Originally Posted by UnderMyDreams

You take a fraction of a cent; and multiply that by .85.

For example, if an artist gets .01 cents every time a song is played, they would now make .00085 cents every time a song is played.

You misunderstood my disgruntled state with actual confusion.

Originally Posted by Kurt Retenauer

You misunderstood my disgruntled state with actual confusion.

Ahh. Gotcha.

In any case, what would make more sense would be to raise the Satelite radio rates.

If you take the small rates as they are, and slash them 85%, the only people who end up hurt are the artists.

Pandora sends emails about this shit all the time, and it's getting quite god damn annoying to keep receiving emails saying "hey we pay too think we pay much to artists and we want more money in our pockets and less in theirs, help us screw the artists out of money!"

Spotify doesn't fall into this category because it isn't considered Internet radio. Spotify is a streaming service that pays a majority of its ad and subscription revenues to rights holders (i.e. labels and publishers).

To add a little clarity, the reason that Pandora wants to lower their royalty rate is because they are currently running on, what seems to be, an unsustainable business model for the future. Their royalty rates are too high and they're paying out too much of their revenues to keep up their operations in the long-run. They also feel like they deserve a fairer royalty rate based on the fact that terrestrial radio (traditional AM/FM radio) in the United States does not pay royalties to the artists that perform the broadcasted songs, and only pays the writer(s) of the compositions via performing rights organizations (e.g. ASCAP, BMI, SESAC). Because Internet radio services like Pandora think this is unfair to hold a double standard for both terrestrial and Internet radio, they are trying to fight to pay less so that their businesses can be sustainable in the future.

Also, it is easy to assume that the royalties paid out by Internet radio services like Pandora are negligible. However, this is not the case. Even artists on the rise like French Montana are projected to make over $100k in the next 12 months from Pandora alone. More popular artists like Lil Wayne make up to $3 million/year from Pandora (source). Essentially, artists can make a significant amount of money from Internet radio, which is especially important for those artists that do not write their own songs and thus, do not collect on terrestrial radio performance royalties.

Originally Posted by UnderMyDreams

You take a fraction of a cent; and multiply that by .85.

For example, if an artist gets .01 cents every time a song is played, they would now make .00085 cents every time a song is played.

They're cutting it BY 85%, therefore you would multiply by .15.

..aren't the royalties already low as hell?

bands dont make fuck all anyways off of these. itunes is the only way that bands make cash from digital sales.

It's already hard enough to make a living off of music as it is as an artist. I could care less that Spotify's business model might not be sustainable, if they can't pay the artist their fair share for their hard-earned work then shouldn't be a business. I am tired of the artists getting shit on by someone else's "unsustainable business model."

Originally Posted by shreddingmdness

Spotify doesn't fall into this category because it isn't considered Internet radio. Spotify is a streaming service that pays a majority of its ad and subscription revenues to rights holders (i.e. labels and publishers).

To add a little clarity, the reason that Pandora wants to lower their royalty rate is because they are currently running on, what seems to be, an unsustainable business model for the future. Their royalty rates are too high and they're paying out too much of their revenues to keep up their operations in the long-run. They also feel like they deserve a fairer royalty rate based on the fact that terrestrial radio (traditional AM/FM radio) in the United States does not pay royalties to the artists that perform the broadcasted songs, and only pays the writer(s) of the compositions via performing rights organizations (e.g. ASCAP, BMI, SESAC). Because Internet radio services like Pandora think this is unfair to hold a double standard for both terrestrial and Internet radio, they are trying to fight to pay less so that their businesses can be sustainable in the future.

Also, it is easy to assume that the royalties paid out by Internet radio services like Pandora are negligible. However, this is not the case. Even artists on the rise like French Montana are projected to make over $100k in the next 12 months from Pandora alone. More popular artists like Lil Wayne make up to $3 million/year from Pandora (source). Essentially, artists can make a significant amount of money from Internet radio, which is especially important for those artists that do not write their own songs and thus, do not collect on terrestrial radio performance royalties.

Nailed it.

You can't really make any real money streaming songs on the Internet as an Artist, unless you are a Lil Wayne like Shreddingmdness mentioned above. Radio rates are what they are because believe it or not, Radio is still a HUGE medium for Artists to get their music heard. It's funny because to make an album cost so much money these days, yet the industry is to a point where everyone expects everything for free.

It's way too early in the game for Internet radio royalty rates to be cut. It's not my problem that Pandora couldn't figure out a sustainable business model. Pay Artists what they deserve. Without the Artists' content, your business wouldn't exist (IE Parndora, Spotify, etc). These companies need to stop being so greedy and learn to work together, but hey...that's business, everyone's looking for a payday, and somethings will never change.