well here's a tiny bit of good news

Internet Radio Bill Passes House

Voice Vote OKs Webcaster Settlement Act

(CNET) Web radio stations live to fight another day.

The House of Representatives has unanimously passed a bill that Web radio stations have painted as life or death for their services.

The Webcaster Settlement Act, which would allow Internet radio stations to negotiate with the music industry for a royalty rate lower than what Congress mandated last year, passed the House by a voice vote on Saturday.

Proponents of the bill had predicted a close vote.

Tim Westergren, founder of Net music service Pandora, said he was elated about triumphing in the House, which came after traditional radio broadcasters withdrew their opposition.

Dennis Wharton, a spokesman for the National Association of Broadcasters, said Saturday night that Rep. Howard Berman (D-Calif.) had met with representatives of the group and addressed some of their concerns.

As a result, the NAB dropped its opposition in the House and will not oppose the bill when it moves to the Senate for a vote, either Sunday or Monday (I've written a story about the bill's chances in the Senate and how the NAB was persuaded to drop it's opposition).
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give this a listen. i promise you won't be disappointed.
pandora

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.........

wicked cool

internet radio station (FOR FREE) pandora

you can create your own 'stations'. i typed in van morrison and i'm getting a nice bunch of tunes. everything from of course van to otis redding and an occasional stones tune, allman brothers, fiona apple, bob dylan (stuck inside of mobile is playing RIGHT NOW) and on and on. when something comes on you don' t like (let's say u2, whom i dislike with my whole heart and soul, you can nix the tune). give it a try, really!

(update: hey rick, i just created a buffy station! piney wood hills just came up. we'll see who else and what else plays)

................The Music Genome Project®
On January 6, 2000 a group of musicians and music-loving technologists came together with the idea of creating the most comprehensive analysis of music ever.
Together we set out to capture the essence of music at the most fundamental level. We ended up assembling literally hundreds of musical attributes or "genes" into a very large Music Genome. Taken together these genes capture the unique and magical musical identity of a song - everything from melody, harmony and rhythm, to instrumentation, orchestration, arrangement, lyrics, and of course the rich world of singing and vocal harmony. It's not about what a band looks like, or what genre they supposedly belong to, or about who buys their records - it's about what each individual song sounds like.
Since we started back in 2000, we've carefully listened to the songs of tens of thousands of different artists - ranging from popular to obscure - and analyzed the musical qualities of each song one attribute at a time. This work continues each and every day as we endeavor to include all the great new stuff coming out of studios, clubs and garages around the world.
It has been quite an adventure, you could say a little crazy - but now that we've created this extraordinary collection of music analysis, we think we can help be your guide as you explore your favorite parts of the music universe.
We hope you enjoy the journey.
Tim Westergren
Founder
The Music Genome Project ...................