Posted 07/15/09 at 05:25:11 PM by Andy Salisbury

With revenues from music sales declining, many record labels have directed their attention to commercial US radio stations, who pay songwriters, not performers or record labels, for the songs that keep them moving.

And, it would appear, that these labels have Pandora Radio on their side. Pandora’s web model causes them to pay more for their music, which founder Tim Westergren sees as “fundamentally unfair both to Internet radio services like Pandora, which pay higher royalties than other forms of radio, and to musical artists, who receive no compensation at all when their music is played on AM/FM radio.”

Radio stations feel that they’re instead promoters of music, and their goal is to drive interest in artists. In turn, this will lead to more album and ticket sales, as well as more publicity opportunities. Though, one would have to wonder, how does this effect not apply to Pandora, and other forms of Internet radio?

Let us know what you think after the break.

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Posted 05/21/09 at 05:30:46 PM by Andy Salisbury

Chances are good that if you’re a fan of streaming music online, you’ve heard of Pandora. And, apparently users of the service like it so much that they’ve actually been asking about ways to pay the company to guarantee its survival. At long last those (strange) questions have been answered, with the introduction of Pandora One.

Pandora One is a subscription-based model allowing users that shell out $36 a year access to some premium options. First off, premium users will no longer have to put up with ads of any kind (this includes the in-stream audio ads). Secondly, and most notably, they’ll gain access to a Pandora desktop app that includes high quality streaming audio (bumped up to 192 kbps), a personalized look, a mini player, and extended player time outs.

For many of us, the free-to-use service is just fine as is. The ads that are currently keeping it alive aren’t very invasive (even the audio ones), and with apps such as OpenPandora out there it’s admittedly a tough sell. But, for those looking to show their love for their favorite online streaming service, $36/year isn’t too bad a price.

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