Boo hoo. She's a cowritter, therefore the money will get split up and it is an old song. She's been making money on the song for the last 20-30 years. The idea that she still gets paid is what is insane. I have no sympathy for anyone who complains they are not getting paid enough for something they did in the 80's. Copyrights should expire after 20 years as patents do.

Casey you are an ignorant tool! Doesn't matter when it was recorded, if it's good enough to still get PLAYED then it's good enough to pay the artists involved - which includes the writer. It's people like YOU Casey that are the problem... exploiting the hard work of others to make your own quick buck. Loser.

caseys spot on

No only is Casey spot on, but the songwriter conspicuoulsy gives NO data as to what she would be paid if 3.1 million RADIO LISTENERS heard the song.

It isn't the number of PLAYS that matters, it's the number of IMPRESSIONS. 

3.1 million uses of Pandora's website.  Wonder how much the computer programmer got paid per stream?

Perhaps you guys who are so quick to criticize songwriters (who actually want to make a living at their craft)... perhaps you should post some of the incredible songs you've written so we can judge whether you're getting a fare shake for your efforts.
If you keep reducing the ability of songwriters to make a living, soon there will be no songwriters.

I like BC's challenge..share some links to whatever it is you do create.. but especially if it's music. Tell a renaissance painter their work is only worth $0.02 now because it's so old.. 

Ha! telling a renaissance painter that would be difficult for two reasons:

1) he's definitely dead. Assuming he was a late renaissance painter, he was born in the 17th century.  Let's say 1650, for argument's sake. That would make him 362 years old, or about 300 years dead.

2) even if he were alive, he'd be earning nothing from the paintings he made during the renaissance.  Once a painter sells their work, that's it - it may as well be worth nothing, for all the good it does them.

Also worth noting is that a painting can only be sold once - a song can be sold many millions of times over.

The problem is that Pandora is making money on advertisements while the listener is consuming the music.

So the music is the product.  Those who created the product--the writer, the performer, and whoever holds the rights--deserve to get paid.  This is Capitalism 101, folks.  

And for the moron who said, the painter only gets paid ONCE...well, yeah, that's because it can be enjoyed by ONE PURCHASER (unless its ina museum, and hmm, they charge admission, right?)

Take it a step further, and if that painting was mass-produced as a poster, a t-shirt, whatever, then PER ITEM, the painter gets a cut.

That is fair.

3.1 million people have listened to this song.  If they purchased said song, that would be $3.1 million.  Once YOU purchase that song, you can enjoy it for FREE after that.

But Pandora did NOT buy the song.  They are using it to create revenue.  Therefore a more appropriate profit sharing is in order.

Can't believe how many idiots are out there, siding with the Corporation.  F.

What do you have against coorporations? Isn't that CAPITALISM!?

How skinny can these comments get? I'm just curious, so I'm posting right here.

Why can a painting only be sold once?  That's like saying an automobile can only be sold once...

Because the artist only gets paid for it once. It's not likely that the person who bought the painting will return it to the artist that created it so that they could make any secondary profit on it.

it is for this reason that many countries have created re-sale laws for auctions. so when an artwork that sells for millions at auction years later, the artist, (who likely sold the work for little) actually benefits, not just the reseller/speculator who didn't create the work.

let me reiterate: many countries (and even some states) have found it reasonable to legislate that an artist who created a visual work is allowed to benefit from future sales of said work. 

so: booyah! 

Actually, if the Painters work was made into prints, or used to sell products (which is what radio play is - radio stations play music to sell ads), as long as the artist is alive they are due a cut of those $.

That's ridiculous.  When you see a person performing on the streets are you obiligated to pay them?  After all, you have heard/seen/experienced their art have you not?  When a songwriter puts his/her art in the digital domain, it is no different than performing on the streets.  The digital world has created a place where music is passed around for free.  This is no secret and it is not new.  It is what it is.  If you want your music to not be free, then perform it live and charge admission.

 Whenever someone is making money off your work period. You should be paid. That crazy for someone to go around using you to make money. Then they pay you like they did all the work. Writing songs is not easy. Being creative is stressful at times. If you want to hear good music pay these songwriter what they worth. If you not in the business of getting pay your self worth.Which is a very big business then you should not comment.

Justin B, you half get it.  You are not obiligated to pay someone playing on the street but, if you go to Pandora or Spoitify you are "attending" art created by an artist.  You showed up, they didn't find you.

This is what it comes down to, Google found a way to make the internet free, and make wild profits with it.  Everyone else is stuck playing the Google game if they want to run an online business. Pandora, Spotify, ect, they are forced to squeeze the artist b/c NO ONE uses paid internet services.  At some point the consumer needs to realize that they are going to canibalize their desired content by not being willing to pay.  The internet will never be a paid service, that is decided.  But the current status quo is not sustainable either.  

Admission which few people will pay because they are so used to getting their music for free in the digital world that they've stopped valuing it the way it should be valued. If we want a world in which songwriters can make a living, even a meager one, from their skilled work, we need to create multiple avenues of income.

their were multiple venues for a songwriter to earn a decent living. but all these people who wanted obscene amounts of free music slowly killed, and are still killing fascets of the industry.

Show me an ad-program that will give me 3.1 million impressions for $39. I'll gladly pay! Hell, let me buy a dozen.

It might be impressions that count, but $39 is still insanely low.

The song is 30 years old, firstly. Secondly, modern "artists" that deserve to be paid make a SHIT ton of money for their originality, real artists don't really exist anymore. They just take everyone else's art and revamp it somehow. If I go on Github right now, take everyone's Open Source work (which 95% don't earn money from and still don't piss and moan about it) and throw together a decent sized project using it, should I make money?

As for the songs made 30 years ago, take her song off Pandora and watch her make $0 as people listen to it from 500 other mediums. There are thousands of software systems that provide the mainframe foundation of almost all computing done today, do the original makers get money? No. If we're going to piss and moan about stupid shit, let's at least make it equal across all mediums and not just about the bleeding heart "artists" that were too busy doing drugs and playing guitar in their hayday than to do something to further humanity.

@Econ,

I see what you're saying, but your logic is misguided. If programmers owned the rights in their own technology, maybe they could negotiate compensation per impression. But theydon't own the rights in the ad serving technology, their employer does. Pandora pays the ad server, the ad server pays the employee.

The key difference here is that songwriters (and their representation) do  own the rights in their music. Furthermore, songwriters are selling songs, not impressions. Therefore, songwriters should be payed on a per stream basis, not per impression. It's Pandora's role to step in and find the business model between money coming in (ad revenue) and money going out (operating expense including songwriter compensation).

If Pandora employed their own team of songwriters, and only ever played those select compositions on their streaming service, then maybe they could side-step their copyright expenses. Maybe Pandora would pay those songwriters at an hourly rate, or per song. If this were the case, Pandora would be the sole owner in the song, and would NOT be obligated to pay a songwriting royalty. Pandora is wiser than to put themselves in the songwriter's shoes. Nobody wants to listen to music solely inspired by a corporations need to lower their bottom line, would they? This is where songwriters come in, real people with real experiences, and real value in their songs. Value dictated by the listeners. The greater the value, the more streams. It's that simple.

Rights-holders and right-users can debate what's fair until the end of time. Either the artist is starving, or the music service is. The core issue here is simple. Piracy. This is the underlying problem. Pandora (and the music industry at large) can't maintain a business model that is forced to compete with piracy.  Don't blame record labels, artists, the tech companies. It is in their DNA to fight for a larger piece of the pie. It is piracy that undermines the whole system, steals the pie out from under everyone's noses, starving everyone involved... letting water out of the fish tank triggering a scramble for survival. Just because the box office clerk is a dick doesn't make it ok to sneak into the movies. Get it yet?

We need better regulation. We don't need longer term of copyright, we need to enforce the one we have. Anyone who doesn't recognize this is either dumb or looking the other way.

If there was an easy way to enforce copyright online it would have happened a loooooooooong time ago. People keep forgetting that this something that is as old as the Internet itself. I'm open to suggestions tho.

Agreed. It's definitely not easy. Considering how miserably the DMCA's take-down notice policy has failed, a better solution probably involved DSP's taking on a greater burden of copyright enforcement. Exactly how much of the burden is fair? That's up for debate. One thing is for sure, the technology to sort copyrighted material from unknown material exists and is prevelant. Youtube is doing this now with their CMS system. Why can't Grooveshark, MegaUpload, companies who fall back on DMCA regulations for their defense, do more? This should be part of the debate...

Re YouTube, the Japanese record company selling my song get every single illegal upload taken down. They have sold 1.4 million. It CAN be done.

When you listen to the radio the music plays without your interaction. When 3.1 million people choose to hear a song it's very different. Their choice is a performance on demand and the songwriter as well as the artist and label should be paid. It's not the same medium. The problem is that tech businesses are trying to make this less valuable than when the user had no choice at all. That doesn't make sense...unless you wrote a lousy business plan. They remind me of a guy who opens a bar without realizing he's got to pay for a liquor license. That bar either spends the money for one or goes out of business. That's why the internet is littered with failed music businesses. They don't really know what they're doing, except trying to get rich quick.

My name Casry...I write doo-doo!

Totally agree, Mr. Walker. Once again, bogus complaints about length of copyright are used to try and obscure the problem. Casey completely misses the point that even if the song were written in 2012, the co-writer would still only be getting that pitiful rate. Apparently if she were to earn $39 for 3 million plays of a new song for the next twenty years, that would be okay. 

Completely agree.

But Casey is one of the last anti-copyright extremists on this board so his opinions can hardly surprise anyone.

I am hardly an anti-copyright extremist. I am more of an anti-procopyright-extremist extremist. The idea that we should continue getting paid for a piece of work, even many years after we die is mind blowing. Only in the copyright world does this kind of mentality exist. And where does it end?

