So, in other words, so far basically no one...but I'm sure Pandora will be happy to not play these "artists" to the 60 million active users that it currently has. 

Just the beginning my friend.  Wouldn't be surprised if some big superstars follow that pretty face.

Pandora may have just invited the circus to town.

These are not nobodies.. They are songwriters who write many of the hits on radio.. The point is so they don't remain faceless and keep getting ripped off by the pandoras of the world.. Companies like google make billions off the creators and pay pennies.. 90 percent of songwriters and publishers have lost their jobs while google and YouTube rake in billions in ad dollars.. It is criminal

I'm an expert on idiots and my idiot radar is going off.. DING DING DING... Resident idiot on the site is YOU!

Geez Kara and Company, allow Pandora to have the opportunity to make its case for the record in a peaceful fashion. Do not try and stand in the way of the 1st Ammendment and Due Process. Bad decision.

Yes, yes and yes!!  The American Songwriter has emerged from behind the giant walls of anonymity to face the oppressors who have been taking their income away little by bigger for so many years. It is erroneous to describe the  immediate action taken by my fellow creators of  music as anything other than a courageous and righteous move to protest the aggressive, greedy, unethical and disrespectful attempt on the part of Pandora to further its own profit-seeking agenda which is  based on the idea that the already meager, stolen pennies it tries to pass off as compensatory pay to thousands upon thousands of Professional Songwriters should be DECREASED by 85%! 

The Songwriters are the group of Entertainment Professionals who stand to lose the very most--in fact, we face the demise of the profession itself--should Pandora's self-serving mission succeed in anyway.

Imagine if you will, that one morning, when ou are jacking into the internet, you go to your streaming site and there is NO MUSIC--that's right--no Adele, no Rhianna, no great pop music, no great R&B songs, no urban music, no dance, no country, no classic rock--NO MUSIC at all will be there for you to listen to.

Because there is no play unless there is fair pay. Songwriters would rather refuse permission for their music to be played on Pandora any longer (and that will be the case for all the other internet streaming sites that refuse to pay us according to their legalities and contractual obligations)and be paid nothing rather than try to live on those very "stolen pennies" Pandora would love to use to buy our silence.

This is just the beginning of the knowledge we have amassed concerning how the Songwriting Profession has been systematically robbed of its rights to earn a living at the "job of one's own choice" and to have that inalienable right protected by the United States Constitution as written in The Bill of Rights!  

Listen carefully now to what you love and take for granted when you go to the Internet and turn on Pandora ---we are trying to KEEP THAT ALIVE by keeping ourselves alive and vital and creating the best music we can for everyone to enjoy.

Nothing would give me greater pleasure than to stand alongside my friends in Washington, DC as we lend our voices to the Soundtrack of Life that we have gratefully been such a huge part of creating!

Respectfully yours,

Ellen Shipley 

Ellen I left you a reply about the International Songwriter's Alliance

responding to Pandora's Lawsuit:

http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20121108007054/en/Pandora-Sues-Songwriters-Response-Music-Creators-North

don't know if you saw it....

Rick Carnes

President

Songwriters Guild of America

Hi Rick!

Thank you for thinking of me...I did not see the INternational Songwriter's Alliance response to Pandora's lawsuit.

I will read it tonight.

Thanks, again

Just a thought about songwriters and the need for us as a group to TAKE action and become a powerful, respected group of Professional people who face the very pople who would like to profit off their very existence instead of solving their business problems--FACE TO FACE

What we needed for this hearing was a VOICE  who would speak on behalf of the SONGWRITERS ALONE--not singer songwriters, artists, etc--just the writers-- who could respectfully--armed with facts --articulate in a dignified, honest, down-to-earth manner our issues so that the Congressman could understand that the Songwriters hae been hit the hardest by already working at below market value and cannot sustain, nor should they Pandora's greedy solution to their own business problems which is to CUT ANOTHER 85% off the songwriter's earned royalties. ANd now we have ten songwriters representing us in Washington tomorrow morning. They will be heard in a pre-Judicial Hearing meeting to take place, according to the info given to me, by about 10:00 in the morning......  This is a great change---I believe they will be listened to and HEARD....DOes Congress really want to cut us down?  I don't believe so----

Good Luck Pandora

We love you, Pandora

...signed Tom Conrad.

http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/permalink/2012/121116conrad

This fire is roaring!  

(The fireplace in my cozy mansion compound, that is...)

