Pink Floyd on Pandora

Mapman,

I wouldn't be so sure of a happy ending here. This is a very complicated issue and I'm more "familiar" than "expert" on the issues, but here's one ugly possible outcome:

While I'm not specifically defending Pandora's initiative, this industry (subscription music services) is facing an extreme economic squeeze in which AFAIK everyone is losing money. The small checks that artists receive are much more reflective of the same pricing pressure that these companies face (i.e. - no one wants to pay for music) than they are of any windfall profits. If no one can raise prices, they try to cut costs. Right or wrong, the alternative is commodity competition at uneconomic pricing.

The operative rule in this scenario is that "He who runs out of money last...wins."

In this case, that's almost certainly Spotify. These companies are all AFAIK held by small institutions partnered with entrepreneurs. Spotify, OTOH, is owned by a consortium of Sony Music, Warners, EMI, Universal, et al. Deep pockets and enough market power to easily absorb losses on the subscription side in the short run. If Spotify simply waits the other guys out and picks them off as they run out of money, the major labels will back into collective control of the subscription music business. While this may not be a terrible result, the opportunity for mischief is high. Imagine this meeting : "You want a record deal with Warners (or EMI or Sony, etc), you stream exclusively with Spotify."

That result will like benefit no one (especially the artists), except for the record labels.

Marty

Marty, yeah, shakeouts, acquisitions, etc. seem par for the course when it comes to these kinds of new things. It'll be interesting to see where it goes. Brand/label owned internet music services would seem in line with what has been going on in the entertainment (and news) industry for quite a while, only internet music services and stations are the newer kids on the block. I think it safe only to assume that as long as there is money to made in the music industry, someone will step in to make it.

Well, it's not exactly anything new. Record labels, managers, publishing companies, etc. have been getting musicians and songwriters to sign away the income from their music since music has been recorded, and probably well before that.

If we could get the relatively few artists who make huge fortunes playing music to bankroll an internet streaming service that treated artists fairly, we might make some progress with that problem.

This is a two way street. Some might suggest that artists (at least the ones that are relatively unknown or extremely ambitious) should be paying Pandora, and not the other way around. I own all of Joe Bonnamassa's CDs. I might not have heard him if not for Pandora.

Danaroo has a good point which I agree with. Those guys need Pandora. Pink Floyd does not. Pandora might need Pink Floyd so they can use them as a seed to help people find other lesser known similar artists. Even newer popular money making artists might need Pandora and their ilk as a means of helping not fall off the map as their star fades. Artists I hear on Pandora like Rhianna, Flo Rida, and many others. Artist like Pink Floyd who are well past their prime but still manage to retain popularity, less so, but not totally. So I could understand where Pink Floyd thinks they are not getting a good deal. Of course, these kind of acts are not starving artists and in most any other industry would be fully retired by now with NO new income coming in (other than retirement savings, Social Security, etc.). So they really need to not buck the system too much and be thankful they are still receiving royalties for their past work.