I know I’m a little late on this, but a friend just sent this letter to me. It was an email sent from Pandora’s founder, Tim Westergren. I saw him speak at Stanford a few months ago and his passion for music is admirable. Although I’m not a huge fan of Internet radio, I’ve always been rooting for Pandora. It looks like there may be some big trouble, however.
It seems that the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) is working hard to bury Internet radio. Here’s the letter that was sent:
Hi, it’s Tim from Pandora,
I’m writing today to ask for your help. We’ve had a disastrous turn of events recently for internet radio: Following an intensive lobbying effort on the part of the RIAA, an arbitration committee in Washington DC has just dramatically increased the fees internet radio sites must pay to the record labels - tripling fees and adding enormous retroactive payments! Left unchanged by Congress, this will kill all internet radio sites, including Pandora.
Tomorrow afternoon there is an important U.S. Senate hearing on the future of internet radio. Senator Russ Feingold from your state is part of the hearing. I hope you’ll take a minute today to call his office to voice your objection to this ruling.
Senator Russ Feingold’s phone number: (202)224-5323
If you decide to call, please be sure to tell them your name and home town, and mention Senator Russ Feingold’s name. We encourage you to tell them how much you enjoy listening to internet radio and that, left unchanged, the fees passed by the Copyright Royalty Board will kill internet radio. Please ask them to act to reverse this decision.
Remarkably, this rate applies only to internet radio, exempting both broadcast radio and satellite radio. It is a pure and simple reflection of the difference in lobbying power of each industry. It is not only unfair and without legal rationale, but will completely wipe out internet radio.
I hope you’ll take just a few minutes to call - it will make a difference. As a young industry, we do not have the lobbying power of the RIAA. You, our listeners are by far our biggest and most influential ally.
As always, and now more than ever, thank you for your support.
-Tim Westergren
(Pandora founder)
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
I don’t know if I would say that the RIAA is evil. Do I believe that the men and women in Congress are just enough out of touch to see that lobbyists are attempting to milk more money from the old music business model? Yes.
Are they going to kill internet radio in the process? Probably, which is sad, because the more the “old guard” attempt to revert the music industry back to 1975, the more the consumers will turn their back on music altogether, which is definitely NOT their intended plan.
It’s sad that these elected officials couldn’t see this for what it was in the first place: stupid. You can’t tax the internet (or I would be broke!) and since internet radio stations haven’t nearly the broadcast budget of a terrestrial radio station, it makes no sense to levy such a penalty upon the stations.
Shawn, you should know better! The RIAA is evil! Just kidding. They have a job to do, but this ruling is ridiculous. Where is the balance? For those that prefer to e-mail (which requires that your representative reads e-mail every day — we’re not talking about Internet superstars here) here’s a template and the site you use to find out who to bug. Do it today! You’ll miss it when it’s gone and you won’t have stopped it when you could have.
http://www.visi.com/juan/congress/
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I have come to learn that Congress has the opportunity to impact a ruling by the US Copyright Board, recently criticized by your colleague Representative Markey of Massachusetts (see here: http://energycommerce.house.gov/cmte_mtgs/110-ti_hrg.030707.future_radio.shtml), that all but outlaws Internet Radio by dramatically steepening the fees involved while making those increases retroactive for 2006. This, strangely, only applies to Internet Radio and not broadcast or satellite radio services. It even imposes a minimum that will surely doom smaller Internet Radio providers that serve smaller communities with service that can not be replicated on a larger scale.
At the same time, Sirius and XM are trying to merge while claiming that Internet Radio is a competitive threat. I do not presume to understand the market forces at work in this merger, but crippling Internet Radio while allowing it to serve as a reason for approving a merger by two far more successful companies, in terms of listenership, seems wrong.
Please consider opening the Copyright Board’s anti-competitive decision to scrutiny.
Respectfully,
Greg Wind
Here is the long and short of it.
Change is inevitable. And we are becoming evermore a digital world.
Everyone, including record labels and radio big whigs, needs to realize that change doesn’t have to be bad. In fact, with the right perspective and imagination change can be a beautiful thing.
I’m not a strategic marketing guru, I’m just a girl who loves music.
But think of it this way. People used to walk into FYE and listen to music through headphones attached to samples on the wall, right?
**cut to 2007**
Now people, in the comfort of their own home or office, can stream music through an online radio…like Pandora. Pandora plays a lot of unsigned or Independent Label artists in addition to more mainstream artists. I liken to Pandora everyday AND I use the Pandora eMusic mashup that allows me to quickly find the artists I like and buy their music through eMusic.
I know sometimes it is hard to adjust and adapt. But you do it. And the world keep spinning and the air keeps on flowing.
Life is music…play it LOUDER.
Thank you,
Christy Mannering
scrink.com/blog
Really, Internet Radio is cool and all, but if it went away, people would still find a way to play and hear music via the Internet (not necessarily the web, mind you). I think it’s worth preserving, but keep in mind that a form of communication is hard to kill. I’ll be writing this all done once my thoughts get collected (in other words, for tomorrow’s deadline) but the RIAA can either get behind a system that pays them something, or they can roll the dice by killing it in favor of whatever is behind door #2. Consumers disappointed by the loss of Internet Radio will replace it, and the result may not be more friendly to the RIAA. I think they’re going to lose this one, but who knows, they might get lucky.
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