This has nothing to do with the issue at hand. Personal attacks are immature and absurd. 

FUCK YOU Pandora. Rot in hell.

Something has to give. It is going to be the money paid out to song writers, the money paid out to artists, or the internet radio companies in general. Everyone wants their own way and that simply cannot happen in reality. Don't like IRFA? Okay, understandable. It's definitely not perfect. Don't want a cut in song writing royalties? Okay. But what are companies supposed to do? Pay higher royalties because artists want more money? That's great except almost all the internet radio companies are barely breaking even now, and many are not at all. You can't pay higher royalties if you are already losing money. Let's stop the pointless protests and and actually sit down and figure out a solution.

Here's how dumb the record labels are: They will likely continue to give Pandora a hard time while probably winding up giving Apple a sweetheart royalty deal. Years from now, by the time they figure out Apple's product is a horrible one that noone listens to, they will have screwed our record industry yet again. 

It's a really outdated argument to blame record companies.. They cannot compete with free.. It's impossible.. 1 out of 32 downloads are legal.. Record companies have actually done a pretty good job of sustaining what they can.. No one can compete with free period.

"what are companies supposed to do?"

Sell t-shirts.

Padora is in a tough spot:

The harder they fight to convince the world that their business model is a failure (and has been since day 1), the wider they open themselves up for a shareholder lawsuit around the IPO they pawned off on the public (from which mgmnt have reaped tens of millions in personal gain).

Pandora has a serious PR problem ahead of it, and nobody with a brain believes that the 'public' is going to suffer if Pandora goes away.  There are siimply too many ways to listen to music out there.  Instead, the public will switch to other ways of listening to music that actually payout more. 

It doesn't appear that songwriters think that THEY will suffer if Pandora goes away, and its looking more and more like Artists don't feel like THEY will suffer if Pandora goes away. 

So, are there any stakeholders left who think that they will suffer if Pandora goes away, besides Pandora?  If so, please speak up.

Great job music industry, go ahead and kill your only source of organic growth...   There are lots of musicians in the world, and the 60 million users of Pandora will be happy to get some exposure to new talent, and not what the 'music industry' shoves down our throats...

Broadcast radio has been shafting creators for years. They could absolutely not survive the rates Pandora pays for content. Should they die too?

Pandora pays creators far less the traditional radio.. Not sure where you get the figures. I get the statements along with other creators. We can tell you exactly what they pay.

I get the economic "reality" type reason this is said, so I don't need a lecture on why/what's the reason for this line of thinking, but let it be said (also) - I didn't spend 30 years learning the craft of making professional music to sell T-shirts.  My product is music, not a shirt.

If they create a bad business model they should go out of business like any other American company.. Don't ask songwriters to subsidize your bad biz.. The pandoras of the world have forced creators into slave wages.. They can sell ads just like radio.. Which the said they were gonna do.. And pay the writers a fair wage.. 90 percent of songwriters have lost their jobs thanks to these corporate creeps.. 

They do sell ads like broadcast radio. The key difference is that they have to pay 60-70% of their revenues in royalties, which broadcast radio does not. Not sure what you are getting at.

Pandora promised songwriters and labels a share in ad sells.. Turns out they place very little effort at all in the sell of ads.. They don't have to.. They get the songs for next to nothing.. Radio has to sell ads to survive.. Pandora doesn't .. They simply ask the government to make songwriters subsidize their biz model.

I am not sure where you get that. They have armies of people working on selling ads. The company has gone as far as trying to go after local advertisers now, but that is an extremely tough market to crack because existing companies have it locked down and are willing to hold on to clients no matter the cost. Cumulus is willing to play race to the bottom and is preparing to get even more serious about it. Clear Channel is taking it as far as to firing entire air staff teams.

Padora's advertising is very complex. The problem is mobile. Advertisers are reluctant to embrace it. Pandora is very competitive in this sector, and is in fact one of the top companies in terms of revenue in the mobile market. But they still have unsold ad inventory, and it is simpy not as profitable. In fact Pandora released some numbers a while back, showing that licensing actually exceeds the revenue made by mobile advertising. Where as advertising revenue from a desktop PC far exceeds licensing.

Pandora is not simply asking for breaks from the government. The company has given it a very good run, but they simply cannot break even. And their royalties are constantly increasing.

Casey, your desperate and dogged postings of blatant PR defensive spin for Pandora is ample evidence as to why this awful hypocritical company does not deserve to survive.

