Sound off
A number of concerned readers have alerted us to the impending demise of Pandora, the wildly popular internet radio station, which is being run out of business by recent jackups in copyright royalties. I'm a Last FM man, rather than Pandora, but I've also spent some time with Radio Paradise, which is similar, and it would be a crying shame if the news is true.
Most sadly, you can just see where in a year or two some monster like Google will do the exact same thing that Pandora's doing now, and bully the record companies into dealing with it, the way they're doing now with video content and its owners over YouTube. Indeed, Last FM is now owned by CBS, which most assuredly won't be fretting too much over copyright issues. Why can't little guys ever catch a break?
| Posted at 10:01 AM | Permalink |
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Comments (4)
What's really annoying is that these online outfits are required to pay more royalties than radio stations. The record industry has too much of Congress in its pocket.
Posted by Rulial | August 19, 2008 11:03 AM
The "Internet Radio Equality Act" was introduced to return the royalties back to where they were before. And Ron Wyden is one of the sponsors.
Posted by Jon | August 19, 2008 12:07 PM
If the deep pockets of Paul Allen can't make Pandora work, it's possible that no one can.
Posted by none | August 19, 2008 1:25 PM
Dude. That news SUUUUUCKS!
Posted by Snards | August 20, 2008 7:17 AM