Thursday, September 04, 2008

R.I.P. Pandora

OK, Pandora customizable internet radio is not dead yet, but it does not look good.

I was very happy when I found it last year, because it quick order it introduced me to more than one cool band I'd never heard about before, which I then went and bought.

But now it's no longer available outside the US.

And worse, the RIAA is strangling it.

I don't get radio. Music publishers is paying money to have their music played on radio. But this is apparently illegal. But if they do, then radio is clearly great promotion. So how come radio stations have to pay percentages to to RIAA? And what about musicians who are not members of RIAA?

Similarly, having a song in a movie can be a big boost for a band. But most music has become so expensive for movies to use that it's a big problem for movie makers. Friggin' weird. It can even be too expensive to just have a character hum a couple of bars from a well-known song!

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Pandora is definitely still alive and doing very well.

You don't get radio, blockhead? The ENTIRE idea of commercial radio is to promote music they want us to listen to - and the royalties are paid according to contract, based on playtime of a certain music piece and frequency thereof. It's only all about dollars.

Having a song can be a boost for a band? Once your brain thaws, and you live in the company of humans for a few years, cinderblock, you might come to realize that EVERYTHING is by design - and it's ALWAYS only about making money.

Music isn't expensive for 'movies' to use; it's bought like any other product on the shelf. A band/group would be ENTHRALLED to have their music chosen for use in a film production. At ANY price.

Eolake Stobblehouse said...

*You're* the blockhead! Nananananaaaah!
:-)

I've listened to many DVD commentaries where they talked about how they wanted this or that song, but it was too expensive. And that is dumb, since like you say, any band would be, or should be, only too happy to get a song chosen.

Anonymous said...

Haha - it's only always about money, eolake-yaache.

From one blockhead to another. :-)

Alex said...

Radio has been misused by music for many years now. Radio is a method to provide propaganda to the masses, sometimes in the form of news, other times in the form of drama or comedy.

Take "The Archers" for example, now it is mostly drama, but in it's earlier days it was a drama used to forward modern agrarian techniques. It was to help us establish our own economic independence so we would no longer be at the mercy of u-boats and other maritime blockades.