I repeat:- if Pandora cannot be profitable without shafting music dreators it does not derserve to survive.

"The company has given it a very good run, but they simply cannot break even."

I owned a business that gave it a 'good run', but simply couldn't break even. 

Why does this one deserve to be bailed out by our broke government?  If they do get bailed out, why can't my business get bailed out too?  Management of Pandora has sold millions of dollars in stock for their own gain.  I was not able to sell any of my stock for anything.  Why should Pandora be treated differently than us 99%ers? 

If they do get a govt bailout, should all businesses that can't make it deserve one, Casey? 

Help me understand why Pandora deserves a different set of rules than the rest of us?  I just don't get it.  Especially after their mgmnt has already taken millions out of the public markets. 

Please defend that.  I am irate, and I'm not alone.

In what way is it getting bailed out? Our government isn't paying Pandora a dime. Therefore it is not a bailout.

The one thing  the music industry has done repeatedly is go to washington everytime they want something done and fire up the lobbyists. Why is it when someone else does it for a change, hell is freezing over?

Want to know what I think should happen? GET RID OF INTERNET RADIO! It sucks anyway and it's raping songwriters by paying out paltry royalties that make a songwriters way of life unsustainable. That is, unless they can come up with a business model that makes sense. Songwriters are starting to unite and fight back. Its ABOUT FUCKING TIME! How can you pay songwriters (4%) LESS than the musicians (5%)? The CEO who claims to be a musician himself has NO CLUE what he's doing. I hope this is the beginning of the end of Pandora. I'd sell your stock now if you have any ;)

Internet radio is the future of radio. AM is dead, FM is declining. Everything is going to the internet. Our telephone, our television, our news papers, and our radio. Pandora is just the beginning of an inevitable future.

Can music survive without radio of any sort?

Please lay off the "inevitable future"" stuff.

Just to repeat one more time:-

If Pandora cannot be viably profitable without shafting the music creators then it simply doesn not deserve to survive.

Then neither should AM/FM radio.

^

5'4""

Or for instance pandora could have 2 minutes of advertising an hour instead of 1 minute an hour.  this would increase their overall revenue about 50%.   

So when does someone CNN level get the "Pandora screws artists" soundbite?

Why is everyone always pickin' on Pandora? They pioneered the "radio" program that i heart radio, spotify, apple and everyone else is now ripping off to use on their platforms. So i guess theyve outlived their use and pretty Kara and Kompany feel free to kick, kill and pick the karcass. Nasty. 

Pandora already have negitiated a 50% cut-rate to the Statutory rate set by law.  This cut-rate is in existance until 2015, when the contract expires.  Instead of coming to the table to negotiate with the parties involved, they are going straight to their bought and paid for Congressman to dissolve the copyright royalty board.  In addition, they are sneaking in (section 5 of the bill) a clause that makes it ILLEGAL for two or more copyright holders to speak out, and can be sued and then prosecuted under the Sherman Act...

...who is the bully here?

It's amazing how quick folks are to trust the lies what companies like pandora google and YouTube spew out.. And the actual people that are getting their lives destroyed and life's work taken from them are viewed with skeptisim or as outdated.. The truth is tech companies give away songs for free or give folks complete access to them for free ..and kill the American songwriter by not paying them for content.. They should be deeply ashamed

It's amazing how quick folks are to trust the lies what companies like pandora google and YouTube spew out.. And the actual people that are getting their lives destroyed and life's work taken from them are viewed with skeptisim or as outdated.. The truth is tech companies give away songs for free or give folks complete access to them for free ..and kill the American songwriter by not paying them for content.. They should be deeply ashamed

Because they're parasites.

Goes for Spotify, too.

You say that and I bet you still use Spotify, don't you? Hypocrite!

Huh?

I can assure you I don't use Spotify!

Not as an artist and not as a consumer.

I'm curious to know your opinion, what about companies like Rhapsody that offer paid services only or limited free verions like Rdio? Parasites or actually worthy services? They definitely pay more.

Paul, You spend time researching the music market in South Korea. Did you find similar abuses in this market?

Awesome to see people stand up against the abuse.

Let's hope for similar initiatives against the commercial Pirate Industry.

Um. Isn't 4% of revenue roughly the same if not a slightly higher rate than traditional radio pays to songwriters and publishers?

If so, why are these writers and the NMPA protesting Clear Channel?

