pandora

Pandora calls artist royalties flap an orchestrated 'lie'

Pandora struck back against critics Wednesday, calling accusations that the streaming radio service is trying to shortchange musicians "a lie."

In a blog post Wednesday, Pandora co-founder Tim Westergren accused the Recording Industry Association of America, the organization charged with defending the interests of musicians, of orchestrating and funding a "misinformation campaign" involving well-known artists. The RIAA believes artists should be paid more than they currently receive for their songs being played on the streaming service and has accused Pandora of trying to persuade musicians to accept a substantial reduction in royalties.

While saying he bore … Read more

Apple said to be enticing indie labels for iTunes Radio

While Apple has sealed the deal with the three major music recording labels for its upcoming iTunes Radio service, the company is now looking to lure independent labels.

The tech giant has reportedly been talking to various indie music labels, letting them know how the royalty pay scale will work on the new service, according to the Wall Street Journal. Labels will be paid on how many listens each song gets, along with ads that Apple sells.

According to the Wall Street Journal, labels will get 0.13 cent every time a song is played and 15 percent of ad … Read more

Pandora hits 2.5M in-car activations, quadruple last year's mark

Pandora is the biggest radio service on the Internet, and it is getting bigger in cars -- the place more than any other where people bob their heads and belt out lyrics to music they're not ordering up on demand.

Home to half of all radio listening, automobiles are Pandora's biggest opportunity, but it's one crimped by technological limits and a glacial pace of automobile rollouts.

The company said today it has notched more than 2.5 million unique activations through cars. That's more than quadruple the number Pandora had a year ago.

The accomplishment was … Read more

Pink Floyd to Pandora: Shut up, you crazy cubic zirconium

The wrangling between those who'd like to be paid for creating music and those who would like to pay them a shoelace and a Mars bar may never end.

In the latest edition of "Oh, No You Don't," Roger Waters, David Gilmour, and Nick Mason of Pink Floyd have buried the hatchet, then together picked it up and embedded it into Pandora's (Voice) Box.

They are royally miffed at what they see is Pandora's attempt to hoodwink artists into supporting a reduction on their royalties of 85 percent.

So in a USA Today editorial aimed squarely at Pandora, … Read more

Automatically pause one audio stream in Firefox when another begins

I love both of my kids, but I don't enjoy it when they are both attempting to converse with me at the same time. Similarly, I love listening to Pandora when I'm at my desk, but I don't enjoy it when it is playing a song when I try to watch a YouTube clip. With the Be Quiet add-on for Firefox, you can prevent two audio streams from bombarding you simultaneously.

After installing Be Quiet and restarting Firefox, the extension will work in the background. If you are listening to Pandora in one tab and start watching … Read more

Get a one-year Sony Music Unlimited subscription for $59.99

Much as I love services like Pandora and Songza for streaming music, sometimes you want to hear exactly the songs you want to hear -- hence on-demand services like Rdio and Spotify.

Of course, most of those services cost around $10 per month. If you like the idea but not the price, Sony has a deal worth considering: a one-year Music Unlimited subscription for $59.99. That's 50 percent of the regular price and the equivalent of $5 monthly.

Even better, if you're a PlayStation Plus subscriber, you can get the Music Unlimited plan for $41.99.

Sony'… Read more

Why buy music when you can stream it?

I guess it's safe to assume Adele and Coldplay are making decent livings in the music business, but I wanted to talk with an average band to see how they were doing. What sort of income did they see from Spotify, Pandora, and YouTube, vs. selling CDs or downloads? So I chatted with Phil Metzler, from Just Off Turner, and he was willing to share some income numbers. The band has been featured on soundtracks on shows from ABC, MTV, E!, and Oxygen; they've toured the U.S., Europe, Brazil, Australia, and the U.K.

They made three … Read more

Yes, iTunes Radio could crush Pandora. But that's just for starters

iTunes chief Eddy Cue unveiled Apple's iTunes Radio at the company's big developer conference in San Francisco this week, and it didn't take long before a chorus of rivals and pundits dismissed the product as, well, no big deal, especially considering that so many streaming-music services already exist.

The current king of Internet radio, Pandora, made sure the press was aware of how large it was, with 200 million registered users, 70 million of whom are regular listeners, and 5 billion stations created. Even Nokia -- that's right, Nokia -- trotted out a VP who suggested … Read more

Pandora to buy radio station to piggyback onto cheaper costs

The leading online radio service took its first step offline Tuesday, but don't expect Pandora to make many more steps in the direction of traditional airwaves.

The company agreed to purchase KXMZ-FM, a Rapid City, S.D., terrestrial radio station. Its first foray into traditional radio broadcasting, the move has little to do with strategic shift and everything to do with royalty costs.

Pandora pays two royalty streams, one for actual sound recordings and another to composers for publishing rights. The sound recording fees make up the lion's share of its content costs. But by buying a terrestrial … Read more

iTunes Radio vs. Pandora

Apple may be the top dog when it comes to digital music sales, but does it have what it takes to get a late foothold in the world of Internet radio?

To cut through the hype and get a sense of what Apple's newly announced iTunes Radio service really offers that may be noteworthy, we've stacked it up against the gold standard of personalized Internet radio, Pandora.

iTunes Radio Pandora Free option Yes Yes Premium tier $24.99/year $36/year $3.99/month Platforms iOS, Apple TV, Mac OS, Windows iOS, Android, Windows Phone, BlackBerry, Mac OS, … Read more