"It is the worst division of content payments for songwriters in any form of the music business. Sony/ATV is attempting to improve that horrible ratio." 

UIA!!

Don't let Pandora lower royalties they approved 5 years ago:  http://musicfirst-coalition.rallycongress.com/7986/tell-congress-dont-slash-music-creators-pay/

Bonne bataille..?

*headdesk* Come on Pndora, wtf are you doing?

Pandora has to die.

Why is that? Pandora is going to pay upwards of $200 million in royalties this year to artists and be directly responsible for millions more in music sales. Yes, this lawsuit sucks for songwriters. But Pandora has to pay extraordinary amounts of money to rights holders and they have to cut anything they possibly can if they wish to stay in business. Unlike their alternative, broadcast radio, they actually pay both performers and songwriters.

ASCAP is not innocent and would jack up these royalties to the moon if they could. They want a bigger piece of the pie just like everyone else. Problem is, that pie is not big enough for everyone to have their way and still leave Pandora enough to cover their own expenses. So Pandora is going to have to defend their piece of the pie and sue ASCAP. Just another day in the business world. Hopefully Pandora wins.

Without songwriters there is not pandora.

Perhaps a primer on how government regulation and court decisions have shaped American business. Pandora's attempt to gain advantage in the courts is not precedent setting.

I can't believe everyone is getting upset at Pandora here. Don't you know that they are practically holding up the ENTIRE digital music business financially? (slight exaggeration) Don't you guys realize that a vast majority of streaming royalties paid in the USA comes from Pandora? That's a fact you can verify here on older posts. If you guys actually took a moment to understand how this licensing works, you might think about re-directing your anger from Pandora to the Record Labels and publishing companies. You have to look at the facts - that there is no compulsory streaming license!!!!! This is the ONLY thing that matters. If it were possible for any company to legally stream music without going through expensive ligitation or "negotiations" (highway robbery) with the rights holding companies, then this problem would be fixed. The only downside? Record labels and publishers would stop making disgusting amounts of money that they don't share with their artists. The facts are right in front of you, below:  "Right now, Pandora pays record labels $12.50 for every $1 paid to songwriters and music publishers." Now if there was a simple compulsory license in place, we could all stream music to each other legally, and pay a fraction of the cost to the artists, or a more reasonable sum to publishers and labels. But they really want to be greedy. Why is this so bad, you ask? Because the contracts are written such that all of the "advance" money that companies like Pandora pay to labels for the right to even start streaming, BEFORE they start paying artists - NONE of that advance money ever goes to artists. Think about that! The labels write the artist contract to say they don't get any money from these payouts, yet the payouts are what bring the cost of doing business up. So the point is that this is not an argument about how much the musicians should get paid - not at all! This is an argument about how much less labels should be getting. its the LABELS' and publisher's jobs to redistribute the money fairly, NOT PANDORAS. Do some research and get on the right side of this fight, and you might actually help change things in the business for once.

There is a way "for any company to legally stream music without going through expensive ligitation or "negotiations" (highway robbery) with the rights holding companies."

It is a compulsory/statutory license and it is based on creating a non-interactive streaming service that is similar to broadcast radio.

Pandora has chosen to create an interactive service. And if you want to do that you must "go through negotiations."

Do more research indeed.

Pandora meets the definition of a non-interactive service and uses the compulsory/statutory license.

Yeah, you are right, but I don't even count that as a solution because the limitations on that streaming are pretty ridiculous. Its not feasible for you to do what you want with the music by playing by their ridiculous rules about how many songs you can play off each album, how many songs per artist you can play per hour, etc etc. Its all a load of BS. Remove the limitations and see the music flow and the money follow....

*cough* No, itunes is keeping the music industry afloat.  If you haven't heard, 70% of music sales in the U.S. comes from iTunes. *cough*

Meant to specify "streaming" part of the business specifically, my mistake.

Or pandora could just close their doors and the digital record industry would collapse overnight, whichever makes more sense... If I were their executives I'd be selling my stock and getting ready to exit the company to start something new. If they can't lower rates there is no point in them existing. Businesses need to make money. Record labels need business who make money to sell their goods. Pretty straightforward. Personally I would like to see Pandora call it quits and watch the executives soil themselves in fear!

Yes. Businesses do need to make money.

Songwriters are in business. They have a product, and stock (publishing) that they can sell, just like Tim W.

So. I guess it's fighting time.

Like songwriters, Pandora is not too big to fail - and I doubt anyone will quantitatively ease either if they do.