I meant to type "aren't" rather then "are" in that last sentence.

Being a musician myself, I'm waiting to see how this unfolds :(

Website: http://www.diamondchainmusic.com

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/contactcrisis

Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/hiphopcrisis

Reverbnation: http://www.reverbnation.com/hiphopcrisis

Any other songwriters want to come to DC on Wednesday to protest against lower royalties from Pandora???

About time! Amen and God Speed. ALL streaming is bad!! Profiting off intellectual property and not fairly compensating the owner amounts to thievery!

So we should turn off our radios...?   They pay a fraction in overall royalties than Online does... Silly music industry...

YOU CAN SEE THEM ON C-SPAN WEBCAST TOMORROW

 Pandora would not exist without the songs. As usual the creators of the content come last.

Pandora pays out a paltry 4% to songwriters. They actually pay MORE to MUSICIANS (5%)! Its complete bullshit. Way to stir up the hornets nest Pandora. Dumbasses. GREAT for songwriters to unite and take a stand. Its about fucking time! Raping the songwriters who helped you become a billion dollar company. TIME TO PAY UP BITCHES!

Does it mean anything to those that think the songwriters are in the wrong to protest reducing songwriters pay knowing these facts.....

The song "IF I Were A Boy" was number one in 11 countries and  Beyonce's number one selling solo single and her first gold single in the UK.  Pandora played "If I Were A Boy" over 4.2 million times in 3 months and the 2 song writers on the song each got  $40.92 (under 100.00 for almost 4.3 million spins?)

Plays on Pandora Jan - Mar 2012  4,283,900 times

Royalty Payment for Jan - Mar 2012 $81.50 split between 2 witers.

I don't understand why you would put these songwriters down for coming to Washington to share there side of this?

There is no picketing, no angry protest these writers are simply  in Washington to show there royalties vs plays and ask for a fair trade here.

nobody here works for free, so why should songwriters? its sad that people have no idea how important the songwriter is. just because they are behind the scenes does not mean they arent important. you could actually argue that they are the most important part of the process. without a great song, the rest falls apart. People have devalued music, and its sad reading these comments. you get what you pay for. seriously. if you dont put value into music, then you wont get much out. period.

Paul,

The Anti-Pandora Protest is an wonderful idea, but here's a better one:

Let all the songwriters and content owners in the world REPORT IP CRIMES HERE:

http://www.iprcenter.gov/referral

I sent them a general complaint about piracy an hour ago and asked them to seize organized copyright crime domains like they seize international counterfeit domains in cooperation with the EU.

15 minutes later I got a reply from a Special Agent from Homeland Security Investigations. He asked which sites I was referring to?

My first answer was of course: thepiratebay.se

My next was: The rest of the torrentsites and lockers.

Now, what do you think will happen if all the piracy victims all over the world -- including the superstars from the Anti-Pandora Protests -- visit the National Intellectual Property Rights Coordination Center and ask the same question?

Why not give it a try?

It's easy, just fill in the form:

http://www.iprcenter.gov/referral

From the site: "The IPR Center encourages members of the general public, industry, trade associations, law enforcement and government agencies to report violations of intellectual property rights through this website. The information you provide will be reviewed promptly by IPR Center staff and disseminated for appropriate investigative response and tactical use to IPR Center partners. Reporting Allegations of Intellectual Property Theft"

Pandora, the ugliest, evilest crook on the block.  $.001 isn't too much, it's not enough.

I just gave a presentation on this issue in Entertainment Law class yesterday.  

Yes, it's a good idea to make a clear statement to the Congress, so they understand that this matters.  Music is a big money making industry in the USA, and embodies the American Dream.  

It is time to level the playing field for everyone (including Pandora) by passing the Performers Protection Act of 2009.  It's there at Congress, dead in committee.  They can resurrect it.  

Dear Paul:  I have been a member of this site for as long as I remember it going.  I have enjoyed the way you've brought major issues in our industry to the table for discussion.  I am, however, disgusted at this point with the shear ignorance being displayed by so many (if the shoe fits folks) on the issues surrounding royalties in this country, how they're paid, and how much is due to whom.  I'd venture that 99% of those who answer here are amateurs who's music wouldn't be considered for anything more than a weekend local music show aired at midnight.    I have never once vented, ranted, or stamped my feet at you or anyone else on this site ... that just ended.  I simply cannot tolerate ignorance among so-called professionals.

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