oh no no no no no

i LOVE pandora. it CAN'T shut down!

if you've never listened to it, i highly recommend it. however, it looks like you had better hurry

Music service Pandora near decision on possible shut-down

By LiveDaily Staff /

Pandora, a popular web radio service, has indicated that the burden of royalty payments under a new rate schedule imposed by rates agent SoundExchange could force the company's closure, according to a report in Saturday's (8/16) Washington Post.

Pandora founder Tim Westergen indicated to the Post that an estimated 70% of the company's revenue for 2008 will go to royalty payments, leaving minimal cash to support the company's operations and return any margin to investors of the venture-backed startup.

Under a ruling by a federal panel last year, per-song performance royalty rates for web-based broadcasters doubled, while terrestrial broadcasters maintained their freedom from obligation of that royalty.

U.S. Rep. Howard Berman (D-CA) is attempting to forge a late compromise between SoundExchange, which represents artists and record companies, and web broadcasters, but both sides remain far apart on key points, according to the Post..........

Perhaps Pandora Must Be Our Sacrificial Lamb

Michael Arrington

TechCrunch.com
Pandora made a bold political statement today, saying they'd likely shut down rather than continue to pay exorbitant fees to play music to listeners of its massively popular service.

Radio stations pay different rates depending on how they broadcast music. Terrestrial stations (normal FM/AM stations) pay nothing, a tribute to their powerful corporate parents with limitless lobbying budgets. Satellite stations pay approximately 1.6 cents per hour per listener. By 2010, Pandora and other Internet radio stations, which have few lobbying resources, must pay 2.91 cents.

Pandora says they're alread paying 70% of their $25 million in yearly revenues in royalty fees, and it is driving them out of business. Other Internet radio stations are even worse off...............

Giant of Internet Radio Nears Its 'Last Stand'

Pandora, Other Webcasters Struggle Under High Song Fees

By Peter Whoriskey

Washington Post Staff Writer

OAKLAND, Calif. -- Pandora is one of the nation's most popular Web radio services, with about 1 million listeners daily. Its Music Genome Project allows customers to create stations tailored to their own tastes. It is one of the 10 most popular applications for Apple's iPhone and attracts 40,000 new customers a day.

Yet the burgeoning company may be on the verge of collapse, according to its founder, and so may be others like it.

"We're approaching a pull-the-plug kind of decision," said Tim Westergren, who founded Pandora. "This is like a last stand for webcasting."

The transformation of words, songs and movies to digital media has provoked a number of high-stakes fights between the owners of copyrighted works and the companies that can now easily distribute those works via the Internet. The doomsday rhetoric these days around the fledgling medium of Web radio springs from just such tensions.........