An article on billboard.biz on Pandora and songwriter royalties from a music publisher's point of view >>

http://www.billboard.biz/bbbiz/industry/publishing/songwriters-are-left-out-of-pandora-s-royalty-1007993512.story

Is there a link to the complaint filed by Pandora?

What is the legal basis for their lawsuit?

Is it based on antitrust/anticompetive legal trheories?

It seems like Pandora knew how the licensing system works before they started, so what are they asking the judge/jury to decide? That ASCAP and the people they represent are business people that want to get the maximum money for their product?

So what?

ASCAP has been under anti-trust scrunity for a long time. 

This all comes down to a basic arguement. Someone starts a company (in this case Pandora) that basically distributes someone else's product (in this case Record labels, artists, songwriters).

Here is how it works with almost every other business on the planet. The company doesn't like the price it has to pay for the product it's distributing? Great, go find a cheaper one (independent artists, labels, etc). If you want the premium product (major labels/artists/songwriters), then you have to pay for it.

Pandora is under a lot of pressure right now. Their stock has been riding a rollercoaster, and this website has been reporting that senior executives are dumping it at an alarming rate. Shareholders want profits. The arguement could be made that they were overvalued to begin with, but that is a moot point. 

I think most people would acknowledge the fact that Pandora pays more than anyone else. The outrage being expressed here is because rather than see Pandora pay less, artists/songwriters would rather see the likes of Spotify pay more.

The difference between ASCAP and almost every other other business on the planet is ASCAP has a binding argeement with government that requires them license their music at low rates. Pandora is suing ASCAP because they believe ASCAP is in violation with this agreement.

I won't call you a moron or stupid for making this statement... just ignorant.

Check your facts!

The ratio that Pandora pays in royalties to artists and songwriters is about 14 to 1 in favor of artists.

Pandora pays so little to songwriters that if Pandora went out of business tomorrow songwriters would hardly notice the difference. It almost costs more to process Pandora's skimpy songwriter royalties than they pay.

So, what does Pandora do? Sues songwriters --- the owners of ASCAP.

Great thinking. Try to beat the crap out of the people that give artists, Pandora and every other digital music distributor something to do!

No songwriters! No music!

How much creepier can Westergren get. 

Keep sucking the money out of Pandora, Tim, so that when it goes under all its money will be in your bank account

"Keep sucking the money out of Pandora, Tim, so that when it goes under all its money will be in your bank account."

Except for the $10 million is will cost Pandora to prosecute this lawsuit!

PUT THIS COMPANY OUT OF BUSINESS!!!

It's a shitty business model with a weak sales force.  Traditional radio stations used to have amazing sales teams that could raise serious cash to offset the cost of running a commercial radio station.  Although that stopped in 1996 and over-the-air broadcasters began monetizing every minute of every day with NTR when the Telecom Act got passed.  Maybe crap internet broadcaster Pandora should start charging for airplay like commercial radio?  Watch artists and bands disappear in droves from the service when they do so...

At it again are we?

Since when is advertising a shitty business model? Has that not been the driving force behind TV and Radio since... forever? Is that not the driving force behind Google, and thousands of internet companies? Pretty sure it is. And Pandora actually has a very strong sales force, probably bringing in more than every other internet radio service/webcaster combined.

"Maybe crap internet broadcaster Pandora should start charging for airplay like commercial radio?"

Broadcast radio does not charge for airplay with the exception of advertising and brokered programming (essentially a big advertisement) which Pandora also does. Accepting money from artists for airplay of their music is illegal on broadcast radio and not an option for Pandora. Your comment is irrelevant.

"And Pandora actually has a very strong sales force, probably bringing in more than every other internet radio service/webcaster combined."

Then what's the problem?  Sell more, pay your bills or go out of business.

The royalty rates are currently pathetic from this internet broadcaster.  Pandora and others should be paying what over-the-air broadcast radio pays and not a penny less.  Also, over-the-air broadcast radio should be paying the Performance Royalty.

Making an exception so that a Silicon Valley start-up gets a break is the travesty here.

Define this:

"brokered programming (essentially a big advertisement)"

This means 'spin packages' which includes built-in advertizing, right?

Illegal.

Typically brokered programming has no advertisements. The best example is perhaps the religious broadcasts that are often times aired at night on several clear channel AM's, because of their unparelled coverage. They pay for use of the transmitter usually in half-hour increments. Not illegal.

Why???

This should upset anyone that writes or creates content.