So I guess in Casey's world, I should be able to put out a drink and call it Coke, since that copyright was ages ago.

Interesting.

Coke the name is a trademark, not a copyright.

Coke the product is a trade secret and is not protected by copyright. You can't copyright a recipe.

Why should we even pay for the coke? They have made money of us for 100 years. They shouldn't be allowed anymore money from their product. We could apply this theory to everything. 

They have a physical product. That is why.

If you want to make coke, you are more than welcome to do so. You will have to come up with the ingredients on your own however, as they are a trade secret. It is not protected by copyrights.

So what you're saying is that because the delivery system is virtual rather then physical the product is not real. Kind of a bogus argument. The music was created as a physical product, ingested via the ears. The delivery system is not what makes it a physical product

Yes, a song is a physical thing.  It was typed or written down in some physical form to be presented to whomever for discussion. This is why Ray Charles was smarter than just about anyone else.  He made sure that he owned all royalties to his songs.  Everytime one of his tunes is played, that he wrote, his family gets paid!  That was a different time period, back when the artist at least had the option, and or opportunity, to be in control of their own destiny.  Today, unless you mas market your music, or songs, outside of the mainstream, you are glued to the contract that is given to you.  You either take, and accept it, or hit the road jack and do it on your own.  It's a shame that modern songwriters don't get the credit they deserve, but it all boils down to representation.  Writing a song for someone like Belinda Carlise who really is just a flash in the pan sort of singer, is nothing compared to those folks who write songs for someone like George Strait, a singer that is usually guarenteed to major seller of records and profits.  I'm sure those guys who write his songs are getting paid much more that those who write the "one hit wonder".  Credit is deserved where credit is due of course, and whether you are a songwriter, someone behind the scenes, or the actual performer, they should all get what is due.  Why do you think todays songs are pieces of crap with very little emphasis put into the actual story or lyrics?  It's all about the cash and not the art.  Sell out or starve, that's what it has come to these days.  Nobody cares anymore.

This is a songwriter's paycheck. They don't have a salary or an hourly, they have royalties. We give up the immediate reward for the long-term income that eventually builds up, but when someone who is succesful is raking in $39, there is no reward at all. By it having a long life, they are able to collect pennies per play and after years of being around, the song eventually is worth the time invested into it.

Another method of getting paid as a songwriter is to sell your catalog. Although, if the catalog is raking in a whopping $39, no one is going to buy it.

"The idea that we should continue getting paid for a piece of work, even many years after we die is mind blowing." - Casey

Tell that to patent law, big pharma, Disney, or the whole TV industry for that matter, print publishers, etc, etc.  There are laws that govenr the exact concept you are discussing.  How long should someone get paid on something they create.  Patent law is different by industry, for creative work it is called "creative commons".  I believe you get 60 years.  Disney has gotten an extension on Mickey Mouse twice.  By your rational, anyone should be able to print up Mickey Mouse t-shirts, anyone should be able to make a Bugs Bunny cartoon and not owe Disney / Warner Bros one red cent.  

That's a terrible example. Big pharma relies on patents which have a lifetime of 20 years (much shorter than the 120 years of copyrights). Mickey Mouse is a trademark which is basically an emblem of a particular company and is enforcible for as long as that company exists. The idea being that it's important for comsumers to be able to recognize a company. Disney has put a lot of marketing money into creating a good name for themselves and doesn't want any other company to either piggyback on that reputation or tarnish it by giving people the impression it's doing things it isn't. 

The argument that the amount of time a copyright is enforcible isn't an issue because the person would be making the same amount regardless misses a very important point. The idea behind patent laws and copyright laws is to provide incentives for inventors/artists. The value of a particular piece of intellectual property is multiplied by a factor of 6 simply by switching from being patent protected to being copyright protected. That's pretty significant and structurally gives a pretty big boost to copyrights. 

I don't miss that point at all.

How much does 3 million songs generate in revenue for songwriters/publishers? Well Pandora typically refers to these royalties as 1/10 of their royalty obligations to performers. That would be roughly $330. So she is upset that she gets $39. How is that Pandora's problem? They pay, she's simply not getting it. Someone else is taking the money.

3 million plays is relatively little anyway. It should be thought of as 3 million "listens" not plays. How many listens are generated by a top market broadcast radio station?  A lot. It wouldn't take many plays on a radio station to get 3 million listens, as few as 2-3 in major markets. Would $330 be a decent payout for 2-3 plays or even 20-30 plays in medium markets? Sure seems like it would be.

9.1 cents mechanical license per song, per unit sold.  Take 9.1 cents time 3.5 million.  She cowrote, so divide by 2.  If she had a publisher as well then the 9.1 cents would be divided by 2 first, then the remaining 50% divided between the two cowriters.  Without mechanical royalties songwriters wouldn't bother writing and spending a crap load of time and effort to get music out there.   You are just flat out an idiot.   You should come in May to the songwriter festival in Key west and spew your moronic theories.  

What do mechanical rates for sales have to do with plays on Pandora?

If you are going to insult me, at least provide information that is relevant.

Hard work? Do you even know what hard work is? Hard work is serving the country overseas knowing that you may not return home. Hard work is working up the land and raising the livestock. Hard work is working in an unairconditioned factory standing on you feet all day. Hard work is cleaning up other peoples messes everynight while everyone else sleeps. Millions of Americans do hard work every single day. Hard work is not sitting down and writing a piece of a song as a cowriter.

Casey; You're a fool that obviously doesn't know, understand, or appreciate the fact that there are different types of labor that all take their toll on those that execute them.

Dont hijack a thread with "do you know what hard work is" bs - it isnt discounting what others do for a living, it is about what is fair recompense for what one does for a living.

Making ART is the hardest work you fool...

As an artist of 15 years, I'd like to note that making art is rather easy. There are much better ways to make money than Pandora and selecting the right place to place your art is seemingly the only difficult part. If the places you picked are paying you so poorly, it's probably about time to pick up a job that includes good pay. Money from art is just extra to me. It's money where you can say, "Wow it's nice that people pay for this at all."

You are full of it.

If you really were "an artist for over 15 years"  you would know that YOU HAVE NO 'CHOICE' to put or take things from Pandora.

They operate under a compulsary license (which they managed to get a major cut-rate on btw) and are asking for even further cuts to the rate... not just for their company, but EVERY other company out there to.

There was 3 companies 'grandfathered' into these low rates including ClearChanel... instead of raising these three companies rates to the rest of the world, they're trying to lower everyone down to their pathetic rates of nothingness..

Go troll elsewhere

Apparently you are full of it too. There are far more than 3 companies operating under this lower rate. Anyone was allowed to opt in if they qualified. And as a matter of fact, Clear Channel is not one. Not in entirety at least. Terrestrial radio streams do not qualify since they are not a pureplay webcast. Their custom channels might qualify, but it doesn't really matter because not many people listen to them.

Something artists don't seem to realize is that many of the webcasters that don't complain about rates are not paying them. Anyone who does pay them is barely breaking even or bleeding money. Even at these lower rates.

RIAA should hire you to make pirates look silly, Casey.

Is "hard work" sitting on your butt, making stupid comments on this board? LOL! Get an education.

entertainers, writers co-writers pay scale's. first thing the time of learning a talent as such, dedication to your craft is what makes you. sitting down or standing up you still have to pay for equipment, travel, copyrights, song pluggers, management, Taxes, and band mate Family's,monthly expences,plus advertisement cost, and still clean up others messes as like millions of Americans do.serving the country we all do thawow i could not resist this one.First off i'm glad your a working Lady,here's my side maybe help you ease the issues performerst to in our own ways, and i'm proud of my two sons in the army,music eases their pain as well as others.and the things you list is why i do what i do in the music buzzyness,useing a creative part of the brain writing a song takes more than you think and a $39 pay check from 3.1 million spins weather it be a song from the 1800's or earlier is property of the creator's and the hours spent to evolve a song from thin air to grade A, Radio play can drain the bank and that is unAirconditioned..lol.cleaning asses and livestock is a few jobs i believe all entertainers musicians, co-writers, have under their belts even eating from trash cans to keep going, still it's a war to servive, I'll be danged if your so self centered you think we don't look into our kids eyes think we don't see our promises to them fade,because of what we copyright, produce, bring to life, cuts us away from our precentages of> the Royalties,fair share of the creator of works,Lord open your eyes child-------------------->>>>

huh? no way... gettiiing a MD is easier, getting a Ph.D. is easier, going to a warzone is easier

songwritering is harder any of that... until u  do it u dont know, u jus dont know

How about we not say going to a warzone is easier...  How about I'll challenge you on that one every day of the week and twice on Sunday.  But that's not the point.  The point is that people deserve the right to get paid for their work, whatever that work may be.  How do the internet music services negotiate the royalties?  Is it a negotiation at all?  Somewhere down the line, someone (and or their lawyers) has to sign off on it.  I don't have any idea how the music industry works, but it seems improbable that Spotify, Pandora, etc. can license the songs and just say "oh btw, we'll only pay $x for it, no matter what".  Whoever licenses that content, at some point, has to have a say in the matter and agree to terms.  That is what seems logical to me, does anyone know any more details? 

Can I get played for playing my video games, or that not "work" enough for you?

There are professional game players.

You have to be good enough to compete.

To compete is a big sacrifice. That's where the "No Life" comes from. Some of them end up as game junkies.

but there are professionals and they get payed for playing games.

