Looks Like Things Are Getting Better

So I posted a while ago about the good news regarding net radio. I've since seen this post on Pandora's site that seems to confirm it. It points to a post by Ken Dardis that does a good job summing up what's going on. The gist is that stations that have been paying royalties, and really do want to continue to pay something that is fair will be able to continue to do so, for the time being. This is great for sites like Pandora that are legit and trying to do what's best for everybody involved. Ken says he's keeping the champagne on ice for now, and I think he's right, but this definitely goes to show that there is hope.

Goodbye Net Radio, We Hardly Knew Ye

Today was a sad day for those of us that actually care about music. The Court of Appeals denied a motion that would push back the the new royalty payments for online broadcasters. I know that I sound like a broken record, but I do not see how anyone in their right mind can think that this is a good idea. Exactly what part of this is going to beneficial to anyone? It isn't even like it is something that will benefit the music industry. All they are going to do is kill off a revenue stream. Internet radio is far, far from piracy, but I have to wonder if that is how they see it. In all honesty, the only difference I can see between net radio and terrestrial radio is that with the net I am able to listen to a wider variety of music. Apparently, that's a bad thing. I'm still hoping for some kind of 11th hour save here, but I'm really thinking it isn't likely. And I understand that this isn't going to wipe out every single net radio station overnight (for instance, Pandora has already said they could pay the bill, but don't know if their business plan is actually viable afterwards), but it will be killing off a lot of the smaller stations. The kicker to all this is that the ones being punished are the ones that are trying to be legit in their broadcasting. If you're just sending out a rogue signal, you couldn't care less about this. Once again, the entertainment industry demonstrates their complete lack of intelligence.

Pandora Opened Its Box

I’m not sure why I didn’t say anything about this yesterday, especially considering that it was being talked about everywhere. Pandora has launched a redesigned site, and has a new plan. They are now pushing for Pandora Everywhere. This includes a new deal with Sonos and one with Sprint. The Sprint service will allow you to listen to Pandora via your Sprint phone through Pandora’s phone app. The service is free for the first 30 days, and then will run a few bucks a month after that. This will be considered a premium account, so you won’t have the ads anymore. I haven’t tried this out yet, but I probably will soon. They also are in talks to release a portable Wi-Fi player. This would enable you to have Pandora radio anywhere that has Wi-Fi without having to have a full computer. All of these sound great, though I don’t know how much they’ll take off. I hope they do well, though, as I really love Pandora.

New Royalties Delayed!

In a bit of good news about the the whole internet radio thing, the Copyright Royalty Board has issued a two month extension on when the royalties are due, making the new date July 15. This is great for the people fighting to save net radio because now they will actually have some time to talk to Congress. The bill that was introduced in an effort to nullify the ruling was only introduced on the 26th of April. With the new royalties being scheduled to go into effect on May 15, that left very little time for action to take place. Hopefully, with the extra time, the groups lobbying for it will get a chance to show Congress just how important internet radio is. The kicker of it all is that there is no conceivable situation where these royalties will be beneficial to anyone. Sure, there might be an initial big check received, but the number of stations that would be forced to close would create a huge loss of recurring revenue in the future. As any business will tell you, recurring revenue is what you want. In addition, with such incredibly high fees, more people would be tempted to turn to illegals means to acquire music. Right now, you can use services like Pandora to find music that you enjoy, and other music similar to it. If that goes away, it is one more reason to grab a pirated copy a song. On the distribution side, if it is so costly to legally have an internet radio station, people will turn to sending out pirate signals. You would think that these reasons alone would be enough for the entire music industry to try to stop this from happening. Instead, they demonstrate their ignorance, and complete inability to see reality.

Bye Bye Net Radio :(

First, let me say that I live on Pandora radio while I'm not at work. If you are not familiar with this, let me give a quick explanation. You put in the name of a song or artist that you like, and it plays things that are similar to that, which you can then rate as liking or disliking to further tailor your channel. I know that some of you may have seen something similar, and not been too thrilled with the recommendations you get, but this one is pretty different. I actually find that it is pretty rare that a song comes up that I don't like. When I do have one, I just click the little thumbs down button, and I don't get songs like it anymore. Anyway, the service is great, and you should definitely check it out.

Now then, onto the important topic. Internet radio, like Pandora, is pretty much about to disappear. This is a very bad thing. It is not simply bad for consumers, such as you and me, but it is bad for musicians as well. There are a lot of artists that the only radio on which they get played is an internet station. On May 15, a new royalty system will go into effect that will basically kill all the internet radio stations. The royalties that are going to have to be paid will pretty much force all (maybe not all, but most) stations to have to shut down. Basically what is going to happen is that us listeners are getting screwed because we won't be able to listen to such a variety of music, and the artists are going to get screwed because they count on these stations for exposure and for money.

So, if you actually care about any of this, and you should, let me point you to where you can go to help. There is a site set up at www.savenetradio.org that has all sorts of information about what is going on here. It also has a lot of information on what you can do to help. There was recently a bill that has been introduced to help stop the madness, and you can help by contacting your congressperson and telling them that they need to support this bill. I normally don't really get involved in the whole activist thing. Sure I might talk about something that is going on, and how it is stupid, but that is not exactly the same. Also, there is usually something that is being blown way out of proportion, and there really isn't a problem. This time, though, you really need you act because from what I've seen, this is not just some BS.