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95 Comments
- mklopez, on 10/12/2007, -0/+85Pandora is [probably] the best music recommendation service available. It can create customized "radio channels" based on artists and/or songs that you select.
http://pandora.com
I use their service all the time, and I would really hate to see it gone! - Easty, on 10/12/2007, -3/+40God I wish I could sign it. Pandora is brilliant.
Damn the fact I don't live in the US. - TroubleInMind, on 10/12/2007, -3/+32If you really want to save it, you should hire Paul Wolfowitz's girlfriend. That's how you get ***** done.
- AwesomeMonster, on 10/12/2007, -4/+31Last.fm's service has nothing on pandora. As a member of booth I can say they booth have their uses but in terms of radio pandora is hands down the best.
- LilGator, on 10/12/2007, -0/+20Did this yesterday and emailed my state (SC) senators and representative. Today I received a response from Senator Jim DeMint's office:
"Thank you for contacting me to express your opposition to the new royalty rates for online radio stations proposed recently by the Copyright Royalty Board (CRB). I appreciate hearing from you.
As you may know, the CRB announced new guidelines for Internet radio royalties on March 5, 2007 . The guidelines set a "per play" royalty structure whereby webcasters will pay a set amount for each performance of a copyrighted song. A performance is defined as the streaming of one song to one listener. The guidelines also set a minimum of $500 per channel per year for both commercial and noncommercial webcasters.
These new guidelines are a complete departure from the "percentage of revenue" structure that is currently in effect. Like you, I have concerns about the negative impacts this new structure could have on consumer choice and innovation. While the CRB did allow petitions for a rehearing, its judges denied all such motions on April 16.
I greatly value your thoughts and opinions as my constituent, and I assure you that I will continue to monitor this issue. Please feel free to contact me in the future about any issue important to you or your family. It is an honor to serve you and the people of South Carolina .
Sincerely,
Jim DeMint
United States Senator" - Dudibob, on 10/12/2007, -0/+19I'm a big fan of Pandora and would hate to see it go, I have learnt about so many different bands such as ones I can't even find on Itunes
- FzArEkTaH, on 10/12/2007, -3/+20why not last fm + pandora?
http://pandorafm.real-ity.com/
PandoraFM is simple. As you listen to music via the excellent Pandora music service each song gets submitted to your profile on Last.FM. You're listening to music, so why shouldn't you be able to account for it? Some call it a mash-up, others call it a hack. I call it Pandora.FM - ChrisWickenscom, on 10/12/2007, -1/+18People are fighting to save them because they're a public service you idiot.
I listen to internet radio stations from the US every day, and I use pandora QUITE a bit. I'll fight to save something I enjoy and find useful.
Which is why I'm not fighting to save your life. - Azimuth1, on 10/12/2007, -0/+15Dugg because of how many boring lessons at school Pandora has made bearable for me.
- chuckbo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+13Not just Pandora but also Live365 and, really, the whole idea of internet radio. I don't know why the RIAA tries to keep us from learning about new music we might want to buy -- except that they're evil and if it's a useful service, then their nature causes them to despise it. Terrestial radio doesn't pay any royalties because the RIAA considers it a marketing arm to generate new sales. Maybe the RIAA doesn't like internet radio stations because they're too independent-minded and aren't in debt to the RIAA.
- dizparks, on 10/12/2007, -0/+12I got a response today from one of my Senators:
"Dear Brian:
Thank you for contacting me regarding the Copyright Royalty Board’s rate increase decision and its effect on small webcasters. I appreciate hearing your thoughts on this issue.
The royalty rate for webcasters has proven to be a controversial subject, with small webcasters hoping to become viable, competitive alternatives to large commercial radio stations. As you point out, many of these small webcasters offer a variety of music unavailable to a wide audience through other sources.