I am a songwriter with a number of songs on pandora. I had no say in any of them being there or what I get paid.  Many of them are songs that are new and my check from pandora is less than $10 per month.  Many songwriters I know have had to stop writing as a profession because they can't survive on the money that they are being paid.  For the same number of radio plays I would have made thousands of dollars.  Many, many people are making a profit from my songs while I struggle to stay in the business.  That is not right or fair.  Creators should be paid for their music.  If you don't think the music is worth what it costs, then don't listen to it.  Otherwise, you are stealing someone's property and their livelihood.  

Game makers still get paid for their games 20-30 years later. We don't say that a game should be free they already made their money. 

You don't know what you're talking about. I was a video game art lead for 16 years. Never made a dime off the products, just salary while making them, and then when we were done: POOF! Layoffs.

Every damn time.

Some people who make video games make great money, most don't. And almost nobody makes royalties from their games. that is for a select few in a few good companies. But it is by no means the norm.

But don't conflate it with the music business, it's nothing like it.

How about we not say going to a warzone is easier...  How about I'll challenge you on that one every day of the week and twice on Sunday.  But that's not the point.  The point is that people deserve the right to get paid for their work, whatever that work may be.  How do the internet music services negotiate the royalties?  Is it a negotiation at all?  Somewhere down the line, someone (and or their lawyers) has to sign off on it.  I don't have any idea how the music industry works, but it seems improbable that Spotify, Pandora, etc. can license the songs and just say "oh btw, we'll only pay $x for it, no matter what".  Whoever licenses that content, at some point, has to have a say in the matter and agree to terms.  That is what seems logical to me, does anyone know any more details? 

Hard work is working 2 jobs while my finace went overseas in the military and was killed in action.  I was born a songwriter.  Not a programmer, not an attorney, not anything but a songwriter.  While I worked 2 jobs (a post & pole mill during the day and bartending at night) I kept writing songs, even if it meant no sleep.  Finally I saved up enough money to go to Nashville.  I was signed as a professional songwriter a year later.  I was paid a salary to write music for Sony and 4 years later Warner-Chappell.  I worked from 9-7 5 days a week in a writing room then would come home and write at night on my own material and would work on weekends. I had a quota to fill, just like a journalist would have.  I did this for 11 years and earned a decent living wage but never had a million selling hit to earn retirement.   I did not have insurance or benefits and was considered sub-contracted.  My job ended in 2004.  I worked for 11 years for corporate america and wasn't even recognized as having been employeed.  This country doesn't recognize art as real work. I have never worked harder on anything in my entire life.  I have devoted my entire life to this work - in spite of being in a country where people don't view what I do as being "work".   I normally don't answer these kinds of conversations, but I wanted to caution this man with his blanket judgements about songwriters not knowing hard work.  I am a professional songwriter (by the governments standards, I should be living under a bridge homeless with what I make now as a songwriter). I have sacrificed more than I can put into words here.  Songwriting isn't about one session with a co-writer.  It's about devoting your life's work to the expression of what many other people don't have the courage to express or don't have the ability to express - then share it. Problem is..... as with many things of value, the creator makes far less than the coorporate middlemen.  

To this man making these comments here, I would ask..... go for one full month without listening to ANY music at all of any kind in any form (you'll likely find that you can't even do that this day in age).  I think you would find something truly priceless is missing.  The upside I suppose is if all the music makers today stopped making music then folks would have to make their own. 

Unfortunately.. That's not true. The tens of millions of tracks already published, more than any human could listen to in their entire life even if they listen 24/7, would still exist the entire music industry left the face of the Earth.

No no music would be made, true. But some of us are still not finished listening to the old music. :)

What you fail to understand is that we need new music ALL THE TIME!

Music affects and reflects our time, comments on it, makes us understand it.

Go ask any kid if s/he want your old records instead of hot new stuff... :)

Boo Hoo Hoo!!Why can't I make money as a Telegraph Operator? It's not fair! I should be paid! Maybe I'll try making Buggy Whips, Horse Wagons or writing music!

Come on people. Everyone is doing music because everyone can. It's like Fuc@ing. Everyone can do it but not everyone can get paid to do it and make a great living unless you're really talented and really good looking.

You want to be a musician? Get a real job and then you can write all the music you want and put it out on your own terms.

Gee Granpa, when you fell off the turnip truck, you might have hurt your head.

Forget the "artsy fartsy" image of a songwriter.  Take in consideration that it is a JOB.  Similar to a novelist, a playwright, a screenwriter etc.

It is work.  Maybe not the stoop and grunt kind.  But it is work.  And because it involves bringing something new into the world--called art (whether you agree with that title or not)--those who do it deserve, BY LAW, to be compensated for its use.

A ditch digger like yourself has a skill.  And you get paid for that skill.  But because you only produce holes, it is not deemed by law to carry any additional value.  

So boo-hoo for you.

This is about commerce.  And product.  And those who make the product deserve to be compensated for it.  THAT is capitalism.

Now, I hope you put your teeth in backwards and eat your own head.

Amen Sister ! I Myself Have Been Homeless Starting Out In Nashville. I Have Met Many Awesome Songwriters That Struggle Daily To Survive Although They Have Had Millions Of Plays And Recorded Many Songs.I Am Proud To Be A Songwriter & Pray That The Tech Age Realizes How Much Time & Effort Is Put Into Writing & Perfecting Their Craft. I Learned A Long Time Ago That Work Can Be Brain Or Brawn. I Still Work As A Handyman & Love My Jobs. But See Full Time Writers & Artists That Are Not Getting Payed Their Do. While Professional Sports Figures That Make Millions Of Dollars For Big Corporations Are Making Their Millions Too.I Feel If You Make It For Them They Should Pay It To You. God Bless

if it's so damn easy, name me 3 of your hits, especially with a 20-30 year longevity. No it's not carring a weapon in defense of your country, or factory or sevice industry or even retail. You don't just magically write a  song, and IF you did, You still have to get into the right hands. Publishers, managers, A&R don't come to you, you have to sell them on you and your work/vision. It's not an easy way to make a living. Casey, Get just 1 peice of your dribble published, then get it recorded, then get it on a record, then get it released as a single, then get it to the top of the chartst, then keep it relevant 20-30 years, then and only then, you might have the right to say it is not work. You sound like the President, "you didn't build that!" 

My comment was not meant to say songwriters don't do work nor was it meant to single them out either.

I have done laboring work and I have done non laboring work. I spend more time doing the non laboring work. But I will never refer it as hard work simply because there is a lot of it. Hard work in my mind is either physical or dangerous. It is a personal opinion and I should have clarified.

to

Casey: Having read your "work"in this thread, it is abundantly clear that you are a lousey song writer. In fact, I'm betting you might earn a better living as a tuba player in a Danish polka band. I have performed both dangerous and physically hard labor off and on for 22 years, and I can tell you that writing a "Quality" song is much more difficult; and then you have to perform it.

As far as generational royalties are concerned: My family benefits from mechanicals still generated from timeless classics which my Grandfather wrote many years ago. I suppose if the Casey's of the world had their way, we'd have no royalties and Grandad's songs would evaporate. One problem with that theory Casey; many have tried to immitate his style and structure of writing, and many more have FAILED.

ALL ARTISTS AND WRITERS: WHO IS JOHN GALT?

Mele Kalikimaka!

Casey is a little mis-guided, learn more about mech royaties. Most songwriters such as myself, work those jobs he writes of, on top of the songwriting. What is his excuse? If songwriters were actualy paid, you would have better quality music. Most of us have little to no financial pay-off. personaly I do it for love music and social awareness, not love of money. What does he love? 

Casey,

You MAY understand the concept of how royalty distribution works amongst publishers, writers, artists and labels. BUT....  

You obviously are not an artist and cannot begin to fathom the idea of creating music and the concept of an 'artist's struggle'. So please hush up, sorry but your opinion does not count. Everyone here knows that...

If the song is getting that many plays then there is a demand and it's still a product so it should be paid for. What an attitude some people have but that goes hand in hand with the ugly realities of this new world...

The problem is that if this song was written in 2011 and played 3.1 million times, the payout would be the same.

Yes - exactly! She'd still get paid the same amount even if she'd written the biggest new hit of the year for Katy Perry! Casey your comment is narrow sited and ignorant.

If the law makers don't soon find a way to pay musicians and music creators properly, we will soon be left with nothing but amateurs creating sub standard music that has every possibility of reaching a larger audience but no way of being promoted so that a larger audience would actually be aware of the music in the first place.Radio station will be filled with hits of yesterday because there won't be enough money in the system to warrant promoting anything new.

Want to know what the future looks like in a world where songwriters get paid $39 for 3 million spins? Rebecca Black's "Friday" - that's what you ahve to look forward to Casey. Hope you enjoy crap.

If you've never written any songs or worked with songwriters, it's hard for you to be understanding of their perspective on this issue.  Sit down and talk with Ellen and other writers of classic pop and rock songs before you dismiss them as whiners.  It's easy to dismiss someone you view as faceless and unworthy of compensation for their contributions if you dont have a real understanding of not only the creative process but also the business environment that writers must navigate.

Casey, you are a complete fucking moron.

Casey it looks like you shook up the hornet nest. Hahaha..

If you work for any amount of time in the industry you will learn that music attracts a narcissist personality type. The last thing they want to hear is that their work isn't that important.

Fact is that good songwriters are incredibly important. That's why they're paid so well.

And that's why all the I-could-do-that-dudes hate them.

"That's why they're paid so well."

If we are to believe the OP, no, they are not. :)

Good songwriters have been paid very well throughout history -- and they will be again.

For the simple reason that we really need them.

The parasite problem we see these days is the exception.

