| Pandora faces uncertain future |
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| Written by Tom Clougherty | |
| Wednesday, 25 April 2007 | |
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American readers of this blog may be familiar with Pandora ,
the internet radio station. For those who aren't, Pandora is a website
where you can create your own radio stations based on your musical
tastes. For instance, if I tell the website that I like Bob Dylan,
Bruce Springsteen and Johnny Cash, it will assess the musical
characteristics of those artists and then play me other music that
exhibits them. You can narrow your tastes down by giving every song
played the thumbs-up or the thumbs-down. It’s a very useful service,
not least because it's free at the point of use, financed only by
advertising. A few days ago I received an email from them entitled, "Help Save Pandora and Internet Radio"... The survival of Pandora and all of Internet radio is in jeopardy because of a recent decision by the Copyright Royalty Board in Washington, DC to almost triple the licensing fees for Internet radio sites like Pandora. The new royalty rates are irrationally high, more than four times what satellite radio pays and broadcast radio doesn't pay these at all.It sounds to me like a classic case of protecting older, more established businesses at the expense of newer and more dynamic ones. The new licensing fees put the cost of streaming music well beyond the range of most webcasters, and have the potential to destroy a fledgling market - at least within the US. It really is a great shame when businesses and innovations are jeopardized in this fashion by capricious government action. US citizens can express their displeasure at the decision here .
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