any recourse by its users. Read the Terms of Agreement.
With my own Cloud, I avoid the need to deal with ads or paying to listen to music I have purchased (not licenses as in Apple followers case) as Apple charges after 5GB Free limit is surpassed.
I can only hope that eventually the general public will realize that they can do lots on their own, if they just take the initiative.
I am not so sure about that!!
Back about 25 years ago when I was involved with a local radio station, there was a royalty payment required of all stations, including the NON commercial station I was associated with.
At that time, non commercial stations had a fixed payment, while commercial stations had it assessed as a percentage of their ad revenues.
What you may be conflating with royalties is having to buy the actual discs. Now, those were promotional items, and the stations did not pay for them. Many times, they were used for "give-aways" and other listener related inducements.
In fact, I still have some promo CD's in my collection from those days.
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