Casey....Im a photographer.  Tell me, if years from now someone is finally getting around to wanting to purchase a print that I have created should I no longer charge them?  According to you there is an expiration on creativity and compensation for a job well done.  Recently I PURCHASED a painting of "The Creation" by Michael Angelo.  A very old creation, and its beautiful.  I did not walk into the gallery and demand it for free since it wasn't created in this decade.  Although we are all entited to our opinions, and I respect you for voicing yours.  My opinion is to disagree with you.  Stop and think.....if you worked really hard at creating something that you are proud of for your profession, regardless of what your profession is.  You are always compenstaed at your job.  It's why we have jobs!!  Some of us are just fortunate enough to get paid doing what we love.     

And how much of your money went to Michaelangello? Seriously, you picked just about the worst example you could have picked. 

That's flawed logic. If a scientist or drug company creates a drug they have a limited timespan (20 years) in which they're allowed to profit off of the intellectual property. Why should that be so inherently different than writing a song? If people still use the drug after 20 years, why shouldn't the drug company be able to continue to make money from having developed it? My guess is most people here aren't clamoring to extend patent holders rights' to 80+ years. If we did penicillin would still be under protection.

Casey, your a true ignorant twunt. Tru'dat...

What a moron!...How would you like people to steal your hard work and then sell it for profit and nothing for you

I don't think you are getting what I am saying. I have no problem with being paid for your own work, and I have no problem with a person defending their work. I have a problem with a person being paid for the work they did decades ago.

A period of say, 20 years, is more than enough time to be fairly compensated for your work and then some.

I have never once been pro stealing on this website either. I have been pro many things but that has never been one of them. Love or hate the law, I don't promote breaking it. I promote changing it.

if work done more than 20 years ago has value today, and others transfer their 'value credits' in the form of money-for-song and/or attention-to-advertisments (in the case of streaming), then why shouldn't the creator of the content share in the distribution of those transferred value credits?

Agreed. The ancestors of the Romans should sue for everyone here using Latin characters without permission.

Casey - If someone is making MONEY from something you made don't you think you deserve a cut?  Yes you do, you're worth it :)

Obviously you're playing devil's advocate here, or you were born into a wealthy family, or you are insane.

(sorry couldn't help myself hah :)

International copyright laws tend to state life of the author plus 75-100 years depending on territory....  Then it's free.  So that's the value of time that's been put on copyrights.

FYI - you can copyright a recipe.  You can copyright anything that's been written in a tangible medium.  Cookbooks are protected by copyrights as well.

Great there Casey, maybe whatever work you do should be cut by 85%..   How ridiculously idiotic you are.  Us songwriters deserve compensation.  You obviously have no idea how much time, effort, waiting, hoping, and flat out ummph is put into getting a song out there to a point it makes you money.  Please crawl into a hole.  

If I get your point right, than the next question must be why people are paid pensions after they retire? Who the hell cares about what they've been doing for 50 years of their lives?

I bet people won't like this question. Why do musicians have to?

This has to be the stupidest comment yet.

Pensions are contracted payments, paid and saved into an investment account to be withdrawn later.  There's no guarantee the pension will have any future value. 

Wow, you're an idiot. It doesn't matter how old the song is. It's still being played, she should still get paid for it. And copyrights should absolutely not expire in 20 years. Why should I give up the rights to a song I wrote at age 20 when i turn 40? That is ludicrous and you are obviously uneducated on the topic. Please never speak on it again, you'd save us all some stupidity.

Apparently you don't know the definition of uneducated. I for one am very educated on the matter, the fact that I have a different view point has no bearing on my intelligence whatsoever.

"I for one am very educated on the matter, the fact that I have a different view point has no bearing on my intelligence whatsoever."

I'm not questioning your intelligence, you just don't have a clue about songwriting...

Casey you are plainly ignorant bout this and should pipe down. Let the adults speak of what you know nothing.

The concept that a small group of talented people should contribute and the much larger group of  non-contributing people should benefit has been tried.  It now sits in the trash bin of history, with names like The Soviet Union and the Peoples' Republic of China.  The problem is that, without the possibility of bettering their own circumstances, there is no incentive for those with ability to produce anything.  That is the future the music business faces, and it is already happening.  If the interest of the people who love music still exists for a particular creation, the artist who CREATED that music -- who, generally speaking, has no way of profiting by it through concert appearances or other live performances -- deserves to be paid.  If Pandora can't make it as other radio stations have for decades while paying ASCAP and BMI royalties to the songwriters, they deserve to go under.  The songwriters do not.

just wanted to add my 2cents in agreement with all the people criticising Casey - he/she is an absolute fool, obviously not a a musician/artist/writer worth a damn to anyone, nor music professional at all......and perhaps someone who doesn't have the slightest clue about anything that happens outside their tiny, ignorant, medicore and ill-informed little world.

nuff said, and fuck right off.

Casey... qUITE IGNORANT OF YOU! If it was your songg that got played that much and was still going strong and a corporation made bank off it and you didnt I think you would be a bit upset! And I think the point is shes trying to make all us other songwriters aware that this is happening. If you dont care than dont post, but dont get cheeky and jealous cause someone did something you may never, or any of us may ever do now thanks to the shitty decline of the music industry!

It's a shame you have so much hatred for a songwriter who makes other people money. All we want is a piece of the money others make using our creations to enhance their profits.that is what a royalty is. A percentage of gross income from someone using it to make money. If it were played on the radio the co- writer would be paid by ASCAP or BMI over $100,000.

You are so misinformed it's not even funny. There's a reason copywrites last so long. An artist can spend months of their lives on just one song. And to have them only receive credit and compensation for 20 years is completely unfair. That's like saying a business should stop making money off a product after 20 years. NOOO. Coca-Cola, Beoing, Caterpillar. If they lost their profit after 20 years, you wouldn't see the advances in safety from Boeing, the quicker construction times from Caterpillar, or the comumity activism and sponsorship from Coca-Cola. This stuff is not free. This is their livelihood. Yes, it is young, ignorant, mouthy people like you that support the continual lowering of profits and instability in the Recording Industry all so you can save a dollar here and there. 

This is why we don't allow anonymous comments on Trichordist.  When people like "casey" have to reveal who they really are in order to comment, they don't comment.  Why?  cause 90% the time they work for some Tech firm or foundation that gets money to advance the anti-artist anti-copyright cause. 

And on an odd note.  Everytime i've met one of these anti-artist anti-copyright trolls they end up being ridiculously short.  has anyone else noticed that?

We can't all be Aryan superheros like you.

You miss the point Casey. The nameless, faceless corporate thugs are killing the songwriter Casey. They dont care about the songwriter Casey. "Copyrights should expire in 20 years"? - this from a guy who couldn't write his way out of a paper bag. You would never make such a statement if you owned a published hit song. Which means... you are not an artist, you are not a writer, you are simply a useful idiot for the above mentioned axis of evil.

Do yourself a favor and learn about John Galt. There is a storm on the horizon.

Aloha!

I totally agree with Casey!!

Where do you work?  I'd like to make a deal with your employer.  The deal is that you get to work your ass off for the next 40 years 80 hour per week, the employer gets to keep all the work you did and profit from all that work, but you don't get paid  - oh - except for 35 dollars for all your effort all those years.  I'd bet your wife or girl friend would leave after 20 seconds of that kind of crap.

You obviously do not get the point.  Pandora and international media corporations like it, are stealing the bread right out of the mouths of honest, hard working people. 

These people happen to be songwriters, who work tirelessly for years, devoting time and effort in developing their craft; often spending part time job money on demo's of their songs.   Most of those songs are DOA.  Meaning that the majority of their songs never produce any income.  A songwriter could write 1,000 songs just to get that one song that might become an "income" producer.  Then the songwriter has the daunting task of finding someone in the industry who will listen to the song; matching that song with the right artist and then hope that artist becomes popular enough to have a "Hit", before they kill themselves with a drug overdose.

If any songwriter is lucky enough to have a hit song, THANK THE UNIVERSE, but it still does not mean that they make a million.  And remember that all the time they were working on craft of creating the "Hit"; they were not getting paid at all.  AT ALL.

But for the sake of argument, suppose one songwriter has a record that does sell 1 million copies.   Seems like a lot but the songwriter does not make a million dollars on that song.  The average income less expenses is only $10,000 / year over a working lifetime.  Remember the songwriter must also pay taxes on that income, and his or her own social security as a self employed person, which is twice as much as any other employed person.   That is because self employed people get to pay their ½ of the social security plus the employers ½ as they are their own employer in this “economic” activity.

Better than nothing at all you would say.    However, 75% of all songwriters never make any money at all.  Out of the remainder, 75% who have songs playing on the radio get less than $5,000 per year, for the same lifetime effort.

We say that songwriters deserve every single penny they get; the song is the property of the songwriter and the publisher not the property of the consumer.

It is most certainly a crime to steal the music that helps us all live out this life with a little joy. 

Songwriting craft is part of our American heritage; it is one of the biggest forces for positive social change and is still a major USA export industry.  We should protect the resource that makes all this possible.  That resource is the songwriter.  
It all begins with a song - www.EPANSAI.com

Copyright expires 70 years after the death of the last surviving member (as you said she shares it with someone). Patents are seven years and that is fair - it allows someone to profit from an innovation then allows the market to reduce the price. The Copyright law is fair. Artists get screwed sometimes by contracts (money perpetuates to the label or whatever) but I don't see any reason why it should expire quicker. At the very least the copyright allows the record label to continue to take risks on new artists - although that business model is changing with the internet.

Casey   you just don't get it...

The copyright and royalties that it generates is the propery of the artist that created it.

You can't just record "Yesterday" without giving a share of your income from the recording to Paul McCartney.   

99% of songs never earn a penny. 90% of the songs written by a sucessful professional songwriter never earn a penny. 

The song writer or their representative PITCHES those songs to recording artists who need material and if they like the song they will record it. Most Artists can't afford to pay up front for what a song is worth so people are paid pennies per play on radio.  They are paid a percentage of coverprice of a cd or album.   So while the songwriter may starve for the first few years as they become sucessfull they have streams of income from all of these pennies per play flowing to them.    