Regulations set by the enactment of the Small Webcasters Settlement Act of 2002, which favored small webcasters, recently expired and the regulations had to be revisited. As you know, in March, 2007, the Copyright Royalty Board issued its decision, which establishes new rates for commercial and noncommercial webcasters. The Board considered the comments of small commercial webcasters, who sought continuation of a fee based solely according to revenue. Ultimately, the Board rejected this benefit for small webcasters, opting instead for a flat-rate fee and a per song per listener basis. When making this decision, the Board cited the difficulty of distinguishing small and large commercial webcasters, as well as their own lack of statutory authority to carve out royalty rate niches for the emergent business models promoted by small commercial webcasters.
The Board’s decision can be revised through legislative action, and it is likely that the Senate will examine this issue. I will certainly keep your thoughts in mind when it does.
Again, thank you for raising this issue with me. Please stay in touch.
Sincerely,
Barack Obama
United States Senator" - briguymaine, on 10/12/2007, -0/+11Pandora is great, I don't use it a ton but when I want to discover something new that is where I go. You enter a band that you like and it finds one of their songs, then it find other bands like it based on tempo, genre, feel, etc. (I don't know the particulars!) It hits the mark most of the time and you can customize it by saying if it's going in the right direction or not.
- ChrisWickenscom, on 10/12/2007, -0/+11It would suck to see all these radio stations and helpful websites get shut down.
I use pandora a lot, unfortunately I'm in Canada so I cant sign the petition, but this has my support for sure!
The royalty fee's are ridiculous. - sctechguy, on 10/12/2007, -2/+12For those of you who may be thinking to yourself, "Why should I care? I don't listen to online radio. I listen to satellite radio, or podcasting." I offer you this:
You really should care, because this still affects you, albeit indirectly. Consider this:
Say this royalty fiasco actually sticks. Who do you think they'll come after next, knowing that they got away with the online radio royalty? That's right: podcasting. It's the next logical step (when thinking like them) that they would go after the next biggest thing online that uses music. Remember, these are the same people whose current business model is to run around, blindly suing anybody that they even remotely think has downloaded a single note of a song.
Also, XM (and Sirius) are caught up in this, too. While they do pay a significantly lower rate, their royalty rate is going up, too. Guess what that translates into? Yup, higher subscription rates for you, the listener. - cblalock, on 10/12/2007, -4/+14As if Liberals aren't funded by corporations?
Where do you think Hilary and Obama and all the dems in congress get their campaign money from? Surely you can't be naive enough to believe that because they're liberal they aren't swayed by the sources of their campaign funds. - DarthTurducken, on 10/12/2007, -2/+12"Last.FM tends to have EVERYTHING"
Including a lot of mislabeled songs, because everyone's music is tagged wrong. - feckineejit, on 10/12/2007, -6/+15Hell anyone can change laws to benefit corporations these days - just put your money in the bucket outside any Conservative Senators office with a wish list.
- halleyscomet, on 10/12/2007, -3/+12Internet Radio isn't quite "Dead." It's just going to lose access to the Big Labels, and be forced to turn to Independent and "Podsafe" music.
As a result, Internet Radio is going to become the real test bed for the "death" of the big labels. If the music they CAN license not only keeps them afloat but lets them thrive, then the big labels have shot themselves in the foot.
If Intenet Radio withers and dies, then the Big Labels still have a stranglehold on music that people want to listen to, which means despite their technical DRM issues, they'll be around for a long time to come. - kael, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9Sounds like you didn't read the article.
Radio broadcasters don't have to pay these fees and its 4 times the amount Satellite radio has to pay. It is just absurd. - Philluminati, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10
because you posted yet another dumb comment ;-) - mklopez, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8@fzarektah:
Thanks for the link to PandoraFm. I'm suscribed to both Pandora and Last.FM, and I find pandora's player far more stable, althought Last.fm's site offers more social features. Looks like a good way to mashup both services... at least until they are forced to shutdown due to the stupid fees. - pineappleclock, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7All they are doing is pushing radio underground and off-shore... first one who invents torrent radio wins
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+8I notice that Last.FM tends to have EVERYTHING, wheras Pandora has predominantly mainstream artists.
