Pandora Blog

UPDATE: Pandora's response:

"We love Bette’s music and certainly respect her advocacy for fair compensation for artists," a Pandora spokesperson said in response to this story. "But we must clarify an important fact: Pandora paid more than $6,400 for those 4+ million plays, based on our 2014 rates which are published publicly. In terms of compensation to the creative community Pandora remains by far the highest paying form of radio. Pandora pays songwriters a greater percentage of revenue than terrestrial radio. And Pandora paid 48% of our revenue in performance royalties to rights-holders in 2013 – more than $300 million – while terrestrial radio was required to pay nothing."
http://www.billboard.com/biz/articles/news/digital-and-mobile/6039697/bette-midler-disparages-pandora-spotify-over-artist

Older rebuttals during the original Thom Yorke / RIAA campaign:

Forbes estimates Spotify royalties per listener are almost double those of terrestrial radio:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2013/07/17/spotify-royalties-appear-to-be-awfully-high-despite-what-thom-yorke-says/

The artist doesn't see most of the royalties, the payouts from Pandora / Spotify can be orders of magnitude larger than the check the artist sees:
http://theunderstatement.com/post/53867665082/pandora-pays-far-more-than-16-dollars
(This is a problem worth examining too, but it's a different problem.)

Tim Westergren makes some additional points, like Pandora's value for promotion is higher than…

I just received my pandora one subscription renewal notice and it is due on Sunday. I've thought about it and the only reason I would stay with Pandora is that I have trained it to play music I like. When I turn on my station, I know I'll hear music I want to work to. With that said ...

Today was the first time I've listened to pandora in close to a month. I've been listening to playlists through Prime Music .. the free version. I listen through our echos, my phone and my desktop. I haven't missed the tailored station I've built through Pandora over 10+ years. I think you are correct with "good enough."

Oh, and the Pandora Premium doesn't sound like much of a game changer unless I missed a killer feature:

http://blog.pandora.com/us/coming-soon-pandora-premium/

That's the problem. Some indie artits may do this, but not nearly enough, due to Apple's approval process. Most actually are refused as you mentioned, and this is why itunes is not a viable option for unsigned musicians, as many sites are not. The industry is catered to major label musicians, and FCC regulation stricken. It does not meet the needs of the unsigned musician. Checkout Pandora's plight.

http://www.portfolio.com/views/blogs/the-tech-observer/2008/08/18/first-bytes-pandora-u2-fcc-techcrunch-vs-demo/

http://blog.pandora.com/pandora/archives/2009/07/important_updat_1.html

http://www.crunchgear.com/2009/07/14/pandora-teams-up-with-record-labels-wants-regular-radio-to-pay-music-fees-too/

This isn't really a secret. Pandora outlines their information sharing policy in their FAQ:

http://blog.pandora.com/faq/contents/60.html
http://blog.pandora.com/faq/contents/392.html

They also outlines their location sharing policy:

You may also get a request for location permissions. This data is used to provide better geolocation for certain ad campaigns. Again, this function would always be under your control. Each time an ad wants to use your location to provide more personalized results, you will be asked for permission to use your location, and you can decline this at any time.