HERE IS THE KEY POINT... 

without this flow of payments from the end user... no one gets paid and in the long run the songwriter may stop writing songs.

as a result you get No songs, recycled oldies or crappy crappy new songs ...

so If you would love to hear GREAT NEW music ...no one is going to make it because they are not getting paid ...

the only thing left to do it Tour your old band and Jack up the ticket prices

So to sum up as long as these internet portals are not honouring the tradition of paying artists royalties ... and people download free music instead of paying for it NEW MUSIC will just get worse 

As a talentless McWorker you may be painfully jealous of anyone who earns residuals, copyright fees or other forms of artistic payment... but that does not mean that after years of being paid properly for work they have done in the past... its right to steal from them...

Look at it this way when somone comes to you 30 years from now and says that your PENSION which you worked all our life to build ...is now open for "RENEGOTIATION" because of changing times ... you'd have some VALID objections

you gotta be kidding me

copyrights should expire bwahahaha you must be a libertarian or something who thinks he/she's entitled to free music

and you obviously know f all about the music business "she should not be paid for something she did in the 80s" oh god i'm rolling on the floor now, oh help me

you must be working for the UN or something, spreading bullsht libertarian propaganda

protect copyright protect the artist's interests protect music!

case in point: pandora = peanuts money, she got ripped off but atleast her song got alot of plays. ellen stop complaining and write some new songs to capitalize

Casey is probably unemployed by choice and wants everything in life to be free. He/she has gotten a taste of that possibility with the ease of pirating in this day and age. Songwriting for some is a job, so I suggest you get one too Casey.

Casey,  This is intellectual Property and writers are entitled to their royalty. If you were a co-writer and one of your songs was being played and exploited, and the corporations were making a mint off your creation and you were flipping hamburgers (as you probably do),how would you take  that someone else was making money on your talent. And, if 20 years later a new artist recorded your song and again you received nothing but they got rich, how would you feel?  

From reading your lame post,  I am sure copyright infringement is common to you and percisely how you obtain your music. Your words are foolish, childish and void of any intellectual property. Go crawl back into your hole and remember to cover it up with the rock you crawled out from.

I have my families hard earned money invested in our recording studio. It took years of saving, research and building to have our business. In the last few years, I barely made a living with my work. This is insane!

It also took me a life time of study from age 12 - present to become a good songwriter. That is 40 years of work that arrogant, yet ignorant, self centered boneheads want to destroy.

Now simpletons like you are going to try to take my work and try to give me pennies for what should cost millions.

You must be insane to think that you have all rights to the work of hard working people. I'd rather burn in hell than to make a corporation rich with my work.

I hope that your  NARCISSISIM destroys you in son.

ALL SONGWRITERS / COMPOSERS NEED TO BOYCOTT AND SUE PANDORA AND ALL OTHER BUSINESS' THAT ARE ABUSING OUR RIGHTS.

If the US public is as blind and greedy as this angry pug, THEY DO NOT DESERVE OUR MUSIC. Take it back and let hollywood make silent pictures. That would be a nice wake up call.

EV

Spoken like a true member of generation entitled, I shouldn't have to pay for my entertainment.

Jeans cost money, so does good, alcohol, cars, and everything else under the sun.

Make your own music to listen to or keep stealing it. 30 years old is not an antique, junior. There's plenty of things that old that cost plenty of money.

Besiodes, if you had half abrain in your head, you would realize the real villain is the tech jerks, (which you either are or aren't smart enough to be) are making fat salaries and paying pittances to contributors, and this is across the board, music to photography to writing, and content creators just aren't going to give their stuff away any longer, provided they don't leave the business entirely because of corporate boot-licking know-it-alls like yourself.

I guess you don´t compose music... 

 I pity your ignorance but I pity us even more to have to live in a world increasingly populated by jerks like you. 

Artists deserve every cent that they are legally entitled to no matter how long ago a song was released (period emphasized).  To deny them their fair share is to steal their quality of life and treat them less than human.  God would not approve.
TP 

So they spent let's say, back then for studio time, $5000. And they get $39 / year for 20 years, divided by 2. Do the math. It's not very profitable business.

Casey, when you sell a song, you are giving them permission, not the song. And when people are using it, they are borrowing it. So if all these people are "borrowing it" you should get your money for it as long as you are alive. 

The following comment, posted on our site Tuesday, comes from Grammy-nominated, hit songwriter Ellen Shipley. One of her top tracks, "Heaven Is a Place On Earth," got played more than 3.1 million times on Pandora, in the last three months alone. Here's the rest...              

It is interesting and very disturbing that no one is addressing the SONGWRITER's situation in this Pandora debacle.

Pandora wishes to REDUCE the amount of royalties that songwriters have already seen CUT in 2005. Let me give you an example of what Pandora is paying in royalties to SONGWRITERS--not the performers, but the people who write the songs--the foundation of the music world---

PANDORA ----"Heaven Is A Place On Earth"  (co-written)

accounting period for 3 months-----3,112,300 streams

My Pandora royalty .................$39.61

AND they want us to take an EIGHTY FIVE PERCENT CUT!!! 

Does that give you an understanding of the meager, insulting, outrageous amount of money songwriters are being paid from PANDORA and SPOTIFY and YOUTUBE and GOOGLE  (I received 15 cents from GOOGLE the other day)?

FACT:

According to the FEDERAL CENSUS, we have lost 45% of our professional songwriters in the last ten years or even less (since the advent of streaming and piracy on the Internet depriving us of earning our LEGAL royalties)

So--here is the question:

WHY is it alright for PANDORA to want to exist and grow and earn profits while it is NOT alright for the SONGWRITERS to SURVIVE, be respected, earn a fair royalty?

PANDORA's model is failing-- because as Steve Jobs recognized much earlier on when he rejected the idea of Streaming Digital radio--they don't have a business plan that gives them a way (such as ad revenue) to earn a profit OTHER THAN NOT PAYING FOR MUSIC!

Listen Up Everyone Please:

Without the Songwriters who create music for artists who do NOT write their own songs, there will be little if any music when you go to PANDORA OR SPOTIFY OR YOUTUBE....

I am grateful for my success as a Grammy-nominated, hit songwriter....I am grateful that my songs have reached millions of people and meant something to them in their lives....

But I will NOT perpetrate the myth that somehow Songwriters should give their music away for free or let it be stolen by Corporations interested in their own profits by any means possible.

THis is a human rights issue---We are discriminated against and unprotected by the US governments obligation to make sure our FIFTH AMMENDMENT RIGHTS in the BILL OF RIGHTS (the "right to the pursuit of happiness" which includes the right to work at the JOB OF OUR CHOICE and earn an income from that job without--my words- interference from any person, place, corporation, streaming sites that are robbing us of our COnstitutional rights.

Let the voice of the Songwriters Be Heard!  Send a petition tous--allow us to be represented at all these meetings between the music world and those who would seek to destroy what we have worked so long and hard to achieve in our lives.

Ellen Shipley

$39 is way too much. Pandora should sue someone to lower that.  Oh wait...

WIN

Considering there are millions of songwriters registered between ASCAP and BMI alone, $39 per songwriter would indeed be too much.

PS: My above comment can also be sung.

The playing field needs to be leveled. Yes, Pandora's rates should be lowered but, at the same time, terrestial radio's rates should be increased from nothing to an equal amount. 

There is no reason that any media outlet, whether terrestial, sattelite, cable or internet streaming, should have an advantage or disadvantage over the other. Each and every one should be paying the same amount per performance/audience. 

amen!

Well put.  During the TV writer's strike a few years back, Jon Stewart made a comment that really clarified the point:  something to the effect of "staff are paid the same whether you pay for your food at the counter or the drive-thru window... why should media be any different".

Why should Pandora's rates be lowered? Even if Terrestrial radio started paying an equivalent amount of Performance royalties for sound recordings and Pandora lowered theirs, the songwriter is seeing the same amount of revenue. Ellen is not the performer, this is a clear distinction that needs to be made.

I'm an independent songwriter. I've made my own music available for streaming on Spotify and other services such as Rdio via CD Baby. I recently posted some of this streaming data for my music to my blog: http://www.jasonpaul.net/how-much-my-music-earns-for-digital-streams/

You can see that streaming via Rdio, Spotify and Rhapsody pays out between .003 and .009 per stream from CD Baby directly to me, the artist (if we're to trust the metric I'm given in this spreadsheet). I have no idea what Pandora pays out but I would guess it's something similar to those (but I have no idea...I could simply be flat out wrong).  

My point is only that by that seamingly meager metric, 3 million streams should yield somewhere between 9k and 27k. That actually seems like a pretty good chunk of change.

So my guess is that either Pandora is operating in a very immoral way and should simply be shut down as it's not viable. Especially if they're looking to cut down these pathetic payouts even more. OR, more likely, someone did indeed take this woman's money, but it was not Pandora (dare I suggest the record label?).

A quick google search gave me 

"Pandora's royalty is the $0.0011 per stream"

Read more at http://www.billboard.biz/bbbiz/industry/digital-and-mobile/business-matters-if-big-radio-had-pandora-1008024632.story#QTDU8yZfvJ3M9KHi.99 

if true, then 3 mil streams would equal $3300.00

A couple of articles I have read have intimated that it is still higher then what Radio pays out..???

matter of fact I have been trying to figure a way out to compare them, but so far havent seen anyone do so, nore to I have access to the correct numbers to make a conversion..

IE: I know in Canada radio pays out between 1% to 6% of revenue (not gross).. but how to translate that into per plays I have no idea.