I enjoy listening to movie soundtracks, and no matter what composer you search for on Pandora, it never knows any of them because it simply ignores this genre entirely. Last.FM knows about a dozen film composers, and basically everything else I've ever thrown at it.
As far as recommendations go, Pandora is definitely better since it recommends based on song content rather than just similar artists. - deviantdarlings, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6@ halleyscomet
If I remember correctly the same royalty rates apply to even unsigned music. I'm sure how that's possible. But, I remember reading that awhile back. - cru99, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5I listen to internet radio and love it, mostly because I get to hear stuff that not just the sugar-coated
crappy pop stuff, that they seem to be pushing on all of us. - hdtroll, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5 @ hairypoter
They service is provided to you by people donating their time to the project in a whole. It generates funds from advertisements like regular radio, but why should they have to pay a large sum of money to be able to stream music out when regular radio is already paying far less to do the same. - altcountryman, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5I'd love to see a movement like this put the RIAA out of business, but unfortunately, a lot of artists will go out of business in the meantime.
I hear new music that I like on Pandora, buy it, and the artist makes money. No new recommendations, no new music purchases. It's that simple. I sure as hell ain't hearing stuff on mainstream radio that I want to buy, I turned that off long ago.
If there's no internet radio, I can be perfectly content with more limited new music, it's just that the artists will suffer. Funny, doesn't one of the "A's" in RIAA stand for artists? No, it must be "Attorneys." - leftnut, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4We're also interested in keeping the internet from getting over-burdened with legislation and rules. It's worth fighting for because we don't want a precedent set that allows the recording labels to rape these companies providing a great service. They should only have to pay charges similar to radio stations.
- tamckissick, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Can't Pandora, et. al. just move toward playing only non-RIAAss music? If we all supported that business move, more groups would leave the RIAA and offer their music independantly. It might just start a movement. (as Arlo Guthrie described!)
- praisethelard, on 06/06/2008, -0/+4"I notice that Last.FM tends to have EVERYTHING, wheras Pandora has predominantly mainstream artists."
Dude...it might just be your taste. I have a station on Pandora that is dedicated to playing off-the-wall obscure stuff. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4They could probably do that, however I understand these new fees are retroactive, and these companies will owe more than they can pay
correct me I am wrong. - Twango, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3If there's effectively nothing left but commercial broadcast, your chance to be exposed to new pop and art music is reduced to NADA.
Many IR stations are operating on a shoestring. Access to more popular music at a REASONABLE price lets them attract more mainstream listeners, while allowing them the freedom to play stuff you don't hear on most major media.
This is obviously an attack on a new medium with too much power for change for some people. The same thing happened to most low-power FM stations a generation ago. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4No Pandora
No iTunes
Pandora is how I make my iTunes choices.
I mean this quite seriously
No Pandora
No iTunes. - Panthro83, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I am under the assumption that this only affects net radio hosted inside the usa. If that is indeed the case, is there anything stopping pandora et al hosting their services from another country?
- PurpZeY, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4It is my opinion that although it really sucks that, Pandora, (a service I have used often and enjoyed) and many other net-radio sites will be hampered by all this, the cat is already out of the bag.
Are there possible avenues of appeal? Yes. But, the likelihood is that they won't be successful. Do I agree that, that is really unfortunate? ABSOLUTELY.
However, I think it is a reality. The RIAA is a bunch of bastards just out for blood and money. But it seems that they knew the right people and that this is basically over.
Best of luck with the petition. - chuckbo, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Not just Pandora but also Live365 and, really, the whole idea of internet radio. I don't know why the RIAA triesto keep us from learning about new music we might want to buy -- except that they're evil and if it's a useful service, then their nature causes them to despise it.
- putts, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Give us non USA citizens a State and ZIP Code to use so we can sign the petition.
- HalFTW, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Btw, if you turn off adblock you will see how many adds that site has to use to get by at the moment. Imagine what it would be like with the new fees.