Remember this is publishing not recording so you're using the wrong (much higher) recording rate to Sound Exchange.  So it's  a big issue why the percentage is so much smaler for songwriters.

Even so, the publishers rate would be roughly $330. The fact that she is getting almost a tenth of that is her problem, not Pandora's.

3 million plays "listens" would be roughly... 2-3 plays from a broadcast station in a major market. Pandora's rate doesn't sound too bad when you think of it that way.

re: OR, more likely, someone did indeed take this woman's money, but it was not Pandora (dare I suggest the record label?).

Why would a label be paying her royalties for streams on Pandora? They would pay the royalties for streams to the performer...which Ellen is not. Now her publisher may be taking her money so lets put "blame" where it is due.

No.  It can't POSSIBLY be the label, could it?

: )

First, it seems that Casey is probably jealous he/she has never penned anything with that kind of income viability. When your pay is based upon something you create with your hands, heart, & mind while at the same time said pay depends upon how many spins you receive and nothing else, then you might have a clue as to how this works. If you already DO have a clue about the music business & all of its facets, then you're probably part of the problem instead of the solution. Yes, I'm a songwriter & I can say without a doubt having spent countless years learning (and still learning) the craft of songwriting I would want to be properly compensated. It's a rare gem when some new writer turns out their first few songs & they're certified double platinum. Many writers I know never have the privilege of seeing his or her name in the liner notes of a major label record, & even many less on a "hit" record or single. We (songwriters) spend more time than most people can imagine learning an instrument, developing their craft as a writer, meeting, networking, recording, demo'ing songs(trust me, that's not cheap or free) & so forth often times without the luxury of a decent income early on in their career. Many go years & years subsisting on their "draw" from their publisher if they even have publisher representation. 

I'm not saying that song is the end-all-be-all of recordings, but obviously, someone likes it enough to have had it played over 3M times. If you plan to play ANY song that often, then that company should be prepared to compensate songwriters with  a proper figure. 

Don't crucify Pandora when they actually are paying and terrestrial radio has actually gotten away without paying a cent for decades. 

Remember that in many countries terrestial radio *does* pay. The UK has a pretty healthy radio scene compared to other countries and has, to my knowledge, always paid royalties.

Indeed, terrestial radio not only pays, it pays a lot!

Scammers like Pandora & Spotify are completely unwanted and should just go away.

Radio in the UK is very different than that in the US.

Terrestrial radio been paying writers/publishers since the inception of the licensing entitiies ASCAP & BMI - over 50 years. Pandora seems to be using a dead baby business model. They will eventually become an oldies vehicle as creators move on to more fairly compensated careers.

And here we have the 2000 pound elephant in the room, it seems to me. RADIO doesn't pay artists for performances of their work, any more than streaming services do. Performance royalties are collected and (supposedly) paid out equitably by the P.R.O.s (ASCAP SESAC and BMI in the US). This inequity of payments is THEIR problem to solve for us. Here in Nashville the biggest edifices (by far), at the very top of Music Row, are ASCAP and BMI. Big Machine, Curb Records, even Sony's offices can't compare. SESAC also has an impressive (and growing) facility. The PROS COLLECT THE PERFORMANCE MONEY BEFORE ANYONE ELSE. And THEN distribute based on an opaque "survey" system. In the digital age, survey methods are obsolete. We have the technology now to detect EVERY TIME a particular song is played, virtually anywhere. But guess what, the PROs don't want to account for every song played. Because it ruins their "survey" model WHICH ALLOWS THEM THE ABILITY TO DECIDE WHO AND HOW MUCH TO PAY, without accountability. This artist royalty travesty has to be solved (through legislation probably) by the PROs. But THEY DON'T WANT TO GIVE UP THEIR OLD WAYS any more than the labels do. Pandora and Spotify and yes, coming soon Apple, can provide the PROs with a black and white picture of what was played and when. They can accurately account for and pay the digital royalties to performers (and include the players and producers!) through legislative mandate. But this "grey area" holdover from the old system, royalties that fall through the cracks due to lack of accountability, it appears that the PROs don't want to give up any more than the record labels wanted to account properly to their artists. The PROs need to get together, take their formidable war chest of unpaid royalties, and fight for the artists they represent. As long as they are in collusion with the other obfuscators in the business, artists will continue to be ripped off. Terrestrial radio, except in country music, is being more and more marginalized and yet music is being played, enjoyed and used for commercial purposes more than ever...increasingly every day. Let's account for and pay the creators based on factual, reportable information, already available.

" Terrestrial radio, except in country music, is being more and more marginalized and yet music is being played, enjoyed and used for commercial purposes more than ever"

Man why is it that people who bitch about terrestrial radio always seem to forget about that whacky tobacy non commercial side of the dial?  : 3

That's not your song. Should we keep paying the guy who held the boom mic too?

...which is why her name is on the credits?

> Should we keep paying the guy who held the boom mic too?

Was he (strangely) offered royalties for doing that job instead of being paid by the hour? If so, yes. Plenty of people in different industries do work that is not simply work-for-hire.

> That's not your song.

She's a co-writer, so part of it most definitely is.

If you think that someone's holding a boom mic when songs are being recorded, perhaps you should refrain from commenting on these sorts of issues.

Good suggestion...

I knew that as I was writing it but I assumed someone with half a brain would understand the point and not need it to be so literal. (Do you need me to list people who took part on the song coming to fruition who aren't whining?) Pretty sure that it wasn't written in the contract that "30 years from now we will be sure to create new streams of revenue that will keep you high on the hog for your ridiculously hard labors) Like all the other old artists like Billy Joel who hasn't felt inspired to write a new peice of music for over a decade , being a parasite on a company like Pandora seems like the easiest route to take. To the vast majority of leeches who signed that lame anti internet act letter: get a job!

You just don't understand the basic concepts of copyright law.

F U pay me!!

lol

You have it flipped "expert", pandora is the parasite on the writer. 

As someone who has made a career holding up boom mics for recording artists, fuck you man.

ANd yes I would like a royalty too..

Song Expert.....your name is irony in and of itself.  It is partly her song which is why she gets royalties to begin with.  The guy that held the boom mic (which no one actually holds a boom mic in a recording studio...but hey, I'm not the "expert") did not help create the song.  People want something for nothing.  That's just how it is.  Spotify wants to use songs to make itself money while not compensating the people responsible for the creation of the music.  Ridiculous

If Pandora Gets Their GOP backed 'FAIRNESS' deal, then this will = $6

That's the difference between Olive Garden and McDonalds. Shame on them!

I don't think this a GOP backed issue; they back and applaud small businesses.  If anything it would be the socialist "you didn't build that" crowd!

Anyone who's written a song or listened to a song should read this.

Hope I chose the right career.

Thanks Pandora. no wonder you want to cut royalty payments by 85%

"Without the Songwriters who create music for artists who do NOT write their own songs, there will be little if any music when you go to PANDORA OR SPOTIFY OR YOUTUBE...."

Umm, she's joking, right?

I mean, where would we be without the Katy Perrys and Justin Biebers of the world? The entire musical landscape would be a vast wasteland, yes?

I sympathize with her plight, but talking out your ass doesn't help your cause.

She's telling the truth.

Most songs people love (and buy!) are written by hired professional songwriters -- not by the performers...

As shocking as it maybe a lot of artists don't write their own music, professional songwriters do. I know so incredibly shocking. No professional songwriters simple means that the crappy music that's already out there will just get worse.

The crappy music is what sells.

I thought that the royalties for songwriting should come from whatever the American equivalent of the PRS is? (ASCAP?)

This sounds about right if it's just mechanical royalties? The BIG cheque will come from another organisation which actually collects for songwriters?

Is that wrong?

As usual, we need more facts.

$39 for 3 million plays works out at a little over a hundredth of a cent per play.  Ellen Shipley would only be getting part of the total songwriter royalty, because the collection agency will probably take half, and Shipley's co-writer will share the remaining half with her, so the total royalty will presumably be four times Shipley's share.  That would imply a total royalty of about a twentieth of a cent.  This still seems very low in comparison to the performance royalty of about a fifth of a cent. 

Surely someone somewhere actually knows what the prescribed songwriters' royalty rate for Pandora actually is?  If it is much higher than a fifth of a cent, then either Pandora is not paying the due amount, or someone else (publishing company?) is taking a big slice.

I think there's a different way of looking at this.  Pandora is my #1 channel for discovering new music.  It knows what I like, then takes me places I would never go.

I'm a prog rock nerd.  Why then would I find Smokey Robinson's "Quiet Storm" on one of my playlists?  (There's underlying genome stuff there.) Well, it cropped up, and loved it, and bought it.

Why also would Billy Cobham's "Stratus" show up, or tracks from Sandro Perri?  More genome stuff and instrumentation I really like, but a different style of music that allows me to branch out.

All I have to do is look down my iTunes list of songs and see discoveries - both in Progressive Rock, but also in my other musical interests in traditional Irish and Scottish music. I hear the tracks on Pandora and then purchase the tracks.

So, the question for the singer / song-writer may be are sales of downloads increasing, for which the royalty rate may be better?

...funny thing...this controversy brings to mind a sunny day listening to "Heaven is a Place on Earth" - I just bought it from iTunes.

Thanks!

squonk 

The problem with that is, like others have stated on here, most artists now don't write their own material.  Especially the bigger artists.  So, while it's awesome for you and I that we can expand our musical horizon by being introduced to new music on spotify and pandora, it doesn't benefit the songwriter.  I am not a professional songwriter but understand that they are the life's blood of the music business.  If you create something, you deserve the right to make money off of it and moreover, you deserve the right not for someone else to make money off of it while paying you table scraps.  It doesn't matter when a song was recorded, it was still created by people that deserve compensation.  The large majority of people arguing on the other side don't have the talent to create a song that anyone would listen to and furthermore don't seem to understand that basic notion of intellictual copyrights.  I guarantee you if any of these people went out and created some widget that we all used, they would want to be compensated now and in the future for what they created.  If there wasn't value in these songs, companies wouldn't be using them to make themselves money. 

I heard the song, valued it, bought it.  The act of discovery is what it's all about, whether enabled by technology, social contact, etc. Content business models shift.  I would probably not purchased the track I did without Pandora, and I didn't even hear it on Pandora, but heard about it by following the Digital Music News and this conversation.

Sometimes sales occur where / when they're not expected and a new model emerges. 

Mr Squonk - you are a prog rock fan and you wonder why Billy Cobham was a recommendation?  Never heard of the Mahavishnu Orchestra??

Where is ASCAP or BMI in all of this? Royalties for radio play have been long established (http://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/music-royalties7.htm) so why does one company get to define how and what they pay rather than having it dictated by union?

@ Visitor "Where is ASCAP or BMI in all of this? "

thats the interesting part..

From what I understand Pandora pays the collectives directly who THEN distribute the monies to the artists.. (unless the artists is NOT a member of one of the collectives)

So the check of $39 was what the COLLECTIVE decided she was owed.. 

and unlike Pandora, they decide who gets what based primarily on unit sales (CD's) and radio plays..

Damn.

With more and more data like this, it's clear Pandora has its head in the wrong place. This has to get fixed.

RIP Music Business.

Again, no better voice on the Pandora issue than creators. Bravo Ellen Shipley. Pandora pays shite.

THERE IS A PROBLEM HERE.

LOVE streaming of music as a consumer. HATE it as a business (as music publisher).

Happily watching Pandora circle the bowl because of stories like this.

Ellen Shipley had me until "this is a human rights issue."  I'm all for leveling the playing field to get songwriters their fair rate of compensation, but saying that it's a 'human right' to be fairly compensated for a career of your choosing is just absurd.  Yes, there may be corporations or other groups with their hands in your pocket when they shouldn't be.  Yes, the changing landscape of digital music makes us constantly re-address the thousands of individuals who bring music to life and joy to millions.  However, comparing this to some of the most difficult plights of human history is a bit of a stretch...

In all sincerity, my heart breaks to hear that songwriters can't get fair shake.  She is correct that a huge majority of western popular music is shaped by professional songwriters.  We must seriously address that there is, at the moment, NO viable business model to keep all parties fairly compensated for streaming services.  The pie is simply too small, and too many people want a slice.  It also breaks my heart that an innovative company like Pandora simply can't survive unless it cuts royalties.  We seem to sometimes forget the first line of the copyright clause - "To promote the Progress of Science and Useful Arts..."

"It also breaks my heart that an innovative company like Pandora simply can't survive unless it cuts royalties."

They can sell t-shirts, no?

Awwwwwwwesome!

You may not like it, but fair rewards for artists really are a human rights issue.  You are evidently not familiar with Article 27 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which has been adopted by the United States and most other countries.  Part 2 of the Article states:

"Everyone has a right to the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he is the author".

Of course, this does not mean that anyone who claims to be an artist is entitled to make a living from it, but it does mean they are entitled to enjoy the benefits of the economic value of their work if it has any.  The economic value of a work of art is the price that would be agreed between a willing buyer and a willing seller in a competitive market place operating under the rule of law.  At present we do not have such a market place for recorded music, because the law which protects producer's interests is broken with impunity.  No commodity would have any economic value if its producers were unable to prevent anyone from taking it without permission or payment. 

"Everyone has a right to the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he is the author".

Are we missing some legal possibilities here?

This right is, after all, violated by all governments on the planet.

What does a "play" mean?

from Pitchfork

"Galaxie 500's 'Tugboat' was played 7,800 times on Pandora in the first quarter of 2012, for which its three songwriters were paid a collective total of 21 cents, or seven cents each."

http://pitchfork.com/features/articles/8993-the-cloud/

There has been a ton of talk circulating about a new company launching in January called Funn Networks. Its been a ten year in the making project and here's what we have thus far on information relating to the music industry:

FUNN COMPENSATES LABELS, ARTISTS & INDIES LIKE NO OTHER

Our mission is to provide a platform that provides both parity and transparency unlike all of the other businesses that currently make up the digital distribution landscape. It’s also time for everyone to get paid what they deserve and to eliminate the infighting between artists, labels and the consumer. So how do we plan to do that? It’s simple. Funn plans to pay all participating content providers up to 20 times more (not percent) then they are currently making today. Here are a few examples: Music Videos Our research shows that the two most popular video streaming companies pay roughly $0.01 per video stream to artsts/content owners. Digital Music News recently reported that a Top 10 artist had one of his video's shown 170,000,000 times yet he made less than one million dollars. LESS THAN A MILLION DOLLARS??? Funn is projecting that it will pay all artists (including Indies) roughly $0.10 to $0.20 per video stream. So if we streamed a video 170,000,000 times we would pay $17,000,000 at a bare minimum. We think this speaks for itself.

Internet Radio

There are numerous companies that make up this landscape yet they all pay the bare minimum to labels and artists. These payouts have ultimately led to artists fighting with labels because they feel they aren’t being compensated enough. In the labels defense, there simply is not enough money to spread around or pay artists with. We plan on putting an end to this. The major Internet Radio players, on average, pay roughly $0.005 per stream on a best case and even less to independent artists. Funn plans on paying $0.02 to $0.05 per stream. Yes, you read that right. Go ahead and do the math.

Concert Events

For some reason, just as with Music Video’s and Internet Radio, this is an area where artists and labels have failed to make revenue. Funn plans on putting an end to this as well. Funn projects it will pay (at a minimum) $5.00 to $10.00 PER USER, per a Funn based exclusive event. Yes, this amount is enormous and its meant to be- - It's about time artists finally make up for the money companies such as Ticketmaster, Live Nation and others have sucked dry. So how does this affect you? Well if your event, hypothetically, had 20,000,000 views, Funn projects the event will gross $100,000,000 in additional revenue.

Sync Licensing

Now its gets even more Funn. Did you know that millions upon millions of videos on sites such as You Tube are made by consumers who mixed a copyrighted song into a video without permission or a sync license? With Funn, we are going to offer a service called "Funn Sync" whereas consumers will be able to mix a song into a video and as a result will allow the artist to finally make money where they never have in the past. This is an area where the entertainment industry simply has failed to produce revenues. Funn projects it will pay out hundreds of millions of dollars per year in royalties for simply by “allowing” the consumer to sync content. For an example, check out a video on You Tube labeled "JK Wedding Entrance." It's a video that has been seen 76 million times. That’s 76 million times an artist, in this case Chris Brown, didn't make a dime.

--------------->Funn has a twitter page and facebook page. Hope this helps. Its time for the bs to stop. People need to be compensated for what they are worth!

That's all fine and dandy... but how are you going to pay it? Advertising can't come close and no one will pay more for a service simply because it pays artists better. It's a tough economy.

its in the secret sauce.... and the reason advertising cant pay enough is because the usual has no value... funns patent portfolio dates back to 2001.

Well, I wish you luck. If you can make a go of it, it will definitely change the industry.

Casey, ten years in the making.. alliances being built behind closed doors... The usual way is almost over... :)

cant find your facebook or twiitter page?

This is disgusting, so sick of these tech clowns making millions off the works of songwriters. And let's not forget the artist doesn't receive a dime. And don't give me any of that it's promotion and will sell cds bullshit. Nobody buys a song they can hear 3.1 million times for free. And this Casey clown IS a tool!

Listen up people -- Pandora is RADIO.  The fact that she's getting performance royalties from Pandora at all is a BONUS.  That $39 she got this month from Pandora (or whatever the time frame it was) is $39 more than she's EVER RECEIVED FROM RADIO IN THE LIFE OF THE SONG. 

Casey, and others like him, are content to live a life of conformity in a gray world.

So many of my artists are seeing thousands of dollars from Pandora royalties paid thru to SoundExchange. What many people seem to forget is that this math above is referring to what a co-writer is receiving for their share of publishing royalties, which are negligible from Pandora.

The MASTER royalties from Pandora/SoundExchange are FAR HIGHER than what is being discussed above.  Not to sound like a spokesperson for Pandora (I'm not), but Pandora is currently paying out roughly 55% of its income toward artist/label royalties; SiriusXM is paying out 7%; and terrestrial radio is paying out 0% to the performers/master rights holders.  A lot of folks on this board need to take a basic math class or look at a mid-size artist's SoundExchange statement. Real $ is coming in, and personally, I'd rather not strangle the golden goose that is Pandora. If Pandora were to pay a lower rate of say 40% rather than 55% and be ensured of long term fiscal health, then great.  I'd much rather see SiriusXM's royalty rate increased, and see terrestrial radio start to pay royalties to master rights holders.

Pandora is not the enemy, people....

On the contrary, terrestrial radio pays a lot to content owners. They may not do so in your country, but that's beside the point.

And yes, Pandora is definitely the problem...

took getting this far down the page to find a comment that is worth reading (and that everyone here should read). what Pandora does is fundamentally different than terrestrial - so the 0% you cite does not hit as hard - and i am not yet prepared to classify Pandora as non-enemy until they agree to abide by the rates they themselves negotiated and accepted, but thank you for pointing out the actual rights involved and being paid for and for doing some sound math.

Yes!

Finallly, an intelligent and knowledgeable response that doesn't sound like a baby (I'm looking at BOTH sides of this arguement) crying in the night

Correct! Pandora is paying a lot more out of their pocket than most music streaming (digital or terrestrial) companies; though the % quoted is a little high and I would like to see a reference to that number, as its probably a deal/rate negotiated behind closed doors.