- mklopez, on 10/12/2007, -9/+11Petition link:
http://capwiz.com/saveinternetradio/issues/alert/?alertid=9631541 - elenadragon, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2@ilyag
I am also a soundtrack fan. I was able to find John Williams, Hans Zimmer, and Howard Shore on Pandora, but the music they have for those composers seems slim. I emailed a suggestion to Pandora in January to add film composers, and actually got a response which stated that they had just added Latin music, and next would come world music and then classical (including soundtracks). It appears that they are always adding more music, so I suspect it is just a matter of time before they have a nice soundtrack collection. - Tawni, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2One of the largest lobbying groups to get this passed was Clear Channel and other broadcasters because if you are listening to Pandora or another service you wont be listening to the commercials on the local radio. They lose $$$ because of Internet radio and satellite so anything clear channel can do to squash it they will..
- jus10y, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I faxed my 2 senators and local rep....
- DubbedOver, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2To print the letters, write the addresses on the envelopes and add stamps cost me $1.40 and about 20 minutes. It's well worth everyones time to do this because even if you don't listen to internet radio that often, you should be able to see why a decision like this is not good for anyone.
- karel747, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Wow...A personal reply that wasn't an automated message, aka, "I appreciate your input, etc". Now there's a congressman worth promoting.
- ardklg, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2It's not a petition in the literal sense. It's a form letter that you can edit/customize. Then you type in your name and address and it sends the letter to your specific congressional representatives based on your address.
- thefreshbeats, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Pandora is great, but it's time that we embrace artists who choose not to sign with major record labels. Keep Pandora alive without the corporate music. What does this mean? Well, 99% less music for now, but we can rebuild the library bigger and greater than and label-controlled world ever could.
I mean, why the hell do we want to keep supporting the labels associtated with the RIAA? We, the people, have the power to run these companies out of business, and that's what we need to do.
I'm a business major, and I'm saying that record labels are bad for the music business. End them. Pandora, BAN ANY RIAA LABEL from 'advertising' their music on your site. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1- - -
In its April issue, Esquire makes five bold predictions about music in 2006. No. 1: "You will discover your musical genome." It's a reference to Pandora, a Web site that's the user-friendly front of the Music Genome Project.
The project, which started six years ago and launched on the Web in August, is an ongoing analysis of music -- a jukebox of sorts that takes apart the "DNA" of songs, the musical components and influences that comprise a particular track, and matches it with songs that have similar DNA. Visit Pandora.com, start a radio station with the song or artist of your choice and Pandora will fill the station's playlist with genetically similar music.
No doubt, Pandora is novel. It's already received critical acclaim from Rolling Stone and MTV. And despite only being available in the United States right now due to copyright and licensing restrictions (you need a zip code to register), Pandora's founder, Tim Westergren, says Canadians are logging on in increasing numbers: "Let's just say 90210 is our most popular zip code." So, Esquire might be right -- maybe we're all about to discover our musical genomes. The question is, will we like what we find?
Many already on the site are hooked and spreading the gospel about all that Pandora has to offer. There's a thrill in learning about new music. Pandora's also incredibly easy to use. Simply type in a song title or artist and the site launches a station based on the musical components of what was requested. Give the thumbs up or down (virtually) to songs as they play and the playlist is fine-tuned to your liking. Add artists and songs to stations to diversify the possibilities and share the stations with friends to further expand what you'll hear.
In his office in Oakland, Calif., Westergren works with a team of 60 people, including 35 musicians, analyzing 1,000 songs a month. Each song is listened to about three times and scored for roughly 400 musical attributes -- things like groove-based composition, repetitive melodic phrasing and subtle use of vocal harmony. This data is logged in the Genome Project and Pandora sorts the music accordingly.
It's easy to understand why a lot of songs are played, but whether they're liked or not is another matter entirely. Creating a station based on Rod Stewart's Maggie May brought lots of mournful love songs by men looking to get over a girl, but none had the uplifting melody that accompanies Stewart's monologue.
Another station, based on the house song Lady by Modjo, came up with, well, some odd picks. Expecting to hear songs such as Daft Punk's One More Time, which was released around the same time as Lady and mixed with the song by countless club DJs, Pandora instead played, among other equally odd tracks, Violet by Savage Garden (huh?), I Drove All Night by Celine Dion (what?!) and Running with the Night by Lionel Richie (Help! My Pandora's broken!).
Westergren's response to this song list was, "That's weird." He then admitted that, like all things technological, Pandora has its glitches. "You shouldn't get songs outside the genome that are off-kilter like that, and occasionally an analysis is misassigned," he explains. "Errors do happen, but Pandora is a passive system. It's waiting for you to tell it what to do. It'll assume everything's fine until you tell it otherwise."
So, Pandora's a little high-maintenance. And it could stand for a little diversification, say some listeners. Matias Palacios-Hardy, a graphic designer at an ad agency in Toronto, tried Pandora a few times after a colleague told him about it. "One time I used it, it kept repeating the artist," he explains. "I put in Hot Snakes and four of the songs in an hour were Hot Snakes tracks."
Jason Bernardon, a music student at University of Toronto who found out about the site from a friend, thinks the music Pandora plays is "OK," but would like to hear more Canadian indie music. "I don't know if it's just the lack of familiarity," he says, "but it's not something that's a mainstay -- like, 'Oh, I want to use Pandora everyday.' " Palacios-Hardy feels similarly: "Pandora comes in handy if you don't have your iPod and you want to listen to a certain type of music."
Westergren is well aware that there is room for improvement -- if only because listeners are telling him so.
"Because we've been live for a few months, we're getting a huge number of suggestions from listeners," he says. "In the first few months alone we had something like 150,000 songs suggested."
Also under examination are lyrics and the role they play in analysis. "It's kind of a tricky one for us because we do analyze lyrics," explains Westergren. "But they don't play a disproportionate role in playlists when you start, and there are people who think lyrics are disproportionately interesting."
The team at Pandora is working on enabling users to give specific feedback: "They'll [be able to] say 'I like the lyrics of the song' as opposed to 'I just like the song.' "
There are a number of other improvements in store, including enabling international feeds -- thereby becoming legal in Canada, and perhaps addressing Bernardon's complaint -- and expanding the library of music, but it's the enhanced feedback function that should contribute most to improving Pandora's playlists.
With the online stations, satellite radio and podcasts all competing for listeners, the battle will likely be won by letting users control what they're listening to without getting bored with it. Pandora is almost there. If Westergren and his team continue to finesse the site, it will live up to the hype after all.
© National Post 2006 - DarkHorse667, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1http://www.peercast.org/ will do just fine.
- meshman, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Another real side effect of all this is where the money is going. I like to listen to groovera.com and they will likely be affected. One solution for them is to charge a fee to cover the extra costs and I'd pay it in a second because I like Groovera. But the thought that the extra money isn't going to groovera makes me not want to donate. That sucks for Groovera (and all others affected by this).
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I logged on and became a virtual resident of Beverly Hills
I was a yahoo video junkie before that with an account and huge collection of links to my favourite videos.
It took me until April of 2006 to wean myself of videos I could watch all day long but could not buy from iTunes Canada.
Same thing with MTV.ca you can watch them until your head rots off you just can't actually buy any of them from iTunes Canada
Eventually giving up any further attempts to actually take music videos seriously I started to spend time on Pandora.
I enjoyed the experience quite a bit, then Pandora made an interesting change to the system
They allowed you move a currently playing song from the station on which it was playing to different station where the listener felt the song was more appropriately encapsulated.
That was 360 stations 4200 thumbs ago.
Now when I listen to my own music library with the iTunes play I intuitively attempt to give thumbs up and thumbs down on the iTunes Player
My LastFM account simply serves to catalogue my experiences with Pandora.
you can check it out if you wish @ http://www.last.fm/user/deli_llamas_pjs
That is my moniker.deli_llamas_pjs
PJ -
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