Looking at the accompanying photo (very top), I wonder why is she complaining to the Internet? She should be following up with GEMA ('45' photo), her rights organization, as to why she's getting paid so little... they are the ones responsible for her royalties and negotiated the deal/tariff Pandora will be paying to writers...

How many of you people were aware of that?

Are you fucking retarded? Songwriters DO get paid for radio play, that's where most of the money they make comes from. Check your facts, idiot! 

That's why I've never enjoyed, promoted, pushed or ever preached about Pandora. Never liked it and never will. I wish it would just go away! Sorry Pandora!

Ellen, I feel your pain & totally agree with you!  And I also agree that Casey is a complete tool.  Technology has really hurt the writers & artists who actulally make music in terms of getting their fair share of profits and also made it far to easy for the distributors to make all the money and/or the pirates who simply steal the music & copy CD's without paying for it. 

Bottom line is the song BELONGS, AND IS OWNED BY the person or persons that wrote it.  Period.  They are entitled to the rights of use for eternity because it is THEIRS.  Doesn't matter if it was hard work to create it, doesn't matter how many times it is on the air it was and always will be THEIRS.  Each and every time some one other than the owner uses it they are entitled to compensation.

Not attacking anyone here or trying to stir the pot any more, but I'd like to know if anyone has a valid and insightful answer to any of these questions:

How does one determine the proper royalty amount for one person listening to one song one time via a streaming service?  Should it be $.0011, or $.002, or whatever Pandora or Spotify or any other service supposedly pays out?  What is the value of one person in an empty bar playing that song on the jukebox one time?  Isn't this a similar situation, except that jukebox plays actually require the listener to pay for the play when streaming services don't necessarily?  If this song were played on the radio once and 3.1 million listeners heard it, what would the songwriter get paid?  And are the PROs even accurately tracking these plays and making those payments? 

I feel as if it's very difficult to evaluate what these payments should be.  And it's hard to complain about getting any money where there was none before.  Can you really blame digital music for the fact that there are half as many professional songwriters now as there were a decade ago?  Or has the industry just not figured out hope to cope with the change in technology yet? 

The CD had its issues, but record companies compensated for that by charging absurd amounts for them.  $20 for a CD?  Many people's response to being ripped off like this for so long was to get all they could for free when Napster and the like came along, and record companies have been paying for it ever since.  The record industry may be dying, but the music industry is actually thriving.  In fact, music "consumption" is higher than it has been in a long time.  The question is, how do we now compensate artists/songwriters for the change in technology while allowing the companies that provide that technology to survive?

All thoughts welcome.

Thanks,

Jasper

Labels(performers) and Publishers(songwriters) receive a portion of a market rate calculated as follows based on rough estimations found on the www:

Average Cost 1 song = $1

Average Listens per song = 75

Royalty Rate = 70%

Market Stream Rate = $1 / 75 X 70% = $.009333 per listen, for paid or free subscriptions, radio or on-demand streaming

Traditionally, Publishers roughly receive 10% of the total while Labels roughly receive 90%.

If Pandora is whining about profitability, it should raise revenues by increasing ad rates that are charged to advertisers. The USA is possbly the only country in the world where terrestrial and satellite radio pay much below market rates.

I am strongly guessing Casey is a Pandora investor. If this is the case, does he want to be transparent? If no response, I will be asking again in the future.

I would never invest in Pandora. The company has too much competition, no unique or proprietary products, and ultimately depends on content providers and ISPs for survival. The deck has been stacked against them since day 1.

You seem very knowledgeable of the radio industry, for whatever reason.

Everyone knows I am an artist, but what are you in all this? An unemployed music consumer with above average knowledge of the radio(streaming) industy and who is biased in their views? I don't necessarily believe your answer and you could also be a Pandora insider.

You claim the situation is unfair for Pandora. But in reality, it is unfair for Pandora and artists in the USA only. Every other country attempts to pay the fair market stream rate to artists, terrestrial or satellite radio. Pandora, in the USA, is paying the appropriate market rate, which was determined by professionals. Would you agree, that terrestrial and satellite radio in the USA should pay artists what Pandora pays, in all fairness?

Why can't Pandora raise ad rates by 3%-5%-10%. That amounts to $3, $5 or $10million in net income before taxes in the 3 months ending June 2012 (I assume June). On a yearly basis, it amounts to $12, $20, $40 million net income before taxes. With 60 million listeners, advertising will mostly likely pay higher prices to an already below market ad rate schedule geared towards gaining revenue marketshare from competitors. If Pandora wants to be profitable, it can easily accomplish this task, but prefers to camouflage at break even while arguing for below market rates for labels and publishers.

Pandora should prove it cannot raise ad rates before asking for lower royalty expenses.

happy turkey day to you and all the regulars on this site/post.  I've read your contributions and am deeply engage by your knowledge of multiple issues.  

That said, Pandora is not able to alter the market rates fo their ad banners and 15-45 second pre roll videos.  If you have spent any time in digital planning/advertising, you would know that the publisher has virtually no input in this part of the conversation.

I worked at a music website for two years on the event marketing and sponsorships division.  The rates (CPM's and CPC's) were mostly fixed and any effort to mainpulate those values would risk losing a tremendous volume of business and revenue.

My point is that pandora has no choice but to demand lower payouts, since their income stream is fixed by users and ad industry rates

Thank you for your comment.

If the CPC and CPM rates are mostly fixed, what are they?

In any event, Pandora should prove your assertions that ad rates cannot be adjusted.

Radio stations all over the over world, receiving ad revenue and paying a statutory rate for listens, are profitable. Is Pandora mismanaged?

I don't have Pandora and don't know the internet radio experience.

Common sense would dictate that if someone is listening to radio, they should hear ads. It is the best way to reach this type of audience. Reading and watching ads is all secondary, less important revenue for internet radio.

If there are no ads to listen to then Pandora is definitely mismanaged.

@ Just another voice in the air

Quote" That said, Pandora is not able to alter the market rates"

I dont think thats 100% true.. maybe true in the technicalities, ASSUMING they have to use a 3rd party system..

IE:

they can create their own system (like facebook did, and Itunes is attempting to do)

or

they can augment it with more traditional methods like Radio and TV use (sponsered 'programs', 'blocked time' ads, etc etc)

being that they are closer to 'Radio' then a website, they are NOT limited to the 'click thru banner' idea..

just sayin ;-)

 That is 75% not 70

Congratulations to anyone scrolling this far through the comments.

1)  Your royalty rates appear low because you are a co-author and splitting the dividends with your co-writers.

2) Your royalty rates appear low because you are earning roughly only 11% of what the publisher is collecting from Pandora.

3) If your song had been played on the radio this number of times, you would be receiving a $7.86 paycheck.  39 bucks isn't so shabby.

4) Pandora is asking to pay publishers what radio stations pay publishers.  That's fair, since they are an internet radio station.  Unless you believe that all things "on the internet" deserve a special internet tax for being new and involving technology.  If you do, you have a different concept of fairness.  I might suggest going back to analog recording, though...

5) If you have a grievance with your royalty rates, I'd suggest taking that up with your publisher or your co-writers, who are probably better off than a company that has never turned a profit.  But, if you wish to be stubborn, by all means milk it for what it's worth until you run internet radio out of business.  And then you can be $39 (plus whatever other internet streaming revenues you're getting) poorer and happy that you're not getting bamboozled.

@ warhawke "If your song had been played on the radio this number of times, you would be receiving a $7.86 paycheck.  39 bucks isn't so shabby."

Your number is based or calculated from???......

I've been trying to figure out a fair comparison to radio plays and have been unable to.. I am curious how you arrived at it?

thanx.

Pandora are trying to have it both ways.  For the purposes of royalties they are saying that they are just another radio station.  But for the purpose of promoting their service, they claim that they are fundamentally different:  they are a music analytics service which can identify listeners' tastes and preferences and serve them up with music tailor-made to their ears.

I don't know which claim is closer to the truth - I haven't tried Pandora because it isn't available in my country - but they can't both be true.

Both are true.

Pandora is like radio in the sense that you can't choose exactly what is played, but you can decide the kind of music you listen to by tuning into "stations", which are created based on a user-specified song, genre or artist.

It is also unlike radio in the sense that it learns from your likes and dislikes in order to predict what you may find interesting based on the specific qualities of the songs. This "music discovery" aspect of the service lets you find new artists and songs that you may have never heard of. 

So in an important way it is 'unlike radio' - which was precisely my point.  In functionality, Pandora is somewhere in between an ordinary radio station and an interactive streaming service like Spotify, and should expect to pay an intermediate level of royalties.

I don't think the way that it is unlike radio justifies artist being paid any more than traditional radio.

Traditional radio is also "interactive" in the sense that you can turn the station if you don't like what's playing. 

If Pandora really is no different from traditional radio, they should be sued or prosecuted for false advertising.  

There are comments on here that are completely erroneous;(and ludicrous) and there are comments written by people that are relevant as they are backed up by facts.

There is a difference between how a songwriter who is NOT a performer gets paid as opposed to how an artist who creates their own songs are compensated by royalty defintion.

If you want to engage in meaningful discussions, please educate yourself as to how a songwriter is paid for their work....Some of the comments regarding my post are completely false and it is obvious that some people have to just say something even if there is no merit to what they are saying.

Please educate yourselves...It is a fact that Professional SOngwriters are leaving the business in droves as they cannot earn a living anymore--Forty-five percent of the songwriting community has LEFT....

There is something intrinsically wrong with the idea that Pandora can only create  a profit for themselves by cutting songwriters royalties by 85%......

I encourage everyone to read and research the truth about Pandora and why it wants to sue ASCAP and create a profit off the backs of the songwriters who are the reason Pandora exists in the first place.

Thank you!